198 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



seasonal variation in ring formation may complicate this method of 

 attack. 



From the archeological standpoint it is essential to excavate com- 

 pletely some of the houses and ash strata, working down from the top 

 rather than in from the sides. This might be done easily if shallow 

 deposits actually occur near A (map, fig. 24). If this lead proves 

 futile it is still possible to pick an ash bed exposure over which some 

 of the top soil has slid into the gully, leaving less earth to remove. 

 It is always a great temptation to burrow into the exposed ash strata 

 from the sides, but although such activities may yield a few interesting 

 artifacts they cannot furnish such complete facts as are now urgently 

 needed. A careful layer-by-layer excavation of a fairly large area 

 would furnish data on the nature of the deposition, the extent and 

 form of the houses, and would also yield artifacts in situ so that their 

 relationship to the other cultural evidences might be apparent. This 

 rather lengthy consideration of the possibilities of future w(jrk at the 

 Walker Gilmore site is merited by the fact that could the strata be 

 dated, a good chronology for two important prehistoric cultures in 

 Nebraska would thereby be established. It should be borne in mind 

 that this is one of the two stratified sites so far reported in the entire 

 State. As the neighboring areas are worked, it will become even more 

 important. 



Burial Mounds and Native Quarries in the Weeping Water 

 Valley, Cass County 



The disputed matter of extensive aboriginal flint quarries occurring 

 in the valley of Weeping Water Creek between the towns of Nehawka 

 on the south and Weeping Water on the north has already been 

 referred to. Owing to the general policy of the University of 

 Nebraska Archeological Survey in 1929-1931 to work from the his- 

 toric cultures back into the prehistoric horizons, no definite investiga- 

 tion of this problem was attempted. Since no undisputed artifacts 

 had been found in any of the so-called quarry pits, and as any excava- 

 tion there promised a great deal of work with scant results, the 

 problem was neglected. 



However, in November 1930 Dr. G. H. Gilmore called my attention 

 to a series of apparently artificial mounds on the Weeping Water 

 3^ miles northwest of Nehawka. A sketch map of this immediate 

 region, furnished by Dr. Gilmore at that time and only slightly revised 

 by myself, is presented here (fig. 27). It not only gives the location 

 of the mounds in question but also indicates certain assumed quarry 



