656 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.46. 



burials in the cemetery near Kimmswick, previously mentioned. All 

 examples, from the three localities, were of about the same size and 

 form. For the reasons already stated these small vessels would have 

 been of no use to the living, and we are therefore led to the belief they 

 were made solely for use in connection with burial ceremonies. Find- 

 ing examples of these small mortuary vessels at three distinct points, 

 tends to prove the similarity of custom of the people by whom the 

 stone graves were constructed. 



The discovery of graves near Kimmswick, in which fragments of 

 large pottery vessels had been used in the place of slabs of stone, sug- 

 gested the possibility of these and other burials in the region having 

 been made by the Shawnee. Similarly constructed graves have 

 been met with in the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, and in other 

 parts of the known Shawnee territory. The settlement of the Shaw- 

 nee and Delaware on Apple Creek, some miles south of Ste. Genevieve, 

 has already been mentioned, and it is not unlikely there were camping 

 places between this and the village of the same tribes which was 

 located a few miles south of the Missouri, a short distance northwest 

 of St. Louis. " Village a Robert, or Village du Marais des Liards, is 

 situated three or four miles west of St. Ferdinand [the present Flori- 

 sant], and contains a few French families. It was formerly the resi- 

 dence of a part of the Delaware and wShawnee tribes of Indians." ^ 



The two better preserved crania from SaUne Creek are described 

 hereunder. 



Report on two crania from Saline Creek, Mo., collected by D. I. Bushnell, jr. 



Of the skulls in question, one (Cat. No. 278698, U.S.N.M.) is that of a man of 35 

 or 40 years of age, while the other (Cat. No. 278699) is that of a young female not yet 

 quite adult. Both specimens are normally developed and free from any deforma- 

 tion which would alter their form; nevertheless, the female presents a slight, but 

 plainly perceptible, frontal flattening— probably an extension of the practice of such 

 deformation from farther south. Both are of moderate size, but what is remarkable 

 is that the cranial hones in both are unusually delicate, so that internal capacity, 

 notwithstanding the moderate external dimensions, is fair, approximating about the 

 average for both sexes in the Indian. 



Both specimens are considerably damaged, which makes extended measurements 

 and comparisons out of question, nevertheless their type is plainly discernible. The 

 outline of the vault, when viewed from above, is in both cases handsomely elliptical. 

 They were of medium height. In length and breadth they measure, respectively, in 

 the case of the male, 17.3 and 13.9 cm., in the case of the female, 16.3 and 13.4 cm., 

 which gives the cephalic indices of 80.4 for the male and 82.2 for the female. This 

 type resembles more that of the more southern Choctaw, for instance, than the more 

 long-headed and more strongly developed people of some other parts of ilissouri. 

 The weak development of the various ridges and muscular insertions on both speci- 

 mens indicates that they belonged to individuals and probably a gi-oup of people of 

 only moderate robustness and stature. Two or three specimens of much the same 

 nature were found in the Fowke material. ^ AleSv Hrdli6ka. 



1 Beck, Lewis C. A Gazetteer of the States of Illmois and Missouri. Alban;^, 1823, p. 334. 



2 See Report on Skeletal Material from Missouri Mounds, Collected by Mr. Gerard Fowke in 1906-7. 

 Bulletin 37, Bur. Amer. Ethn., pp. 103-112, Washington, 1910. 



