Excerpt from Certain Mounds and Village, Sites in Ohio, Vol. 1: Illustrated

The mode of burial in the first period was far different from that in the second. In the original mound no burials were found until within five feet of the base line. The body at the time of its interment was enveloped in bark or a coarse woven fabric and then enclosed in a rude sepulcher made of timbers, ranging in diameter from 3 to 17 inches. The sepulchers varied greatly in size, those above the base line were rnade by placing large logs on each side of the body with a covering of small logs placed over the top. The sepulchers placed on the base line were usually made of a framework of timber, which had long since decayed away but the cast of which was still retained in the hard sand, this enclosure of timber, measured from outside to outside, was usually from 8 to 9 feet in length and from 5 to 7 feet wide and from 18 inches to 2% feet high. They were constructed from unhewn logs lain one upon another, and were then covered over the top with logs that were smaller than those at the sides and ends. After a period of time these logs would decay, and the superincumbent earth would drop into the grave, with the sides and ends supported and no support in the center this would natu rally form an archway of earth, which was clearly defined at the time the mound was opened. In a number of instances the loose earth was removed from the sepulchers disclosing large rooms, some of which were 10 feet long and seven feet wide, with an arched roof, being high enough for a man to stand upright in them. In the second period the burials were much different, no sepulchers were prepared for the dead and not one of the skele tons was covered with bark, and only one showed any trace of a woven fabric, this being preserved around a Copper bracelet.

The skeletons in the first period were much better preserved than those in the second this was caused by the protection af forded the body, at the time of burial, by the sepulcher.

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