SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I928 1 59 



predecessors left no written record, no interpretable hieroglyphic sys- 

 tem, to guide investigators of the present. Only by painstaking ex- 

 ploration and the careful weighing of all recoverable data related to a 

 given site and its associated artifacts can we hope eventually to acquire 

 a detailed knowledge of prehistoric Indian life, tribal organizations 

 and intertribal relationships. 



During the early summer of 1928, Mr. H. Hughes of Ono, Russell 

 County, Kentucky, kindly advised the Smithsonian Institution that 

 certain Indian remains had shortly l)efore been exhumed from a cave 

 in the blutYs bordering Wolf Creek, a branch of Cumljerland River. 

 To examine these objects and the scene of their discovery, the writer 

 proceeded to Ono in early June. Kentucky at that time was experi- 

 encing unprecedented rains. Rivers were out of bank ; roads were 

 well-nigh impassable for motors ; saddle mules were stained with the 

 red mud of mountain trails. 



In company with Mr. Hughes and the three gentlemen concerned 

 with discovery of the material in cjuestion, the writer examined the 

 several objects and later visited the cave from which they had been 

 removed. These artifacts included a twilled basket and enveloping 

 cover of cane splints : fragments of other baskets or mats ; a headband 

 of tanned buckskin or buffalo hide, with fiber ropes attached ; frag- 

 ments of an olivella shell necklace, and lesser articles. Corn cobs, 

 pieces of scjuash rind, and a single small red bean identified the former 

 occupants of the cave as an agricultural people whose permanent 

 dwellings were doubtless in the valley below. The habital)le floor space 

 of the cavern was extremely limited ; layers of charcoal, burned earth, 

 and decomposed vegetable matter evidenced brief, repeated occupancy. 



1 have called this site a cave but more correctly it is a rock 

 shelter and a very inconsequential shelter at that. Its terraced floor, 

 of disintegrating shale, slopes abruptly down from the harder, over- 

 lying limestone formation into an incipient creek. It rained while we 

 were in the shelter and noisy torrents poured over the rimrock, carry- 

 ing l)rush and stones to choke the narrow gorge. Mists from the 

 falling flood drifted through the cave ; the wet shale glistened in the 

 half light. We may assume such occurrences have hapi^ened repeatedly 

 since Indians camped there and boiled rabbit stews in earthen vessels, 

 marked by a cord-wrapped paddle. The w^onder remains, therefore, 

 that basketry or any other perishable material could have survived 

 many seasons ; much less, the two or three hundred years these speci- 

 mens have lasted. 



According to the discoverers, a burrowing" groundhog had dislodged 

 several human toe bones, thus prompting the initial digging. Three 



