ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN 

 PLATTE AND CLAY COUNTIES, MISSOURI 



By Waldo R. Wedel 



THE ENVIRONMENTAL BACKGROUND 



The region wherein are situated the sites about to be considered lies 

 in western Missouri along the great bend of the Missouri River be- 

 tween the town of Weston, in Platte County, and the mouth of Fishing 

 River in Ray County. Fishing River empties into the Missouri about 

 338 miles by water above the Mississippi ; Weston is 80 miles farther 

 upstream and 8 or 10 miles above Leavenworth, Kans. As thus de- 

 fined, the locality centers about Kansas City at the confluence of the 

 Kansas River with the Missouri, 379 miles above the mouth of the 

 latter. Above Kansas City the general course of the Missouri is south- 

 ward by east, separating Leavenworth and Wyandotte Counties, 

 Kans., from Platte County, Mo. Below Kansas City the stream flows 

 eastward through Missouri, leaving Clay Comity to the north and 

 Jackson County on the south. 



Physiographically the district lies at the southern margin of the 

 Dissected Till Plains, which in turn comprise one section of the Cen- 

 tral Lowland province.^ The Missouri Valley below Kansas City, 

 and west of it the Kansas River to the mouth of the Blue near Man- 

 hattan, Kans., mark the approximate southernmost limit reached 

 by the older continental ice sheets. To the north, the terrain owes 

 much of its present form to glacial activity and subsequent erosional 

 processes. Thick deposits of glacial drift and loess overspread the 

 older land surface, forming a broad flat till plain. Most of the origi- 

 nal surface of this newer constructional plain, dating from the Kansan 

 glaciation. has been destroyed by erosion, though remnants of the 

 uplands still exist as gently rolling prairies and crop lands between 

 the heads of the various minor drainage systems. Relief varies from 

 100 to nearly 300 feet, with the larger streams, locally at grade, 

 meandering sluggishly through valleys up to 200 feet deep. Except 



1 The present description of the physiographic setting is based on Fenneman, 1938 ; 

 Emerson, 1912 ; Marbut, 1896 ; Hinds and Greene, 1917. Additional details on the Mis- 

 souri Kiver may be found in Greene, 1921, and in the Report from Chief of Engineers, 1926, 

 House Doc. No. 594 ; on climate, in the Climatic Summary of the United States, Section 54. 



