great a deposition of earth may have taken place during the many
centuries which have elapsed since the burial. Many of the graves
explored by the writer in 1875, at Santa Barbara, resembled somewhat
cist graves, the bottom and sides of the pit being lined with large
flat stones, but there were none directly over the skeletons.

The next account is by Maj. J. W. Powell, the result of his
observation in Tennessee. "These ancient cemeteries are exceedingly
abundant throughout the State, often hundreds of graves may be found
on a single hillside. In some places the graves are scattered and in
others collected in mounds, each mound being composed of a large
number of cist graves. It is evident that the mounds were not
constructed at one time, but the whole collection of graves therein
was made during long periods by the addition of a new grave from time
to time. In the first burials found at the bottom and near the center
of a mound a tendency to a concentric system, with the feet inward, is
observed, and additions are made around and above these first
concentric graves, as the mound increases in size the burials become
more and more irregular:

"Some other peculiarities are of interest. A larger number of
interments exhibit the fact that the bodies were placed there before
the decay of the flesh, while in other cases collections of bones are
buried. Sometimes these bones were placed in some order about the
crania, and sometimes in irregular piles, as if the collection of
bones had been emptied from a sack. With men, pipes, stone hammers,
knives, arrowheads, &c., were usually found; with women, pottery, rude
beads, shells, &c.; with children, toys of pottery, beads, curious
pebbles, &c.