Page:Dawson - Australian aborigines (1900).djvu/120

 through these mounds, a complete history of their growth was exhibited. Layers of yellow ashes, mixed with small pieces of charred wood, alternated with the earthy debris of the old dwellings; and the numerous saucer-shaped, ashy hollows in the strata of the mounds showed where the fires had been. No stones larger than a walnut were found; which is another proof that the fireplaces were never used as ovens. Several mounds, not more than a foot high, on being intersected in every direction, showed the remains of only one fireplace, and that always on the eastern side of the mound. In every large mound, and in some of the smaller ones, human skeletons were found about eighteen inches below the surface, lying on the side, with the head to the west, and the knees drawn up to the chest—a mode of sepulture not uncommon among the aboriginal inhabitants of England.