ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESmGATlONS IN" MISSOURI 221 



people or of the cultural manifestation represented by the Renner 

 site. As I have previously indicated, the archeological inventory 

 includes certain pottery and perhaps other elements suggesting 

 "Mississippi" types. It would be stretching the evidence, I think, 

 to consider this as proof that an attenuated, perhaps decadent, Hope- 

 well culture was here in process of transformation into a Mississippi 

 culture. What may be disclosed along this line by future investiga- 

 tions I cannot foretell, but there is nothing in our material from 

 Steed-Kisker that would suggest a Hopewellian ancestry. Moreover, 

 the physical type of the Platte County (i. e., stone vault) Hope- 

 wellians differs sharply from the local Middle Mississippi type as the 

 latter is known from Steed-Kisker. In short, the two occupations 

 were separate and distinct; and proof of somatological or cultural 

 continuity between Hopewellian and Middle Mississippi, if it exists, 

 will presumably have to be sought elsewhere in the region or farther 

 to the east. The Steed-Kisker site, as stated elsewhere, very likely 

 indicates a post-Hopewellian thrust up the Missouri from the readily 

 accessible Cahokia mound region. 



As to the relationships between the herein described Platte County 

 m.aterials and other recognized Plains archeological horizons little 

 can be added to what has already been said. Presence of sherds of 

 Hopewellian type in association with cord-roughened Woodland wares 

 in southeastern Nebraska and western Kansas suggests a general con- 

 temporaneity over a wide area, but there is no present evidence that 

 either such local Woodland complexes as may have existed or any 

 of the subsequent pottery-making cultures were noticeably affected by 

 the Hopewellians. It must be admitted, however, that little intensive 

 excavation has been devoted to Woodland sites, and virtually none 

 at all to such stations in eastern Kansas where impulses from the 

 Kansas City Hopewellian area ought to be most in evidence. From 

 the standpoint of distribution, it may be significant that despite 

 several decades of reconnaissance and much intensive excavation, no 

 Hopewellian sites have been found in eastern Nebraska, nor indeed 

 have there been any surface finds of material west of the Missouri 

 Valley that even hinted at such a complex. On the other hand, stray 

 sherds and other items reminiscent of the Platte County Hopewellian 

 remains have been reported sporadically from sites in Kansas as far 

 west as Marion County, and, clearly as trade items, even farther to 

 the west. The eastern third of Kansas is a part of the Central Low- 

 land province that extends north and northeast to include most of 

 the Hopewellian area of the upper Mississippi-Ohio-Great Lakes re- 

 gion; environmentally its river vallej^s would have offered a congenial 

 milieu to any horticultural or semihorticultural group adjusted to the 

 middle or upper Mississippi Basin. It would not be surprising, 

 therefore, to find a continuous distribution of Hopewellian elements, 



