A PRE-HISTORIC BURYING GROUND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 153, 7 April 1876, Page 14

A PRE-HISTORIC BURYING GROUND.

The ' Louisville Courier- Journal ' says : — Recently while a member of the Anthropological and Archaeological Institute of Maysville was taking a tramp, in Nicholas County, in company with Mr. William Davidson, the manager of the Upper Blue Lick Springs, lie was fortunate enough to make a discovery certainly of sufficient importance to justify a thorough examination by the scientists of the country. In the neighborhood of the springs, about two miles and a half to the southeast, on an elevation several feet above the bed of the Licking River he found an aboriginal burial ground, or a spot where perhaps a nation had been massacred, or destroyed by some dispensation of Divine Providence- The graveyard covered an area of ten or more acres, every foot of which bore evidence to the ghastly fact of the extermination of a race by war or pestilence. In the centre of the field was a low mound, eight or ten feet in height, and in its composition dissimilar to those found in other neighborhoods, being made up principally of fragments of shell not unlike the common fresh water mussel. The field was originally covered by a stratum of rich, dark surface soil ; but, under the influence of the rains, it has become bare in places, exposing a tough, yellow clay, intermixed with gravel, such as one would expect to find along the shores of the rivers. To the depth of ten or twelve inches over the field, the black soil, clay, and gi*avel is one mass of human and animal bones, broken pottery, flints, and stone implements, and other articles of domestic and offensive or defensive utility. The relics are certainly very abundant, aud may be had for the mere picking up. In the course of an hour, on a spot but thirty feet square, two hundred and seventy-two pieces, were obtained, among which were fleshing implements, discoidal stones, hammers, choppers, pointed maces, wood scrapers, needles, reamers, chisels, spear points, arrow heads, and other articles, of art or custom, the use of which is uuknown. In the stone implements a noticeable fact is the absence of the diorite or greenstone, which seems to have been a favorite material for weapons with the mound-building races of other parts of the country. The lighter ones seem to have been fashioned from a soft freestone, evidently obtained near at hand, and the heavier ones from common limestone of the Licking Hills. This field appears to be an inviting one to archcco'.ogists and to scientists generally, by reason of the great variety of implements, the facilities for examining the human bones under every possible condition, and the probability that the animal remains will determine to some extent the food by which the mound-builders sustained life.