Primitive man in Ohio / by Warren K. Moorehead.

  • Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King), 1866-1939.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Primitive man in Ohio / by Warren K. Moorehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of these, and in 1891 we opened twenty-five for Dept. M. of the World’s Columbian Exposition. Although the South Fort cemetery is one mile and a half from the groups near the river, the burials are most identical; the crania present the same brachycephalic type, and we are therefore in- clined to the opinion that they were constructed by the same people. The South Fort graves may be somewhat ruder, yet in spite of their slight inferi- ority they present many striking features in com- mon. The skeletons in the hill-top graves are generally badly decayed on account of having been interred in the soil, which in spite of its hardness allowed the water to penetrate to a depth of about eighteen inches. At this depth there is a stratum of bluish glacial clay, which is so impenetrable that the water lies above it, forming a sticky mire. Under such conditions the decay of human bones was in- evitable. Figure xv. shows some of the objects from South Fort graves. All the graves explored by us in the vicinity of Fort Ancient contained crania of the brachycephalic type. The graves of Tennessee, described by both Professor Putnam and General Thruston contain graves of the same people. These burials cannot be assigned, by any careful investigator, to the Shawnee Indians, either in Ohio or Tennessee. There are hundreds of stone heaps in the Ohio valley that cover the remains of Indians who fell in wars with the whites and among themselves in historic times. Such interments have unfortunately been classified with those of the stone grave people of far greater