ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN MISSOURI 187 



rib may have been used for the weaving of rush mats. There is little 

 to guide us in the matter of aboriginal dress or the tastes in personal 

 adornment. Imitation perforated bear teeth and longitudinally 

 pierced deer phalanges possiblj' served in the latter connection. 



Of all the native industries practiced at the Renner site that of the 

 potter is most abundantly represented. Typically, the pottery here 

 is grit tempered, of moderate hardness, and has a granular structure. 

 Surfaces are generally smoothed, less commonly imperfectly polished, 

 and rarely cord-roughened. Large vessels seem usually to have had 

 a height exceeding their diameter, a more or less conoidal base, a 

 slightly constricted neck, and an interiorly concave unthickened 

 rim. The lip was generally flattened. Smaller jars sometimes had 

 globular or lobed bodies. Bowls were rare. Decorative techniques 

 included incising (usually on the rim exterior), roughening of the 

 body by means of an unnotched rocker, rare use of the dentate rocker 

 or roulette, the cord-wrapped stick, and punching from the interior to 

 produce bosses on the exterior below the lip. Areas of decoration 

 involved the rim exterior and the body surface generally. The neck, 

 except where overall cord-roughening occurs, is generally plain. The 

 rim exterior typically bears cross-hatched incising (or rocker marks) 

 bordered by a line of punctates; less common are the vertical or 

 diagonal impressions of a cord-wrapped stick, or short strokes from 

 a pointed tool. On the body, all-over edentate rocker roughening is 

 very characteristic, the use of alternate plain and roughened areas 

 separated by incisions less so. Miniature pots occur, as do occasional 

 crudely modeled bird or other zoomorphic forms. Painting is pres- 

 ent on but one vessel fragment. 



In addition to the more numerous artifact types already given, we 

 may further enumerate the following from the Renner site : Unpaired 

 sandstone abraders, grooved as from sharpening awls, etc. ; a bipointed 

 bone object; a multiperf orate scooplike piece, of dressed bone or 

 horn; a small zoomorphic bone carving; a small copper celt or adz 

 blade; chipped chisellike objects; drill points; small chipped plano- 

 convex disks; chipped celt ( ?) blades, or blanks ( ?) ; large well made 

 blades; hollowed imperforate funnellike stone and clay objects; a 

 small paint mortar; rough hammerstones, hematite, and (by report) 

 obsidian chips. 



The manner of disposing of the dead remains problematical. It is 

 suggestive, however, that on the bluffs east of the Renner site is a 

 large group of mounds, nearly every one of which contained a rec- 

 tangular burial chamber built up of coursed stone without mortar. 

 These were dug out many years ago ; associated cultural objects were 

 rare or absent, and the records of this work which have come down to 

 us do not prove a direct connection between these structures and the 



