ARCHEOLOGICAL mVESTIGu\TI(>]SrS IN MISiSOURI 193 



and Steed-Kisker apparently have a great deal in common with the 

 Fort Ancient sites of the Ohio Valley, with Kingston village in 

 Illinois, and with the semisedentary horticultural horizons west of 

 the Missouri. 



In other respects the two Platte County complexes shared such ele- 

 ments as the following: Small planoconvex end scrapers, cylindrical 

 antler rubbing tools, ulna punches or awls, sandstone abraders or "awl 

 sharpeners," longitudinally pierced deer phalanges, expanded base 

 stone drill points, hammerstones, hematite, pumice, use of Dakota 

 sandstone, grit tempering in pottery (rare at Steed-Kisker), and a 

 very few other ceramic items. With exception of pumice and Dakota 

 sandstone, most of these traits are of wide distribution spatially and 

 temporally and cannot be taken as proof of direct connections between 

 Kenner and Steed-Kisker. The similarities in the pottery complex, 

 as in other aspects of material culture, are heavily outweighed by 

 numerous differences which will be apparent from study of table 11. 



THE RENNER SITE 



Despite the geographic situation of the Eenner site virtually at 

 the threshold of the Great Plains, its strongest cultural affiliations 

 were not with recognized plains archeological horizons. Our data 

 and the antiquities recovered at Kenner, when viewed as a whole, 

 are reminiscent of manifestations to the east rather than to the west. 

 There are, to be sure, a number of similarities to some of the mate- 

 rials collected at various prehistoric sites in the trans-Missouri 

 region, but these usually involve artifact types, techniques, or cus- 

 toms so widely distributed in time and space as to have little or 

 no significance where direct connections between specific cultural 

 complexes are sought. 



The inferred sedentary mode of life at rhe Renner site, together 

 with the subsistence pattern based on small scale farming, on hunt- 

 ing, and on gathering, the use of underground caches, and possession 

 of dogs, parallels in general the domestic economy indicated at sites 

 referred to the Upper Republican, Nebraska, Oneota, and other 

 Plains culture complexes. Since the archeological data are still 

 inadequate, it is difficult to say how much further these parallels 

 went in matters of specific detail. The principal crops cultivated — 

 maize and beans — were identical. There is, however, no evidence of 

 the bone hoe at Renner, whereas this tool is one of the most common 

 and constant types in all of the other known aboriginal farming com- 

 plexes in the Great Plains. With regard to animal foods, the natives 

 at Renner relied far more on deer than on bison, no doubt because 

 the former were both more plentiful locally and easier to obtain. 

 Farther west, in the sparsely timbered Upper Republican habitat. 



