HRDLICKA] SKELETAL REMAINS 67 



HISTORY OF FINDS 



In June, 1894, during a search for the buried remains of the 

 famous Indian chief Black Hawk, Messrs. F. T. Parker, William 

 Morris, and Charles S. Huntington, all of Omaha, Nebraska, dug 

 into a low eminence on the crest of a wooded ridge known as Long s 

 hill, situated near and running parallel with the Missouri, about 3 

 miles north of Florence and 10 miles north of Omaha. According 

 to Mr. Huntington, the only survivor of the three, they made a 

 moderate-sized excavation in the elevation. When the work had 

 progressed to a depth at which Mr. Huntington s head was, as he 

 expresses it, &quot; about on a level with the surface of the ground &quot; (his 

 height is 5 feet 7 inches), he uncovered on one side, in the wall of 

 &quot; yellow r dirt,&quot; a about 20 inches b above the floor of the pit or trench, 

 a skull which fell out with the earth surrounding it, and on coming 

 in contact with the ground separated into a number of pieces. 6 Mr. 

 Huntington says that he was impressed at once with the unusual 

 forehead of the specimen, a feature which induced him to carry the 

 fragments home with him. Xo other skulls or large bones were 

 uncovered, and as the mound yielded no archeological objects, the 

 work of excavation was soon abandoned. The fragments of the 

 skull were placed in the garret, and there lay unnoticed until the 

 latter part of 1906, when, reading of the Gilder discoveries, Mr. 

 Huntington recalled his own find ; thereupon he gathered the pieces 

 and sent them, through Mr. Gilder, to the University of Nebraska. 

 This specimen, which is truly remarkable, has been skillfully recon 

 structed in the geological laboratory of the university, and is now 

 known as skull no. 8 of the Gilder Mound series. 



A second episode in the exploration of the mound is best told in 

 the words of one of the explorers. The following account, prepared 

 for the Avriter by Mr. R. F. Gilder, a journalist and amateur arche- 

 ologist, residing in Omaha, was received February 15, 1907 : 



During the early summer of 1900, in looking for flint implements, I came 

 accidentally across the mound in the summit of Long s hill, dug into twelve 

 years before by Messrs. Parker, Morris, and Huntington. The excavation was 

 about 4 feet square and 2 feet deep, and was filled with leaves from the adja 

 cent trees and refuse mold from the ground about the opening. 



Early in September I revisited Long s hill and found that in the interval 

 some one had been digging in the old excavation. A few pieces of human bones 

 lay on the comparatively fresh earth, and I found later that Mr. Bankey, a 

 neighboring farmer, had picked up on the mound portions of the upper and lower 

 jaws from the right side of a skull. 



Mr. Huntington makes no distinctions in the deposits beneath the 10 or 12 inches of 

 dark surface earth, referring to them in general as &quot; yellow dirt.&quot; 



b Mr. Huntington indicated about this height from the floor, on the side of his safe. 



c According to a later recollection of Mr. Huntington, the skull was taken from the 

 earth in one piece ; it was filled with clay and later separated into fragments. 



