Blonde-Haired European Mummies Discovered in Tennessee
Yellow-haired mummies have been reported in several of the caves in both Tennessee and Kentucky. Are these the remains of the Amorites who built the henges in the Ohio Valley? Tennessee 1883
...skeletons, were discovered in 1811 in a cave in Warren County, about twenty miles from McMinnville. These were of two human beings, one male, the other female. They had been buried in baskets the construction of which was evidence of considerable mechanical sill. both bodies were dislocated at the hips and were placed erect in the baskets, each of which had a neatly fitted cover of cane. The flesh of these persons was entire and undecayed, dry and of a brown color. Around the female, next to her body, was placed a well-dressed deerskin, and next to this was a mantle composed of the bark of a tree and feathers, the bark being composed of small strands well twisted. The mantle or rag was about six feet long and three feet wide. She had in her hand a fan made from the tail feathers of a turkey, and so made as to be open and closed at pleasure. The hair remaining on the heads of both was entire, and that upon the head of the female, who appeared to have been about fourteen years old at the time of her death, Hair, was of a yellow color and a very fine texture. Hence the individuals were thought to have been of European or Asiatic extraction.
Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, 1845 by John Haywood
Near the confines of Smith and Wilson counties on the south side of Cumberland River, about 22 miles above Cairo, on the waters of Smiths Fork of Cany Fork, is a cave the aperture into which is very small. The workman in the cave enlarged the entrance and went in; and digging in the apartment next to the entrance, after removing the dirt and using it, they came upon, the same level with the entrance, to another small aperture, which also they entered and went through when they came into a narrow room, 25 feet square. Everything here was neat and smooth. The room seemed to have been carefully preserved for the reception and keeping of the dead. In this room, near about the center, were found sitting in baskets made of cane, three human bodies; the flesh entire, but a little shriveled, and not much so. The bodies were those of a man, a female and a small child. The complexion of all was very fair, and white, without any intermixture of the copper color. Their eyes were blue, their hair auburn and fine. The teeth were very white, their stature was delicate, about the size of whites of the present day. The man was wrapped in 14 dressed deerskins. The 14 deerskins were wrapped in what those present called blankets. They were made of bark, like those found in the cave in White County. The form of the baskets which enclosed them, was pyramidal, being larger at the bottom, and declining to the top. The heads of the skeletons, from the neck, were above the summits of the blankets.
