20 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 37 
The north grave, extending east and west, was 7 feet 5 inches long, 
3 feet 7 inches wide, and 5 feet 6 inches deep. Here the aborigines 
had to dig through nearly 5 feet of tough clay, which must be 
loosened with a pick before a shovel can be forced into it; possibly 
they worked only when the ground was wet. Thesides and bottom of 
the grave were rough and lumpy, and it had evidently been excavated 
with pointed implements of small size, as bone, antler, or sharpened 
sticks hardened by heating, used as picks, prods, and levers, the 
marks of such tools showing in the hard earth. 
On the bottom lay extended, on its back, with the head toward 
the east, a skeleton 5 feet 9 inches long. No ribs or phalanges and 
only two or three cervical vertebre remained; the skull was soft 
and crushed, as were the fragments of long bones remaining. The 
teeth were not much worn. Near the top of the head was a mussel 
shell, which crumbled when touched; at the neck were nine disk 
shell beads, with fragments of others and of mussel shell. Opposite 
the center of the grave, against the north wall, were teeth of a child 
not more than 2 or 3 years old. 
Twenty inches above the graves (placed there when the mound had 
reached that height) were the skull and large bones of an adult, care- 
fully piled in as small a space as they could be made to occupy. The 
skull and the lower jaw lay in diagonally opposite corners of the pile. 
On the natural surface, 20 feet from the foot of the west slope, 
was a thick block of limestone, weighing perhaps 150 pounds, with 
three smaller rocks lying against it; but there was nothing to indicate 
their purpose. Loose in the earth were a rough hammer stone and 
a few flint chips. There was nothing else in the structure—no evi- 
dence of two centers, or of more than one period of construction. 
Numerous other mounds lie along the river bluffs on both sides of 
Moreau creek, and also near the mouth of Osage river. Results in 
this vicinity had been so discouraging that none of these were opened. 
MOUNDS IN THE VICINITY OF HARTSBURG, BOONE 
COUNTY 
THE SHaw Movunps (8) 
A mile southeast of Hartsburg, on the farm of Mr. James Shaw, 
a spur from the table-land, projecting toward the south, practically 
level along the top and sloping abruptly on each side, expands toward 
its outer extremity to a width of about 750 feet. This spur ends in 
a rugged descent to a precipice facing the Missouri River bottoms. 
Extending in a line nearly east and west across the end of the spur, 
the outer margins reaching down on the slope above the bluff, were 
8 mounds. Five stood near together at the western terminus of the 
nearly level area, Three of these were never more than 2 feet high; 
ee 
