Indian Mounds at Broken Kettle Creek. 87 



must have been almost hidden from Adew. This seclusion 

 is one of the reasons for building here instead of on the 

 Big Sioux Eiver. 



The origin of the mound is in dispute, one contention 

 being that this pile was the adobe huts that have fallen 

 to ruin and decay, and that on the site there have been 

 successive villages; the other, that the village was near 

 this spot and this mound was that part of their civiliza- 

 tion that is now represented by our modern city dump, 

 the rubbish being at times covered with clean, fresh dirt. 

 Still another, and perhaps the correct, theory is that 

 these people camped here year after year and each time 

 covered the debris with a fresh layer of clean clay. This 

 last theory seems to be the more plausible for reasons 

 that will appear hereafter. 



There is nothing now to indicate to a casual ob- 

 server that this knoll was at one time the habitation of 

 a forgotten people. The many years of rain and snow, 

 the alternate seasons of frost and sunshine, have re- 

 moved all trace of human work, and there is left only 

 a hillock such as we might expect the creek to deposit 

 in its wanderings through the valley, or left by nature 

 when the earth's surface received the finishing touch. 



But this oblong mound contains much that will in- 

 terest the student of anthropology or the seeker after 

 the curious, and the contents tell a tale that contrasts 

 greatly with the life of the modern Red man in this 

 vicinity. 



There is no way now to determine the plan of the vil- 

 lage. The mound is oblong and is 350 feet long and 115 

 feet wide in the widest place. The high perpendicular 

 bank on the creek side is due to the spring freshets, at 

 which time the water rises to a height of seven or eight 

 feet on that side of the mound. 



The height of the mound is nine feet three inches 

 from the original soil and fourteen feet six inches from 

 the creek bed at the highest point. It is nearly flat on 

 top, sloping to the south and west. 



A cross section was dug for the purpose of ascer-tain- 

 ing the composition of the mound. This section was 

 four and one-half feet wide, and from the highest point 

 to the original soil nine feet three inches. 



