ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN MISSOURI 151 



Clay Counties have generally yielded few or no cultural materials 

 sufficiently distinctive to permit correlation with established archeo- 

 logical horizons in neighboring areas. 'As for the included skeletal 

 remains, these were either ignored, because of their usually fragmen- 

 tary condition, or else have since been scattered and lost. The few 

 samples still extant too often are unaccompanied by the requisite data 

 as to exact provenience. 



In the present section I shall review at some length the evidence 

 accumulated from work to date, insofar as the findings, directly or 

 indirectly, bear upon the particular type of mound in question. 

 Mound construction as well as contents and specimens therefrom are 

 described. This review will take us from Kansas City upriver to 

 northeastern Kansas, then down the Missouri River, and up the 

 Mississippi. That an occasional mound or mound group has been 

 missed is not improbable, though I have sought to include all avail- 

 able published records and descriptions of excavation however brief 

 or incomplete. It is probably also true that certain examples given, 

 particularly some of those on the Mississippi, are not rightly to be 

 classed with the stone vaults of the type found in central Missouri. 

 The type, briefly defined, includes mounds containing a quadri- 

 lateral, rectangular, circular, or oblong cell, with vertical walls con- 

 sisting of coursed horizontally placed stone slabs laid up without 

 mortar. In a few instances mention of a "dry wall" or of a "vault" 

 has been considered sufficient to warrant inclusion of the mound in 

 this discussion. 



Earliest description of the chambered mounds of the Missouri 

 Valley appears to be that presented by Judge West to the Kansas 

 City Academy of Science in the spring of 1877. At that time, neither 

 the farmer nor the relic collector had made any marked inroads upon 

 the remains, so that West's observations concerning the external ap- 

 pearance, size, distribution, and internal nature of the mounds are of 

 more than usual interest. In his report (West, 1877b, pp. 15-18) 

 we learn that : 



From Mr. Keller's farm, overlooking a branch of Line Creek, in Clay County, 

 to Line Creek in Platte County, a distance of about three-fourths of a mile, I 

 have located as many as twenty-five mounds. I have seen others east of 

 Mr. Keller's, extending as far as Randolph, and I am informed by reliable gentle- 

 men that they are seen west of Line Creek. On the south side of the Missouri 

 River I have located other mounds, in the vicinity of Rock Creek, in Jackson 

 County, but whether erected by the same people remains to be determined 

 upon further investigation. 



In shape the mounds examined represent the frustum of a cone, and vary 

 in size from 40 to 80 feet in diameter at the base, and from IS to 35 feet at 

 the superior plane. They are found situated on the highest points. . . . along 

 the summit of the bluffs overlooking the ISIissouri River, and with a few ex- 

 ceptions are arranged in groups of from three to five. Those on the left (north) 



