214 BULLETIN 18 3, UNIT-ED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



known community, i. e., village and burial site, that can be attributed 

 to the Middle Mississippi horizon. The Missouri Valley was evidently 

 an important route, though not necessarily the only one, by which 

 Middle Mississippi pottery and other elements spread westward to the 

 edge of the Great Plains. 



To what extent these and perhaps other westerly representatives 

 of the Middle Mississippi horizon influenced the Nebraska Culture 

 is not now clear. Aside from the distinctive shell-tempered some- 

 times polished and incised sherds, such Nebraska Culture items as 

 human effigy heads of clay (Strong, 1935, p. 257 and fig. 30), pottery 

 trowels (p. 260 and pi. 17, fig. 1, 6), effigy clay pipes (p. 160 and pi. 16,, 

 fig. 1, «, 6) , grooved and polished deer jaw objects (Gilder, 1909, pi. 4, 

 ^, and 1926, p. 13 ; Cooper, 1940, pi. 13, fig. 2 upper) , and perhaps alsa 

 mussel-shell hoes (Cooper, 1940, pi. 11, fig. 4 upper) are strongly 

 reminiscent of Middle Mississippi types. Moreover, present indica- 

 tions seem to be that most or all of these items occur in Nebraska only 

 within a short distance west of the Missouri, where Middle Mississippi 

 ceramic influences are most noticeable, and have not been found in 

 contemporary Upper Republication sites in the plains farther west. 

 That the Middle Mississippi peoples received as well as transmitted 

 ideas is indicated by the virtual identity previously noted between 

 the house site at Steed-Kisker and the well-known Nebraska Culture 

 pit-house type. There is no longer any question, therefore, that the 

 Missouri River bluffs zone between Kansas City and Omaha was the 

 habitat at one time (cf. Strong, 1935, p. 256) of "one or more peoples 

 contemporaneous with the Nebraska Culture but apparently some- 

 what more advanced in ceramic technique." It is evident, too, that 

 considerable intercourse must have taken place between the various 

 groups concerned, though it is not now possible to appraise its extent 

 and all its effects on the participating peoples. 



TIME PERSPECTIVE 



So far as our explorations are concerned, there is not the slightest 

 indication that the Renner and Steed-Kisker village sites or the earth 

 and chambered stone burial mounds of the Kansas City area were 

 inhabited after the arrival of white men. How long befoce the Euro- 

 l)ean conquest these remains were laid down we have no means of 

 ascertaining. It does not seem likely, however, that any of the 

 material can be attributed to the Siouan tribes, chiefly the Kansa and 

 Osage, who have occupied or claimed the locality and nearby regions 

 since the period of discovery. Neither can we judge at present how 

 long an interval elapsed between abandonment of the sites in question 

 and the coming of the Siouans. 



As to the temporal interrelationships of the sites themselves, the 

 local evidence is largely circumstantial. True stratification or super- 



