122 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



entire site or in each pit. The general fact of reinterment of the mixed 

 bones of the dead with ofiferings, and the occurrence of shell disk beads 

 in each, tends to link the Marshall and the Graham ossuaries. In de- 

 tails of construction and in the types of artifacts in each, the two sites 

 are different. This, however, is a matter for later discussion. 



Ossuary ox Republican River near Alma, Harlan County 



On March 18, 1931, A. T. Hill wrote me concerning an ossuary 

 very similar to that excavated at the Graham site. I take the liberty of 

 quoting from his letter, since it is brief and to the point. 



I celebrated St. Patrick's Day, as all good Irishmen should, by a business 

 trip down to the Republican Valley. When I got to Alma one of my friends 

 told me he had located an Indian grave which he and some other boys had done 

 considerable work in. I told him we would try to get down there some time 

 this summer to help them work it out, but they insisted that we work it at once 

 as it was impossible for them to keep outsiders from digging it up. So yesterday 

 we went out and very carefully excavated a trench 3 by 12 feet (east and west) 

 and 4 feet deep, finding a culture that exactly duplicates the Graham site, with 

 an abundance of pottery and broken (human) bones, four shell beads and three 

 small clawlike pendants made out of conch shell. The latter are exactly the 

 same as those you found in the Graham site. The location of this burial is 

 about one-half mile south of the Republican River and on the highest hill nearest 

 the river (fig. 8, site 3). We kept a strict record of everything found and its 

 position and I will send you a detailed report as soon as I have time to make 

 it out. I am satisfied from the amount of digging that has been done here that 

 this burial covers as much ground as the Graham site does. The boys are going 

 to protect it if they possibly can so that we can get some more information later, 

 but I know that the site is at least 15 feet east and west and 15 feet north and 

 south. 



A later letter of INIarch 23, 1931, enclosed vertical and horizontal 

 diagrams showing the exact location of the 116 human bone fraginents 

 and artifacts encountered in the above-mentioned trench. The hori- 

 zontal plat shows a rather even distribution of bones and artifacts 

 throughout the trench, except that they are scarce in the outer 2 feet 

 on both ends. The vertical plat shows a similar evenly scattered dis- 

 tribution from 8 inches below the ground surface to a depth slightly 

 below 3 feet in the central 6 feet. The outer 3 feet on both sides show 

 that the artifact-bearing layer slants up on each end from a depth of 

 3 feet to only i foot at the east and west ends of the trench. In other 

 words, the artifacts and bones have been deposited in a basinlike exca- 

 vation and are scattered at random throughout the fill. The situation 

 here was therefore practically identical with that at the Grahain site. 

 Mr. Hill notes that the human bones were in very bad condition, being 

 wet and crumbly. No complete skulls, but many skull fragments, 



