160 BULLETIN 18 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



cord-impressions. The arrowpoints from this locality are stemmed 

 and thick in cross section, resembling the points which we find asso- 

 ciated with Woodland materials." He points out, however, that there 

 is no proof of direct relationship between these specimens and the 

 vault graA^e, 



About a mile south of Iowa Point, on a promontory overlooking 

 the Missouri River bottoms, are the vestiges of a stone burial mound 

 that, from all accounts, seems to have resembled certain chambers 

 reported by Fowke in central Missouri. This, I was told in 1937, 

 had been dug out about 25 years previously by Mark Zimmerman 

 "and someone from the Smithsonian Institution or Peabody Museum." 

 Details are lacking, but the mound is supposed to have contained a 

 doubledeck or 2-story walled structure, or perhaps one vault set atop 

 a lower one that had been roofed with stones. We attempted no 

 excavation and were unable to learn the shape and size of either 

 chamber, the nature of their contents, or whether entrances were 

 found. On the slopes to the south have been collected grooved axes, 

 stemmed snubnose scrapers, celts, and potsherds. The latter include 

 one large grit-tempered mica-flecked piece bearing rocker impressions, 

 several others which are cord-roughened, and rims with small nodes 

 along the lower edge of a modified collar. These last are reminiscent 

 of some Nebraska Culture materials (Strong, 1935, pi. 14g, 15) ; the 

 axes, celts, scraper, and rocker-roughened sherd would fit into the 

 trait complex at the Renner site. Which, if either, of the two mani- 

 festations hinted at by these specimens was responsible for the nearby 

 vault mound is wholly conjectural. 



So far as my information goes, there are no known instances of 

 walled tombs along the Missouri in Nebraska, Iowa, or extreme north- 

 western Missouri. It would appear that their northern limit of occur- 

 rence here is at or very near the latitude of the Kansas-Nebraska State 

 line. It is true, of course, that mounds and burial pits in which stones 

 were used are found far beyond, but in these the slabs were not laid in 

 horizontal courses to form a definite wall. 



Below Kansas City the work of Fowke and others has revealed the 

 presence of chambered mounds at a number of localities in central and 

 eastern Missouri. Characteristically, these are along or near the valley 

 of the Missouri River. An exception of considerable interest is a group 

 about 50 miles southeast of Kansas City in Johnson County near War- 

 rensburg (fig. 20, 7) . Situated on a lofty spot along the Blackwater 

 River, this group was explored about 1878 by students of the local 

 normal school (Anon., 1878; Stevenson, 1878). There are some dis- 

 crepancies between the two accounts. According to Stevenson (1878, 

 p. 107)— 



Every mound excavated so far discloses the stone box within, forming the true 

 cist. The walls of this box are made of flat stones, with no cement between, 



