Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, 1867 Volume 22 By Smithsonian Institution. Board of Regents, Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, Washington 1868
ETHNOLOGY. 401
ANCIENT MOUND NEAR CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE. [pp 401-2]
The mound from which the specimens sent you were taken is situated on the left bank of the Tennessee river, above Citico creek, and about one mile from Chattanooga. It is on the rich alluvial land bordering the river, and so situate on the outer side of a curve of the stream as to be readily seen by parties coming up or down the river, as well as by any one approaching the valley over any of the hills and mountains by which Chattanooga is surrounded. Directly east of it is the site of an ancient pottery and manufactory of flint arrow-heads, several acres being covered with fragments of broken pottery, burned clay, clippings of flint and arrow-heads, many of them apparently spoiled in the hands of the manufacturer. Broken stone hammers, stone and earthenware pipes, flat circular disks of the size of large checker-men, made of stone, pottery, and occasionally of hard, mineral coal, are frequently found. The place where these are found has been for years under the plough, but, on digging to the depth of eighteen inches or more, ashes and coal, amorphous masses of burned clay, fragments of bones, and abundance of broken pottery, arc found. This is all of a coarse character; the various attempts at ornamentation being rude and inartistic. The material used was the earth taken from below the surface and filled with finely comminuted fragments of river shells. The surface is covered with these shells, many of them in a good state of preservation, of the same character with those found more abundantly down the river at Shell Mound and other places, and all identical with the species still existing in the river. These facts are of especial interest on account of their bearing upon the relative age of the mound. This one is of an oval form, with a base of 158 by 120 feet; the larger diameter being upon the true meridian, or as near it as we could determine by an ordinary pocket compass. The dimensions of the top, which was substantially level, are 82 by 44 feet, and the height 19 feet.
For purposes of examination, and to provide the gardener of the Sanitary Commission, who had his office on the mound, with a place to store vegetables for spring planting, a tunnel was excavated into the mound from the east, a little one side of the centre, and on a level with the natural surface of the ground. When the point directly under the outer edge of the top of the mound was reached, holes were found containing fragments of rotted wood, showing that stakes or palisades had been erected here when the mound was commenced. The sound of the pick indicating a cavity or different material below, the excavation was earned downward about two feet, when two skeletons were uncovered, fragments of which, preserved, arc marked No. 1. The bones were packed in a small space, as though the bodies were crowded down, without much regard to position of hands, into a pit not exceeding three feet in length. One of the skulls is of especial interest, as possibly indicating that the remains are those of victims immolated in some sacrificial or burial rites. The side was crushed in, as if with a club. I have connected together the pieces of the upper jaw, so that they retain the position in which they were found, a position which cannot, with probability, be supposed to be the result of the settling of the earth around it, if unbroken when buried. The bones of the bodies, although so friable that they could not be preserved, were entire, in positions indicating that the bodies had not been dismembered, and forbidding the supposition that they were the remains of a cannibal feast.
The excavation was carried forward as indicated on the plat, and on a level with the location of the skeletons first found. It became evident at once that the material of which the mound was constructed was taken from the immediate neighborhood; it being composed of the same alluvial soil, full of the shells found on the surface, but in a much better state of preservation; but no arrow-heads, chippings of flints, or fragments of pottery, now covering the surface, were found. These would have been abundant if the monnd had been erected subsequently to the manufacture of the pottery and arrow-heads at that place. Single fragments of pottery were found, but these were painted and of much better quality than those found upon the surface.
The mound was composed of alternate layers of earth and ashes, showing that a surface of the size of the top, when finished, was kept substantially level, and raised only two to three feet at a time when fires were kindled, which must have been large or continued for a long time, as the amount of the ashes and fragments of charcoal abundantly indicate.
Near the centre of the mound rows of stake-holes were found, as far as followed, marking two sides of a rectangular parallelogram, which, continued, would have formed an enclosure around the centre. In some of these were the remains of the wood and bark; not enough to show the marks of tools if any had been used. They penetrated the natural surface of the ground to the depth of about two feet.
Here, and at about the same level as at No. 1, were found the skeletons of which the skull-bones and other parts are marked No. 2. They were apparently the remains of a youngish woman and two children, all so far decomposed that only the parts sent could be preserved. The larger skeleton was in such a position as a person would take if kneeling down, then sitting upon the feet, the Lands were brought to the head, and the body doubled down upon the knees. The head was toward the south. The remains of the children were found at the right side of this body, the bones mingled together.
About two feet directly under these, the skeleton, of which the skull is marked No. 3, was found in a similar position, it is said, (I was not present when it was taken out,) with the one above it. .
I attempt no description and indulge in no speculations in regard to these remains, as I have decided to forward them to you, for the examination of those who can compare them with other skulls, and are better qualified to make a proper use of them. They are unquestionably of the age of tho "mound builders."
I enclose also, marked No. 4, remains taken from between two flat stones near the surface of the mound at point marked No. 4. These are doubtless of Indian origin.
I enclose also a poor photograph of the mound after it had been cleared and ornamented by the gardener, showing his office, arbors, seats, &c., on the top, and guards and laborers in front. It will serve to give you the outline of the mound. [photograph not included/not seen/unknown]
It was my purpose to continue the examination further; to follow round the line at No. 1; ascertain whether other bodies were buried in a similar position; to look for a completion of the parallelogram at the centre; to carry a shaft upward to the top, and connect and measure the successive layers of earth and ashes; but the simultaneous firing of the heavy guns in the forts about Chattanooga, at the celebration of Lee s surrender, produced such a shock that the mound "caved in," burying tools, vegetables, &c., to be found, perhaps, by some future explorer, as proof of the intelligence of the race of the mound builders. No other works are found in the neighborhood, but I obtained verbal information of very many mounds, stone forts, rock inscriptions, &c., &c., in the State, a careful examination of which might throw much light upon the character of a race who have left no other records.
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Ethnology of the Mound Builders, by Prof. M. C. Read
Mr. M. C. Read of Hudson, Ohio
M. C. Read, Attorney, 1860 Hudson Ohio
Historical Perspective
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Prof. J. S. Newbery requests the publishers to give at the end of this article the following testimonial of his sense of the eminent services of its author in the work of the Sanitary Commission. This we are pleased to do, from the conviction that it is fully deserved.
Historical collections of Ohio...: an encyclopedia of the state: ...
M. C. Read, an attorney of Hudson, Ohio, left a lucrative practice in February, 1862, and joined his brother, Dr. A. N. Read, in the work at Nashville; worked there for a short time and accompanied his brother to PIttsburg Landing, when he was assigned to duty at Hamburgh Landing, a few miles further up the river.
MC Read, of Hudson, Ohio, a member of the faculty of Western Reserve College; see also statement of Charles P. Read to Dr. F. C. Waite, Hudson, Dec. 25, 1908
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The Problem of the Ohio Mounds, By Cyrus Thomas.
"... as it is shown in the same article that the Cherokees must have occupied the region from the time of its discovery up to its settlement by the whites it is more than probable they were the builders. ... Additional and perhaps still stronger evidence, if stronger be needed, that the people of this tribe were the authors of most of the ancient works in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee is to be found in certain discoveries made by the Bureau assistants in Monroe County, Tenn. "
www.daytonhistorybooks.com/page/page/2651135.htm
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Archology of Ohio / by M. C. Read. / Matthew Canfield Read
M. C. Read, Late of the Geological Survey of Ohio; Trustee of Ohio Archaeological Society in charge at Phildelphia, 1876; and Assistant Commissioner at the Exposition at New Orleans in 1885-5.
Geology of Knox County, Ohio : from advance sheets of the Geological report of the Ohio State Survey, 1877 / by M.C. Read, Hudson, Ohio. Petroleum, and the Kokosing Oil Company....
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THE WORK OF OHIO IN THE U. S. SANITARY,
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~henryhowesbook/sanitarycommission.html
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Hudson OH mayor Charles Read (1896-1898)
http://ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf-ead/view?docId=ead/OHdHLH0030.xml;chunk.id=scopecontent_1;brand=default
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Geology of Summit County. by Matthew C. Read, A. M.
http://collections.si.edu/search/results.jsp?view=&dsort=&date.slider=&q=citico
Metal Bells
1. Rough draft of lecture attempting to show relationship of the Citico mound, near Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Castalian Springs site 30 miles NE of Nashville to sites in Georgia (Moundsville, Etowah, etc.), Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, and Arkansas. Show details
Creator: Myer, William Edward
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2. Miscellaneous photographs
Physical_Description: 510 photographs
Local_Number: NAA MS 2149
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Ear ornament
MEDIA/MATERIALS: Wood, copper
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Miscellaneous photographs
CREATOR: Myer, William Edward
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Canis lupus lycaon
COLLECTOR: C. B. Moore
Canis lupus lycaon : Canidae : Carnivora : Mammalia : Chordata
Vertebrate Zoology Mammals Collections
The Eastern Wolf (Canis lupus lycaon) is traditionally considered to be a subspecies of the Gray Wolf (Canis lupus). However, recent molecular studies suggest that the eastern wolf is not a gray wolf subspecies, nor the result of gray wolf/coyote hybridization, but a distinct species (Canis lycaon)
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Report on the McKenzie Mounds, Hamilton County, Tennessee July - December 1930
CREATOR: East Tennessee Archaeological Society Chattanooga
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