ARCKEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN AUS&OURI 103 



Plum Creek is a branch of Salt Creek, which empties into the Missouri 

 about 11/^ miles southeast of the site. Here there are broad terraces, 

 but camp litter was found only along the edges immediately touching 

 the creek. Flint chips, large stemmed arrowpoints, scrapers, and the 

 like occurred in some quantity, and the owner showed us a %-grooved 

 ax and cross-hatched channeled rimsherds previously plowed up. On 

 the basis of our very cursory examination, I am not convinced that 

 extended excavation would be warranted; the site appears to have 

 been a transient or hunting camp rather than a village of any pro- 

 longed occupancy. 



Recrossing the Missouri, we mention briefly the Deister site on Line 

 Creek, about 2 miles above the Renner. Sherds and flints in the Ship- 

 pee collection, so far as they go, indicate a close similarity to the 

 materials above described from Renner and leave little doubt that the 

 t wo communities were inhabited by kindred groups. Recently I have 

 been informed by Shippee (letter of February 19, 1940) of the exist- 

 ence of "the remains of tliree stone vaults on a secondary ridge 200 

 yards northwest and across the creek from the Deister site." We shall 

 discuss in another place the possible significance of this and other 

 instances where groups of vault mounds occur in proximity to certain 

 village sites. 



Three promising village sites lie down river from Kansas City. The 

 first or uppermost occupies a terrace of 2 or 3 acres where a short, 

 unnamed, spring-fed creek descends out of the bluffs. Grit-tempered 

 sherds are plentiful. Channeled rims bearing cross-hatching (or 

 sometimes rocker marks) and punctates are common; sometimes the 

 punctates are replaced by bosses punched out from the interior. Many 

 rimsherds, in profile like figure 4, a, 6, have vertical or diagonal dentate 

 stamp or cord-wrapped stick impressions between the lip and bosses. 

 In several, heavy horizontal rouletted or dentate stamp marks occur 

 below, or otherwise in combination with, the bosses ; or the bosses are 

 omitted, and the notched roulette marks run horizontally below a zone 

 of cord-wrapped stick imprints on the lip exterior. Body sherds are 

 mostly plain, but there are others whose exterior bears cord-roughen- 

 ing or else bands of dentate or edentate rocker marks. Along with 

 this pottery have been found lumps of hematite with grinding facets, 

 mullers, hammerstones, celts, grooved axes, scrapers, and chipped 

 knives. Arrowheads, mostly large and stemmed, include forms with 

 contracting stem and others with corner or side notches. Our small 

 sample includes an ovoid coarsely chipped flint 13.3 by 5 by 3 cm., 

 with the broad end highly polished to a distance of at least 3 cm. 

 from the edge; possibly this was a hoe or digging tool. Sandstone 

 abraders and pumice fragments are present. Neither bone refuse nor 

 artifacts have yet been found. 



