86 BULLETIN 183, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



ning in parallel fashion lengthwise of the piece. Over parts of the 

 surface, these features have been nearly or quite obliterated through 

 wear or by other agencies. It is difficult to see why a utilitarian 

 abrading stone should have been provided with a raised margin and 

 a series of even parallel ridges. 



Five pumice fragments vary in maximum diameter up to 9 cm. 

 Two show definite wear facets and/or narrow grooves as though for 

 sharpening awls and needles. As suggested elsewhere, this material 

 was probably gathered along the Missouri and used as an abradant 

 in working soft substances or in rubbing down animal hides. 



Quartzite river boulders, which generally required no dressing, were 

 used as hammerstones. They are usually oblong to nearly circular 

 in shape, 65 to 95 mm. in greatest dimension, and have battered ends 

 and sides. That they were subjected to hard usage is evident from 

 the fact that most of the specimens seen were broken. Smaller pebbles 

 of tough crystalline stone, with battered ends, may be termed pecking 

 stones. Mullers are suggested by two specimens from pit 8. The 

 larger, of diabase, is subrectangular and measures 142 by 95 by 43 mm. 

 The long sides and one end have been pecked but not smoothed and 

 the larger surfaces are quite uneven. Absence of worn grinding faces 

 would argue against its use as a milling stone; it may represent a 

 roughed out ax blank. Another specimen is of red quartzite, ovoid in 

 form, 115 by 90 by 50 mm., and with one flat smoothed surface. This 

 may have been used as a rubbing stone. There were no troughed or 

 hollowed mealing slabs, either whole or fragmentary, and but one 

 specimen (see p. 69) that might have been used as a nether millstone 

 in grinding corn. 



Lumps and small scraps of worked hematite were found in the house 

 pit, in the midden, in most of the caches, and on the surface of the site. 

 None shows any attempt at producing an implement, but the wear 

 facets indicate that powder was probably ground off as needed for 

 pigment in paint making. There was no evidence of limpnite. 



TEXTILE REMAINS 



From pit 2, out of a layer of charred grassy matter, came several 

 short lengths of twisted cordage. Its charred nature, together with 

 the shortness of the pieces, renders identification of the fibers impos- 

 sible. Tests made at the National Bureau of Standards indicate^ 

 however, that the fibers are of vegetal, rather than animal, origin.^* 

 They are not cotton. The fibers appear to have been first spun into 

 light strands, two of which were then twisted on one another, in clock- 



"Gilmore, 1919, states that In historic times the Indians of the Missouri River region 

 utilized the following plants for cordage fibers : Yucca glauca Nutt. ; Vlmus fulva Michx. 

 (slippery elm) ; Urtica gracilis Ait. (nettle) ; and Tilia americana L. (basswood). 



