ARCHEOLOGICAL INVEST I G ATI ONS IN MISSOURI 139 



area at the south side, or had formerly covered other separate spots 

 in the destroyed portion of the mound, I cannot say. 



The vague and not altogether satisfactory statements of Mr. 

 Shepherd's son, who, with a neighbor's boy, opened the mound, indi- 

 cate that most of the burials and artifacts were graded or dug out 

 of the deeper part of the structure, probably layer III. With this in 

 mind, Shippee and I smoothed off the face beneath the slab layer, 

 where thin seams and lenses of light-brown moldy grass or bark were 

 visible. Four of these were localized, all lying beneath the stones. 

 No. 1 (fig. 17), partly cut away previously, yielded the crushed skull 

 of a young child and traces of clavicles and humeri, with a shreddy 

 layer above and below. Within the wrappings was a mass of red 

 ochre with which the corpse had apparently been smeared. Nos. 2 

 and 3, similarly enclosed in shrouds, were even less preserved; only 

 traces of soft bone remained, with nothing to show the size, age, or 

 orientation of the burials. At No. 4 a mass of woven textile 3 feet 

 below the slabs measured irregularly 12 by 25 inches. Removal was 

 not feasible, but it was ascertained that the heavy grass or rush warps 

 were held together at 2i/4-inch intervals by twined wefts. There was 

 nothing underneath, from which we suspect that this must have been 

 on the bottom of a grave. Probably some or all of the similarly 

 wrapped skeletons had been enclosed in a woven fabric. From the 

 relatively small space occupied by each bundle, flexion might be 

 suspected. To judge from the wreckage scattered over the dug surface 

 a considerable number of graves had been destroyed in the grading, 

 but no description could be gotten. Parenthetically, it may be added 

 that specific inquiries on our part as to grave wrappings with inter- 

 ments previously exposed elicited only a negative answer, despite the 

 fact that they were unquestionably present and easily detected on the 

 only four graves actually seen by us. 



One more feature remains to be noted. Near the center of the 

 profile, 8% feet below the mound summit, was a horizontal brown 

 streak 1 inch thick and about 8 feet long. This showed an un- 

 questionable woody structure, though whether it was a split log or 

 a hand-hewn rough plank is not certain. It lay in about the middle 

 (vertically) of layer III, and from the south end a light dustlike 

 Btreak continued for at least 10 feet toward the mound edge. It is 

 possible that this indicates the original ground surface on which 

 the first burials were laid and over which the earth w^as finally 

 mounded. 



There is no reliable means of determining how long ago this mound 

 was erected, but the evident absence of materials indicating white 

 contact would establish a minimum dating of at least three centuries. 

 That uncarbonized rush matting would survive even this long in the 

 fairly wet climate of the locale seems a little unusual, but probably 



