FOWKE] ANTIQUITIES OF MISSOURI res 
The last excavator could remember that he had found— 
Nine whole pots, but broke seven of them in getting them out. One of the pots was 
much larger than the others and had angels stuck on all around; but these all dropped 
off. There was a lot of shells and shell beads, yellow paint, some flints, hoes, arrows, 
and things like that. There were three whole skulls, but these broke all to pieces in 
getting them out. 
The ‘‘yellow paint”’ was red hematite, which had colored some of 
the bones and gave the impression they had been painted. This was 
due altogether to natural action of water soaking through. The 
‘‘angels’’ were small, crudely made objects, apparently rude attempts 
to represent heads of birds, attached to the pots after they were par- 
tially hardened. 
DISTRIBUTION OF VAULT-GRAVES 
The researches so far made, described in these pages, show the stone 
vaults to extend from the great bend of the Missouri river at Kansas 
City, to the mouth of the Gasconade. Mounds containing ‘‘stones,”’ 
or ‘‘stone graves,’’ are reported beyond these limits in both directions; 
but whether these are vaults, cist-graves, or merely loosely piled 
stones, can not be ascertained with certainty from the reports. 
There is said to be an aboriginal burial-place near Eureka Springs, 
Ark., where ‘‘walled pens of stone” contain skeletons covered with 
a slight thickness of earth, but with no mound over them. It is 
reported also that the Osage Indians formerly disposed of their dead, 
or of some of them, in this manner. Osage once lived along the 
Missouri, and moved up the river which bears their name. 
One of the writer’s workmen stated he had ‘‘seen Indians out in the | 
Territory build a wall like these we are digging out, and put the dead 
inside.”’ 
These vague reports are merely recorded here; they are not given 
as facts, or indorsed as being worthy of consideration in the absence of 
more definite knowledge. 
So far as we have accurate or reliable information, these vaults are 
known in only two other Missouri counties. 
In the Smithsonian Report for 1879 (p. 351) Professor Broadhead 
describes— 
* * * an ancient walled burial place situated on the summit of a ridge 250 feet 
in height, which rises on the north side of Salt river,¢ in the southeast quarter of sec- 
tion 11, township 55, range 3 west. The walls are constructed of rough limestone 
taken from the subjacent strata of the hill, and they enclosed two vaults, each 9 feet 
square, and from 2 to 3 feet in height. The vaults were not exactly in the same line 
but varied about 5°. Some of the stones had been removed and carried off. I saw 
only a few fragments of human bones, but was informed that other and very large 
bones had been found. The annexed sketch exhibits the form and relative position 
a Salt river flows into the Mississippi about four miles north of the town of Louisiana. 
