14 BULLETIN 183, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



site "on the farm of Mr. Geiesa, near a small creek of the same name, 

 a few miles west of Lawrence [Kansas, where] fragments of pottery 

 and stone implements are found very similar to those found on McGee 

 Creek in this [Jackson] county, and on Jersey Creek, in Wyandotte 

 County, Kansas, south of the Missouri River, and the circumstances 

 under which they are found are very like . . ." He was of the opinion 

 that these three sites were left by the same people, "but differing from 

 the race whose skill in chamber building is so conspicuous in the 

 chambered mounds in Clay and Platte counties, north of the Missouri 

 River." 



After 1880 there was a slackening of interest, if not an actual ces- 

 sation of digging, until Fowke appeared on the scene in 1907. Work- 

 ing under auspices of the Archeological Institute of America, Fowke 

 reopened five mounds on the Platte-Clay County line and despite the 

 fact that all had been previously dug he was able to contribute worth- 

 while data as to their nature and the methods of construction (Fowke, 

 1910, pp. 65-73). As is now generally accef)ted, he showed that they 

 were burial places ; and he also ventured some observations concerning 

 their general distribution and possible origin (1910, pp. 73, 92). Vil- 

 lage sites in the vicinity of the stone mounds are not mentioned. 



That a great deal of promiscuous digging, but no publication of 

 results, went on after Fowke's explorations, as probably before, is 

 evident from the thoroughness with which nearly every mound group 

 on this part of the Missouri has been ransacked. Practically without 

 exception the early reports allude to mounds just east of Line Creek; 

 elsewhere in Platte, Clay, and Jackson Counties and in nearby Kan- 

 sas virtually nothing remains to aid the present-day student in identi- 

 fying the builders of the chambered mounds. Artifacts and 

 measurable skeletal materials were apparently never gotten in any 

 great quantity, and even the few reported by local tradition have been 

 widely scattered and lost. We must regret the fact that so few 

 tumuli here have escaped destruction so that the deductions of the 

 pioneer archeologists cannot be subjected to a close reexamination in 

 the light of modern studies. The origin and affiliations of the cham- 

 bered mounds in the Kansas City area may never be satisfactorily 

 determined, even though recent findings have given some promising 

 clues as to the probable provenience and temporal position of at least a 

 few. More than a crumb of satisfaction can be gleaned from the 

 knowledge that the early preoccupation with mound exploration has 

 tended to keep village sites inviolate except as they are reduced by the 

 processes of erosion, cultivation, and construction work of various 

 sorts. Through their systematic study, if not too long postponed, it is 

 still possible to arrive at a reasonably satisfactory understanding of 

 the pre-white occupants of the locality. 



