e spirit-land to which the soul was going this
property would be of service and these slaves and wives and various
objects would be necessary in order that the dead man might be well
fitted to pursue his immortal journey. Therefore, when a grave is opened
or any form of burial-place is found by the archaeologist, he is almost
sure to obtain a quantity of imperishable property,--weapons and
ornaments of stone, bone, or metal, clay food-dishes, and the
like,--the history of which is identified with that of the deceased and
tells his story.

Two classes of burial-places have been the subject of special
exploration and study by this museum, generally under the personal
supervision of Professor Putnam, or of Mr. Lucien Carr, his assistant.
One of these are the strange stone cysts of Tennessee, which occur in
thousands in the Cumberland valley. They were from two to four feet
below the surface, and were made of large slabs of stone, placed
edgewise to form the sides and ends, on which other flat stones rested,
forming the top of the grave. The bottoms of these cysts were sometimes
lined with small stones, oftener with large potsherds, while in some
instances the lining was probably of bark. While most of the cysts
contained only a single body, two, three, and even five skeletons were
found together in a few instances. Each grave held a greater or less
quantity and variety of articles of native manufacture. Stone implements
were rarer than is customary elsewhere, but those present were unusually
fine. One of the skeletons had a stone arrow-head embedded in the spine.
The pottery was more abundant, and consisted for the most part of
well-made water-bottles and food-dishes, ornamented by incised lines or
designs in color. Implements and ornaments of bone, stone, and shell,
beads of terra-cotta and shell, small mollusks perforated for stringing,
a few carved pipes of pottery, stone, etc., were also gathered and
brought to Cambridge.

While cemeteries of this character are known to have extended over wide
areas of lowland, stone graves were also built into low pyramids by
placing one tier on top of another until from four to six had been laid.
Each tier as completed--probably each grave as added--would be covered
with earth, so that the whole formed a burial-mound fifty feet or more
in diameter and eight or ten feet high (the bottom tier of graves being
sunken), containing perhaps two hundred bodies. Not only within the
cysts, b