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ANTHROPOLOGY: N. C. NELSON 
together being nothing more nor less than 'kitchen' refuse. Isolated 
portions of the human frame, such as, for example, the distal end of an 
adult femur, a small fragment of a pelvic girdle and several teeth, were 
met with at different levels in the deposit; but the remains are not, as 
might be supposed, in such a state as to suggest cannibalism. Of 
artifacts in a stricter sense of the term there were obtained a small 
series of awls and other pointed implements made from bone and antler, 
many of them being simply improvised from splinters while a few were as 
perfect as anything of the sort found in America. The flint specimens 
consisted of numerous reject flakes (some of them apparently used) 
and five or six chipped blades, mostly fragmentary. Of workmanship 
in shell there came to light two perforated pendants and several half- 
shells that may have served as spoons or scrapers. Finally, there were 
uncovered three more or less crude pestle-Hke objects made of limestone. 
And that was all. Several test trenches were opened at different places 
and quite a number of cubic yards of the refuse was most carefully 
worked over, but without avail. Not a trace could be found either of 
maize or of pottery or of any of the finer forms of polished stone work 
otherwise so characteristic of the general region. The absence of these 
things in Mammoth Cave may be an accident but if so it is most extra- 
ordinary. 
The second discovery, as previously stated, was made in a rock- 
shelter about six miles down the Green River, in the bluff opposite the 
lower end of Boardcut Island. The place is about three miles in an 
airline from the Mammoth Cave. Here in the natural floor earth was 
found a thin stratum of ashes containing bits of flint and also fragments 
of pottery. A Httle deeper down was laid bare a stone-grave burial 
of the type so often met with in that section of the Mississippi basin 
and generally accepted as of relatively late date. Unfortunately 
nothing whatever accompanied the interment, and as conditions did 
not permit digging more than the one test pit no complete artifacts 
were obtained from the shelter. 
The significance of these two isolated horizons of culture, briefly 
stated, seems to be that we have evidence in the one instance of an 
agricultural people and in the other of a people who lived mostly if 
not entirely by hunting. The rockshelter horizon being clearly associ- 
able with the later developments in the Moundbuilder area, we must 
assume the cultural segment in the Mammoth Cave to antedate it. 
At the same time it should be emphasized, in conclusion, that the 
Mammoth Cave horizon, in view of the faunistic remains accompany- 
ing it, cannot in any absolute sense be regarded as ancient. 
