106 BULLETIN 183, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSlEUM 



their presence in the Kansas City area has been recorded in the liter- 

 ature since 1877. The type has not been reported north of St. Joseph, 

 approximately 80 miles upriver from Kansas City, but is common 

 downstream. 



Mounds of the second type, which undoubtedly includes several as 

 yet undefined variants, are composed largely or entirely of earth. 

 None of these was entirely worked out by our party, but artifacts from 

 two and short summaries of previously unpublished investigations 

 in two others may afford some understanding of their nature as 

 revealed to date. 



Stone-Chambered ilounilH 

 THE PEARL BRANCH GROUP 



Pearl Branch is a short, normally dry watercourse draining onto 

 the Missouri bottoms 1.3 miles north of Waldron, 8.2 miles northwest 

 of Parkville, and 2.7 miles south of Farley. The valley is scarcely a 

 mile long, but at its lower end it has a depth of nearly 200 feet and 

 a narrow rock-floored creek bed. The winding ridges to the north 

 and south are about a third of a mile apart, giving the valley a 

 broadly V-shaped profile. Habitable flats large enough for village 

 sites are absent, but a few small seeps of water might once have 

 induced single families to settle here and there beside the creek chan- 

 nel. The bordering slopes throughout the lower third of the valley 

 are mostly too steep for modern cultivation and retain a considerable 

 stand of timber. In spite of the presence of no less than six farm 

 residences, small game still inhabits the wooded ridges and slopes. 

 Our slumbers were disturbed on several occasions by coyotes, and 

 the tracks of raccoon, opossum, and other fur-bearers were identified 

 about the damp margins of the water holes. 



The archeological remains consist principally of burial mounds 

 (fig. 12). Nine of these are strung along the top of the ridge (pi. 

 33, a) south of the valley. A property line divides the series into 

 two groups. On the west, in part looking out over the valley of the 

 Missouri, are five mounds belonging to O. Pearl; to the east, where 

 the ridge narrows slightly, are four on the property of Ray Nolan. 

 Across the valley, on land owned by Mrs. C. W. Babcock, are two 

 other mounds, both on the summit of a ridge sloping sharply west 

 to the Missouri bottoms and more gently south and east to Pearl 

 Branch. What may formerly have been still another mound lay 

 about 200 yards north of Babcock Mound A, some distance beyond 

 the limits of the area included in our map. Human remains were 

 found at this spot by our party, but the mound, if one ever existed, 

 has been completely reduced by cultivation. 



Like nearly all other mounds in the Kansas City area and for some 

 distance above and below on the Missouri, these had suffered exten- 

 sively at the hands of vandals obsessed with nothing more than a lust 



