ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN MISSOURI 97 



So far as can be determined from the sherds, most of the mortuary 

 pots were probably small scale replicas of the larger culinary jars used 

 in the nearby village site. Shell tempering predominates, but gi'it is 

 characteristic in a few pieces. Loop handles extending vertically from 

 lip to upperbody, a flat upperbody often with incised decoration, 

 rounding shoulders, low vertical or slightly flaring rims, and a round- 

 ing, apparently hemispherical, underbody, all have their counterpart 

 in sherds typical of house 1, the refuse pits, and midden 1. Moreover, 

 as the reader may learn for himself by comparing plate 32 with plate 

 23, the use of parallel lines between rim and shoulder, bordered below 

 by an undulating line or lines, is simpler and ruder on sherds from 

 the burial ground, but otherwise does not differ fundamentally from 

 the motifs on pottery from house 1. Vertical walled bowls, with or 

 without tabs or effigy tails, are likewise common to both funerary and 

 domestic wares. 



It is not altogether clear why pottery fragments should occur, some- 

 times singly or in groups of two and three, in such scattering fashion 

 among the skeletons. In relatively few instances was it possible to 

 establish even a probable association between a sherd or sherds and a 

 given burial. Sometimes they occurred in a mass of bones or among 

 a group of closely placed skeletons, but as often they were at a dis- 

 tance that cast some doubts on their ever having been in a grave. This 

 suggested the possibility that some were merely stray surface frag- 

 ments turned under by the aboriginal grave diggers, by burrowing 

 animals, or through some other agency. However, since there was 

 not the slightest indication otherwise of a habitation site higher up 

 the ridge, or elsewhere within several hundred yards, it seems un- 

 likely that such a relative abundance of cast-off sherds should have 

 accumulated at this particular spot. Perhaps pots destined to accom- 

 pany the deceased were intentionally smashed or "killed" in or over 

 the grave. If broken over the filled grave, it is conceivable that some 

 of the scattered pieces would have found their way underground in 

 course of time as later pits were dug and in turn filled. Neither this 

 nor any other suggestion, however, offers a satisfactory explanation 

 for the isolated sherds lying remote from identified graves. I am 

 disinclined to regard them as evidence of grave robbing, either ancient 

 or recent, or except in certain instances as due to disturbance of con- 

 tents of earlj^ burials in the preparation of later tombs. Here we may 

 call attention again to the extreme difficulty of tracing out soil dis- 

 turbances where, below plow sole, a homogeneous unstratified loessial 

 soil occurs. The most careful scrutiny of our trench walls and excava- 

 tion floors revealed no signs of root passages, animal burrows, or other 

 local disturbed areas, and even such obviously dug spots as the graves, 

 with two exceptions, could seldom be recognized until the skeletal 

 parts were actually laid bare. 



