18 BULLETIN 183, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSiEUM 



that systematic excavation on the terrace would be eminently worth- 

 while, apparently was not realized until the recent pipeline and 

 highway cuts were put through. It was these activities that led 

 J. M. Shippee, of North Kansas City, in February 1937 to notify 

 first the Bureau of American Ethnology and subsequently, at more 

 length, the National Museum. Fortunately, there had been no previ- 

 ous digging for relics here because of the enlightened attitude of its 

 present owners. 



Preliminary to excavation a careful study was made of all open 

 cuts, new and old, through the site as well as of the surface distribu- 

 tion of village debris. In the walls of the main highway cut, varying 

 from 4 to 10 feet deep, the profile included a dark humous zone 

 12 to 30 inches deep. Below and nearly everywhere sharply differ- 

 entiated from this was a bright yellow to reddish clay subsoil. 

 Throughout the upper layer, with a horizontal extent of nearly 200 

 yards, were numerous pottery fragments, flints, worked and unworked 

 animal bones, and burnt limestone boulders. This debris was par- 

 ticularly abundant in and about pits dug into the subsoil to depths 

 of as much as 6 feet below the present ground surface. Readily 

 distinguished from the surrounding soil by their contained dark fill, 

 these pits frequently were made even more conspicuous by beds and 

 pockets of white ash, charcoal, and lumps of burnt clay. Nothing 

 suggestive of house structures could be detected. 



Surface examinations showed a tendency toward concentration of 

 remains in certain spots, usually apparent also by a rise of a few 

 inches in ground level. Two or three of these occurred west of the 

 highway. One was just outside the northeast corner of the poultry 

 yard, with another about 35 yards to the south and immediately east 

 of this enclosure. This we trenched. Still farther east, beyond the 

 shallow depression already mentioned, along the rim of the terrace, 

 sherds and flints were likewise plentiful. The ground now occupied 

 by the Renner residence and lawn may once have been another such 

 rise. It seems likely that these represent former refuse heaps or 

 less probably the approximate sites of habitations. If actually mid- 

 dens, they must have been appreciably higher before the ground was 

 broken out, and it may be that cultivation is in large measure 

 responsible for the general over-all distribution of artifacts and 

 occupational debris on the terrace. However, Ave could secure no 

 verbal or other direct evidence that would indicate the former 

 existence of mounds of any size. 



From the foregoing evidence, it was concluded that the most 

 promising remaining portions of the site lay immediately east of the 

 highway in the vicinity of the Renner residence and outbuildings. 

 Permission was accordingly obtained to excavate in the poultry yard, 



