Stone box grave facts for kids
Stone box graves were a special way that Native American people buried their dead a long, long time ago. These graves were used by people of the Mississippian culture. This culture lived in the Midwestern United States and the Southeastern United States. Stone box graves were very common in the area around the Cumberland River. This is near where Nashville, Tennessee is today.
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How Were Stone Box Graves Built?
A stone box grave was like a stone coffin. It was made from flat stone slabs arranged in a rectangle. People would place a deceased person inside this stone box.
Materials Used
The people often used limestone and shale to build these graves. These types of stone naturally break into flat, slab-like pieces. The bottom of the graves could be made of different things. Some had stone, pottery, or shells. Others used dirt or materials that would decay over time. The top of the grave was always covered with more stone slabs.
Items Buried with People
Often, special items were buried with the person. These are called "grave goods." They included things like:
- Pottery made by the Mississippian culture
- Other ceramic objects
- Stone tools like celts (which are like axes)
- Arrowheads
- Small statues or figurines
- Beads made from bone
- Dice
- Awls (tools for poking holes)
- Personal decorations like marine shell gorgets (necklaces)
- Freshwater pearls
Different Styles of Burial
The size and design of the graves could be different depending on the region. Some were built with perfect right angles. Others angled inward at the feet. In the Middle Tennessee area, people usually placed bodies in a stretched-out position. But in Eastern Tennessee, bodies were often placed in a bent or "flexed" position.
Sometimes, smaller stone boxes were used for a "secondary burial." This meant that bones that had been cleaned were placed inside as a bundle. Some graves were even used more than once! If a grave was reopened, the old bones might be moved to one side. This made room for a new person to be placed inside.
Sometimes, two people were buried at the same time in one grave. This often happened with a man and a woman, suggesting they might have been a couple. This type of burial was mostly for adults. Not many children or teenagers were buried in this way. Younger people were often buried under house floors or next to houses.
Where Are Stone Box Graves Found?
Stone box graves have been discovered at many different Mississippian sites. These sites stretch from the American Bottom area to the Deep South. They were especially common in the Cumberland River Valley in Kentucky and Tennessee. Thousands of these graves have been found during digs in the Nashville area alone.
Important Sites
Many important sites have examples of stone box graves. These include:
These graves have also been found in places further away. For example, they are at the Prather Complex near Louisville, Kentucky. They are also in the Pennyroyal Region of Kentucky. Other locations include the Lower Illinois River Valley and the Little Egypt region of Illinois. You can also find them in Missouri near St. Louis and in the Guntersville Basin area of Northern Alabama.
Stone Box Graves and Archaeology
Since archaeologists started studying this region in the late 1800s, these graves have helped us learn about the ancient people who lived there. Some researchers even called the ancient people of Middle Tennessee the "Stone Grave People."
In the late 1800s, Joseph Jones studied the Middle Tennessee area for the Smithsonian Institution. He wrote about the human remains he found. He also talked about where these local populations might have come from. He saw connections to other groups, like the Natchez people.
Around the same time, Frederick Ward Putnam from the Peabody Museum also dug up large platform mounds with stone box graves near Nashville. He wrote down where the burials were placed and what grave goods he found. He thought about the history, culture, and age of the people who built these mounds. Putnam believed these people were connected to groups from the central Mississippi River Valley.
Later, in 1890, Gates P. Thruston wrote an important book about artifacts in Tennessee. He started by studying a stone box grave cemetery in Nashville. His ideas about the people who built the mounds and box graves added to a popular idea from the 1800s. This idea was about "Moundbuilders" who were thought to be different from Native Americans. Thruston thought a "superior race" had built these structures.
In 1914-1915, Clarence Bloomfield Moore explored the area by riverboat. He was also very interested in the stone box graves. He made maps of sites. These maps showed the different kinds of stone graves in Middle Tennessee, the Upper Tennessee Valley, and nearby Northern Alabama.
