154 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 76 



others, and persons in the neighborhood have exhumed many more. 

 The deposit represents a communal burial, from a village which 

 probably stood on the level creek bottom not far away. A few 

 skeletons showed an attempt at orderly arrangement. These were 

 probably of individuals who had not been dead long at the time of 

 the general burial. Most of the bones, however, skulls and others, 

 were piled in the smallest possible area, as if gathered up in sacks 

 or baskets from previous burials and carried here for reinterment. 

 The soil is so loose as to be easily dug with the hands, like sand; 

 but at the same time so fine and close packed as to shed water almost 

 like a roof. Owing to the steep slope at every point, except toward 

 the summit of the ridge, there must be some erosion, and conse- 

 quently the age of the burials can not be great. Yet, the same con- 

 ditions prevail in other places where a great antiquity is claimed for 

 the remains. Frost necessarily disintegrates the soil to some ex- 

 tent; the wind or rain carries away the loosened portions; and this 

 process is continuous. The shape of the mound shows that when the 

 burials were made the ridge was essentially identical in form with 

 its present aspect. The bones also are comparatively fresh in ap- 

 pearance, and it may be considered certain that they can not date 

 back many generations. 



On the top of a liill rising from the opposite side of Mosquito 

 Creek Dr. Dinsmore found a low mound, which, like that just de- 

 scribed, would not have been suspected as such but for a stone pro- 

 jecting from the surface. Under this stone, with 8 inches of earth 

 intervening, was a skull so completely mineralized that it appears to 

 be carved from a block of limestone. No other portions of the body 

 to which it belonged remained, though traces in the surrounding 

 earth showed that at least the larger bones and perhaps the entire 

 skeleton had been deposited. Bones in other parts of the mound 

 were in their natural condition ; that is, they were not altered from 

 their ordinary appearance, although only in fragments. It is re- 

 markable that this entire cranium should thus change while all the 

 other bones, even the jaw, had disappeared. The description of this 

 find is from Dr. Dinsmore, who has the skull in his office. Possibly 

 he may be in error in stating that traces were found of other bones 

 belonging with it. These may have belonged to another individual. 

 The soil is ordinary sandy loess, containing lime but not in such 

 quantity as to account for this alteration. Perhaps the skull may 

 be from an older burial somewhere, the petrifaction having taken 

 place before it was buried here. 



RULO, NEBRASKA 



Particular attention was paid to conditions a mile north of Rulo, 

 where it is reported that human skeletons were found in the Kansan 

 drift. It was not the intention of the discoverer to have it under- 



