90 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL, 37 
At a distance of 3 feet northwest of the child’s skull, on the same 
level (about 18 inches in depth), but not within the pit, was a fine 
pot, nearly perfect, standing upright in a bed of ashes (fig. 19). West 
of this was a scraper or polishing tool 15 inches long, made from the 
split rib of a buffalo or an elk, 
Another trench was run from the center toward the south. Eight 
feet out, in a slight depression dug into the subsoil, was the cranium 
of a child, as smooth as if polished or at least much handled. It lay 
on the face, unaccompanied by any other bone. 
Three feet farther from the center was the edge of a pit 5 feet in 
depth and 6 feet in diameter. At one point on the bottom was a 
pile of minute flint chips scaled off in making implements of small 
size or delicate finish; there were enough of these to fill a pint cup. 
A slightly smaller 
quantity of similar 
chips lay higher up. 
Asatisfactory ex- 
planation of these 
pits remains to be 
found. Such ex- 
cavations occur 
around and in 
many Indian vil- 
lage sites, modern 
as well as prehis- 
toric. They seem 
to fall into two 
classes: Store- 
houses in which to 
preserve grain and 
other food, and re- 
fuse pits to receive 
the trash accumulating under ordinary living and working condi- 
tions. Very likely pits of the former class, when their usefulness 
as storage chambers was over, were utilized for the latter purpose. 
Neither object seems to have been altogether in view at ‘‘The Pin- 
nacles.’’ All the pits here contain much more earth than ashes, and 
while some of this may have fallen in from the top or sides, not a great 
quantity could have come from this source, or the pits would be 
somewhat conical. As it is, the sides are vertical or nearly so. Be- 
sides, they contain comparatively little of ordinary wastage. Some 
broken implements of stone or bone, potsherds, flint chips, and a small 
amount of charcoal were found in them, enough to show they were 
not designed for any especial purpose other than to receive ashes; 
and even so, the amount of earth evidently thrown back into them 
indicates some use not yet made plain. 
Fic. 19. Pot from village site, Saline county. 
