NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 1 59 



Like the pottery from house i, that from house 2 is highly variable, 

 ranging from coarse, friable sherds to smooth, hard, polished frag- 

 ments. Fine grit tempering predominates, but coarse grit or gravel 

 is occasionally used. Some of the sherds with the latter tempering 

 have a golden glitter, due to the presence of iron pyrites. Three 

 sherds from this house are exceedingly interesting. They are from 

 one or more highly polished black vessels with their interior surface 

 gray-brown in color. The tempering is crushed and calcined shell, 

 the only example of shell tempering from any of the Missouri River 

 sites excavated by the Survey. The shell tempering, the highly polished 

 and lustrous black outer surface, and the gray-brown inner surface 

 of these sherds make them identical with many sherds from the 

 great Cahokia site in southwestern Illinois. Such a close resemblance, 

 especially in view of the general lack of shell tempering in Nebraska 

 pottery, would appear to be significant of cultural contacts between 

 east-central Nebraska and the St. Louis region in prehistoric times. 



In color the ware from house 2 is light buff ranging to dark gray 

 or black. The black seems to be due generally to protracted use 

 over smoky fires. A small proportion of the sherds have turned brick- 

 red in firing, especially on the outside, though some are red on both 

 sides. L^nless the sherds have had food burned in them, forming a 

 black crust, they are lighter inside than outside. One sherd is chalky 

 white inside and outside, suggesting a slip or an abundance of lime 

 in the paste. Three sherds are brick-red on the outside, bluish in the 

 center, and dead white on the inside. Evidently some sort of a slip 

 had been applied on the inner surface. > 



As the foregoing statistics indicate, cord marking as a means of 

 surface finish occurs in slightly less than 20 percent of the pottery. 

 This cord marking occurs on the body and very rarely on the neck. 

 It is irregular in application, as though done with a cord-wrapped 

 paddle. In many cases it has been nearly eradicated by subsequent 

 polishing, and it is therefore difficult to distinguish clearly between 

 rough plain and cord-marked ware. The great majority of the ware 

 is plain and polished, though a high polish or burnish is rare. The 

 three lustrous black shell-tempered sherds previously described are 

 all the more unique on this account. Incising as a means of decoration 

 appears to have been rather unusual and many of the 35 incised sherds 

 are from the same pots. Incisions seem to have been made in angular 

 patterns below the necks of various vessels (pis. 14, fig. i, c; 15, 

 fig. 2, /). Several of the thin incised pieces were found to fit on to 

 one large rim sherd (pi. 15, fig. 2, /), where they formed a geometric 

 upper body design consisting of a heavier zigzag line with the main 



