ARCHEOLOOTCAL INVESTIGATIONS IN MISSIOURI 127 



south direction by 9 feet wide, had been scooped out to a depth of 

 about 6 inches into subsoil. The floor, which was nearly flat, lay less 

 than 2 feet beneath the present mound summit. Small stones, gravel, 

 lumps of burnt clay, and charcoal fragments were scattered promis- 

 cuously through the fill, and with them were mixed fragmentary human 

 bones. In no case were the bones or other materials stratified or 

 otherwise segregated, nor were any of the skeletal remains articulated. 

 The bones lay for the most part in the lower 12 inches. There was 

 no evidence of any attempt at an enclosing wall or a definite pro- 

 tective cover of stones. Secondary burial of disarticulated bones 

 from bodies previously exposed would seem to be indicated, and it 

 is very probable that more than one individual was represented. A 

 few of the bones showed pathological conditions similar to those 

 found in Pearl C. 



During reopening of the old trench we found a number of frag- 

 ments of thin, well-smoothed pottery tempered with finely crushed 

 shell. Other sherds, probably from the same or a similar vessel, were 

 in the undisturbed pit fill. They are insufficient to permit restor- 

 ation but are suggestive in nearly all respects of the smooth, deep, 

 thin-walled bowls found, intrusively, in Nolan C (cf. pi. 36, 5, d^ e). 

 From their scattered occurrence I should suspect that they were either 

 thrown into the burial pit as fragments or else that a whole vessel 

 or vessels had been pretty completely shattered before the grave was 

 filled up. 



Fortune favored us in that the previous excavators, starting with 

 a trench 5 feet wide at the top, had narrowed their cut to 2i/2 feet 

 at the bottom. Two feet from the east wall of the burial pit, 10 

 inches below the mound surface but less than 6 inches beneath the 

 earlier trench, we uncovered the nearly complete cord-roughened jar 

 shown in plate 37, a. It is gray in color and lacks the pitting so 

 characteristic of the cell (shell) tempered wares. Inclusions are not 

 readily seen with a hand lens, but they seem to consist of moderately 

 fine (1-2 mm.) rounded translucent particles of siliceous matter 

 sparingly used. Roughening was apparently done with a cord- 

 wrapped paddle ; on the upper part of the body the impressions are 

 vertical, but farther down the sides and on the base they frequently 

 crisscross. The body is globular, with a diameter of 15 cm.; the 

 neck, constricted, is 10.9 cm. wide; and the rim flares outward to 

 terminate in a plain rounded lip. Walls average 4-6 mm. in thick- 

 ness, with the base heaviest. The interior surface is uneven and 

 "dimpled" as if smoothed by pressure from the fingers; except on 

 the rim there are no striae suggesting use of a smoothing stone. 



Aside from the pottery, the only artifact recovered was a small, 

 flat, calcined shell disk bead about 8 mm. in diameter. 



