NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 117 



a somewhat different type of prehistoric ossuary (fig. i, site 28 and 

 fig. 8, site 2). This site was called to my attention by A. T. Hill, 

 and with the permission of the owner we carried on excavation 

 work here August 5 to 7, 1930. Since the place is well known to 

 local collectors, it has been much dug over. Fortunately, our excava- 

 tions revealed small undisturbed areas under old dirt piles, and these 

 gave us a key to the general nature of the interments. 



The Marshall ossuary is situated on a point of the river bluff's 

 which at this place approach to within 200 yards of the present river 

 channel (pi. 10, fig. i). This point rises abruptly to a height of some 

 50 feet above the first bottom but is somewhat lower than the hills on 

 either side. Since the point is not particularly conspicuous, there 

 seemed no particular reason why it alone should have been selected 

 for burial purposes. Nevertheless, surface examination and some 

 trenching on the more conspicuous points to the east and west re- 

 vealed no traces of other burials. At first glance the extent and random 

 nature of the previous digging (fig. 11) made further excavation seem 

 futile. However, the occurrence of a considerable number of shell 

 beads and human bone fragments at the mouth of a badger burrow 

 on the north end of the hill seemed to indicate the existence of some 

 undisturbed areas vmder the dirt pile. 



We therefore ran a 24-foot trench across the north end and carried 

 it south by 3-foot sections. The first three sections (fig. 11, 4, 5, 6) 

 were through a badly disturbed area. Although occasional small un- 

 disturbed areas w^ere found, they were not large enough to give any 

 idea of the original nature of the site. In these three rows we found 

 1,500 shell beads, of which about half had been rounded and bored, 

 as well as a large number of very fragmentary human bones. The 

 beads and bones came from both the undisturbed pockets and the dug- 

 over fill. All that could be ascertained in regard to the original deposit 

 was that it reached a depth of 6 feet in certain places but averaged 

 only about 14 inches deep at both ends of our trench. The occurrence 

 of small fragments of charcoal in the undisturbed old deposit is 

 worthy of note. In the central part of sections 5 and 6 a definite con- 

 centration of bone fragments and shell beads at a depth of from 3 to 

 6 feet suggested an ossuary pit of some sort (fig. 11, pit i). How- 

 ever, the earlier digging here, combined with a deep rodent burrow, 

 made it impossible to define clearly the limits of the original exca- 

 vation. Fortunately, in sections 7 and 8 we found undisturbed areas 

 on both sides of the filled holes of earlier excavations. This, inci- 

 dentally, was also the end of the badger burrow, and it was from 

 here that the beads and bones first noticed had evidently been carried 

 out. 



