252 B. SHIMEK NEBRASKA "lOESS MAN" 



to the fact that these men were killed elsewhere and that their hones were 

 brought home and placed in a bundle in what was then a small pocket dug 

 beneath the floor of the hill. Among the proofs that these remains were not 

 buried with their flesh are scores of marks made by the teeth of wolves or 

 other animals while gnawing the flesh. Again, the absence of small bones is 

 an indication of this fact. In the case of one skull some of these small bones 

 had been preserved and brought home by using the skull as a basket. While 

 preparing it, ten bones from various portions of the body rattled out." 



This quotation is of special interest because it suggests certain habits 

 of the mound btiilders which may explain the presence and condition of 

 the lower layer of bones in the Gilder mound. Concerning the water- 

 worn condition of the bones, the writer also hesitates to express an opin- 

 ion, but in a superficial examination of the collection of bones at Lincoln 

 he failed to see any evidence that they are water-worn. They seem to 

 have merely the appearance of bones which have been buried a long time. 



The Gilder mound is of interest anthropologically because it shows thai; 

 more than one burial took place here, and in this respect it ranks with the 

 Okoboji mound.^^ But it seems to present no evidence whatever of great 

 geological age. 



OTHER MOVNDS 



Mounds are not iineommon in the vicinity of Florence and Omaha ; in- 

 deed, they are frequent on the bluffs of the Missou.ri from Sioux City to 

 Hamburg, Iowa. The writer has found a large number of these mounds, 

 and has examined a few more carefully, and invariably he has found peb- 

 bles, flint chips, and shells or fragments of shells of freshwater mussels 

 mingled with a more or less brown-stained soil material, even where 

 human bones were not present, and he has yet to learn of a case in which 

 river mussels were found in what was reported to be loess, in which the 

 materials did not show such relation to mounds. Plate 16, figure 1, 

 shows the location of such a mound near Hamburg, Iowa. 



It is clear that the so-called mound builders inhabited the Missouri 

 valley, for they have left numbers of these mounds to bear silent testi- 

 mony of the presence of their builders, and there seems to be absolutelv 

 nothing in the Gilder mound to determine or su.ggest for it an age greater 

 than that of other moimds in the territory. 



Other Geological Consideeations 



Certain other geological considerations of a more general character 

 which have been presented in connection with this case deserve attention. 

 Professor Barbour has given a section from the Missouri valley to Gilder 

 mound, in which he represents the glacial clay as 15 or 20 feet deep, and 



"A. S. Logan also reports a mound near Jefferson City, Missouri, with two la.vers of 

 human bones. See the Kansas City Scientist, vol. v, 1891, p. 164. 



