Giles County – Remarkably Large
ANTIQUITIES.
Oa the east side of Richland creek, opposite the “shoals,” on a high bluff, were’ the remains of an ancient fortification. About four acres were enclosed with an embankment in an oblong form, evidently designed for defense. The earth was thrown up, and although beaten down considerably, was, since the settlement of the country, about three feet high; and had the appearance of haying had four entrances at’ unequal distances, oue to-wards the creek,
and opening down toward u spring in the bank of the creek. There were Indian graves within the enclosure. Kirks house, where the first couits were held , was in the enclosure. In the cave, at the spring, known as Anderson’s spring, in the northern part of the town, the bones ef a remarkably large human being were found. The jaw-bone would go over an ordinary man’s j’aw, and the tbigh bone was a good deal longer than that of a very tall man. Some pieces of earthen, ware were also found. The pottery was a composition of shells. Some flint spikes were occasionally scon. High up in the cave a human body was discovered, in a remarkable state of preservation, surrounded with a cloth in which feathers had been interwoven. Numerous mounds and burying place3 exist in various parts of the county, which, from the trees growing on and about them, must have been made fifty or one hundred years before the white people settled the country. A remarkable feature in some of those mounds is, that they are built up with shells and pebbles, which must have been transported a considerable distance from the river or creek. Another remarkable feature in thos6 burying places is tbe wonderful “State of preseivation in which the bone3 wero found when first exhumed. Whether it i3 owing to some thing peculiar in the mode of interment, to the preserving salts in the earth, or to the superior enamel of th’e bones of these children of the forest, i3 a question for otherS to decide.
- Nashville union and American. [volume], July 04, 1871, Image 3