88 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 33 
depth of 6 or 64 feet. Below this everything was disconnected and 
fragmentary. 
Now, ordinarily, the interpretation of these facts would be quite 
simple, as the conditions observed are in general characteristic of the 
ordinary low mound of the region. Some of the bodies seem to have 
been buried immediately after death; others, after having been ex- 
posed to the elements on scaffolds, or otherwise treated. Later 
burials by the same or other peoples appear to have been made about 
the margins of the mound and also above the hardened clay. In the 
writer’s view it is impossible that the nine or more bodies beneath 
the fire-hardened clay should have drifted into that position at any 
time or that they should have come there in any manner other than 
as direct burials; and it is highly probable that, were it not for the 
large supraorbital ridges and low foreheads of some of the ecrania, 
the question of geological antiquity would never have been raised 
with respect to any of these remains. 
There is nothing in the conditions connected with the bones which 
came from the levels between 24 and 6 feet to suggest particular 
antiquity. The depth at which they were found is in no way excep- 
tional; in fact, this depth is quite the rule in low mounds. The 
absence of surface soil of darker color is not remarkable, since, 
except where charcoal is present, the color resulting from decay of 
vegetal matter soon disappears through chemical changes and leach- 
ing. ‘The presence in the neighborhood of the bones of small pebbles 
and fossil shells would be natural, if these objects existed originally in 
the loess of the locality, for no one burying a body would sift the earth 
with which to cover it. The baking of the earth over the bodies was 
not accidental, for the signs of fire diminished toward the periphery of 
the mound, and, besides, as already stated, it was not a rare practice 
of the aborigines of the Missouri valley to bake the surface of 
burial mounds. It is likewise evident that this baking can not be 
attributed to the people who buried the two or three bodies above it; 
they would hardly have chosen a spot over a deposit of human bones 
belonging to a previous geological age and then, after baking the 
earth immediately covering the deposit, have buried their own dead 
on this floor, carrying to the place 24 feet of earth for the purpose 
of covering the bodies. It is more reasonable to suppose that these 
people resorted to a regular burial mound of their own or of another 
comparatively recent tribe. 
Besides the skeletal parts, which maintained more or less their 
natural relation, there were found at deeper levels in the mound, 
and possibly a little outside of it, human bones in small pieces. 
These fragments were scattered and comparatively few in number— 
not more than “ one bit of bone” to 5 or 6 cubic feet of earth. The 
fragmentary character of these bones and their wide dispersal 
