ANCIENT REMAINS IN MARION COUNTY, KANSAS. 211 



ANCIENT REMAINS IN MARION COUNTY, KANSAS. 



MELVIN O. BILLINGS. 



Marion, Kansas, is situated on the northwest quarter of Section five. Town- 

 ship twenty. Range four, east of the sixth principal meridian, near the confluence 

 of the Cottonwood River and Muddy Creek, a portion being in the valley be- 

 tween the streams and a portion on the hill east of the Muddy. 



That this was at some time a far more densely populated city, is evidenced 

 by the fact that in excavating almost every well, cellar or cistern, relics of an 

 ancient inhabitancy are found and we are honoring this "Buried Race "by 

 building our prominent buildings, churches, schoolhouses and best residences, 

 near and over their principal monuments, their mounds. The relics of aboriginal 

 inhabitancy may be divided into three classes, Mound-Builders, Crematers and 

 Modern Indians. Of the first class only it is our intention now to write. 



The mounds from which we denominate this class " Mound-Builders " are 

 situated on high ground around the junctions of streams adjacent, in irregular 

 groups averaging eight mounds to the group. Inside of three miles each way 

 from Marion there are five of these groups. These mounds measure from ten to 

 sixty feet in diameter and from one to three and one-half feet in height. In none 

 so far examined have been found human remains. The larger ones consist of 

 earth, stones, pebbles, broken implements and utensils of all kinds, shells and 

 scraps of bone, all of which seem to indicate that they are only heaps of kitchen 

 scraps and camp debris. The smaller mounds seem to be the remains of adobe 

 huts or wigwams, mostly of clay which bear the appearance of having been partly 

 burned; in these are found ashes, charcoal, broken pottery and a few broken 

 bones, but they do not contain the profusion of articles which the large ones do. 

 Some of these small mounds, after being subject to the plow and weather, are 

 covered with flint chippings and and broken flint implements, showing that they 

 were the workshops of arrow makers or the place where the refuse of this charac- 

 ter alone was deposited. All mounds contain more or less shells, quartz, pebbles, 

 concretions and peculiar little stones that to-day would interest a boy as being 

 " funny." The small mounds are circular while the large ones have on the south- 

 east side a spur about one-fifth the size of the mound. This is not the exception 

 but the rule. As to the use of these large mounds with their spurs we have no 

 theory. We are simply stating the facts as they are. 



The fire beds, so named for want of evidence of their being graves, are relics 

 of the same people, which is clearly proven by their contents being identical. 

 One of these beds is described by Judge West in this Review, No. 2, Vol. IV. 

 Another found three-quarters of a mile above the junction of the Cottonwood 

 and Muddy Creeks, on the creek bank exposed by gullying, is of the same 

 shape as the one described by the Judge, /. e., conical, and measured in depth six 



