98 Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis 
TABLE IV 
MIDDLE MISSISSIPPI TRAITS FOUND ON EAST SIDE 
OF MISSISSIPPI VALLEY AND NOT ON WEST SIDE 
1. Oval ceremonial house, 
■t 
2. Rectangular fire bed. 
3. Polished black floors. 
4. Small fireplaces at corner of house. 
5. Circular dwelling houses. 
6. Banquettes — undetermined, 
7. Stone work on floors. 
8. Metates overlying ceremonial fireplaces. 
9. Stone daggers. 
10. Stone spheres. 
11. Barbed antler points. 
12. Hour glass-shaped beads. 
13. Stone cist burials (found on west side, north of Cape Girar- 
deau) . 
VIII. CHRONOLOGICAL SEQUENCE 
While the question of exact chronology must await future 
data, perhaps a few words may be said about the relative posi- 
tion of the time of occupation of the site. Three lines of evi- 
dence indicate that the site was no longer occupied by the early 
part of the Eighteenth Century. 
In the first place, investigation of the site has so far re- 
vealed only one cultural component, although evidences of sev- 
eral periods of occupancy were found. Secondly, the site is 
entirely pre-historic, as no traces 'of any articles of white man's 
manufacture, such as metals or glass beads, were excavated. 
Thirdly, the stump of the large sassafras tree which died about 
30 years ago indicates a growth of about 200 years. 
The question of possible occupancy by a tribe during a 
to Marquett 
discovery of the M 
1700 
1673, or from the 
M^ps of the Mississippi Valley constructed during the period 
from 1703 to 1765 show a good sized stream entering the river 
at about the location of the New Madrid bend. On such maps 
this stream bears the name of the Chepoussa (with various 
spellings), or Sound River. In Hodge's Handbook of American 
Indians (12) we find that "Chepoussa was a name applied by 
LaSalle to a band of Illinois .... probably connected with 
the Michigamea." The Chepoussa was the southern-most mem- 
ber of the Illinois confederacy and was found by Marquette in 
