Archeological Investigations Part 22

At 103 feet, at the bottom of the yellow clay and on top of the gravel, was a chalcedony pebble about 2 inches in diameter. The material is foreign to this locality. It had plainly been used as a hammer stone, and is the only object of human origin found anywhere below the dark earth. There was not the slightest evidence of any disturbance of the clay in which it rested.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 34.--Cross section of Fort Deposit Cave at 93 feet.]

At 120 feet the side walls were only 5 feet apart. At 125 feet they again diverged slightly, and a recess on the left forms a chamber 12 feet across. At 150 feet they had drawn in to 8 feet at the widest interval. A section showed loose dry earth, some of it cemented by drip from the roof until about as hard as lump chalk; then compact clayey earth, also with travertine in small lumps; below this the gravel and sand. The latter, at this point, seems to have been deposited in the last stages of the formation of the cave.

Occasionally, along here, a small patch appeared that seemed to be ashes; but none of it was more than 6 inches below the top of the ground, and the substance may not have been ashes at all, but the fine white limestone dust that wears off from the stone. There was nothing in the trench, at any depth, after the chalcedony pebble, that could possibly be due to human intervention, except these small patches of ashes, if ashes they are.

At 165 feet from the entrance the cave made its fourth turn and expanded into a chamber about 15 feet wide. Along the sides of this and in the various crevices opening from it were great quant.i.ties of clean ashes, plainly enough thrown there from fires made in the central part. The gravel came to within 3 to 5 feet of the top, being quite irregular. On the gravel was dry clay, seamed and fissured in all directions so that it fell out under the pick in clods like angular pebbles from an inch to 3 or 4 inches across. This was clearly the result of muddy water settling in a hole and thoroughly evaporating. There was also some travertine in small lumps here and there through the clay, and above it was a ma.s.s fully 2 feet thick at one side of the trench but running out before it reached the other side. It was porous, almost spongy, and seemed to be the lime dust from the roof and sides cemented by dripping water. Above all this, so far as the trench extended toward the sides of the cave, was an inch to 4 inches of loose, dry, dark earth, which on the left dipped down to the clay, thus replacing the travertine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 35.--Cross section of Fort Deposit Cave at 175 feet.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 36.--Cross section of Fort Deposit Cave at 180 feet.]

At 175 feet the gravel had leveled down and was more or less mixed with clay and sand. Above this was another "mudhole deposit" of clay which had thoroughly dried out and become checked and cracked in all directions. On the right this was covered with travertine slightly mixed with earth and clay; on the left, above it and also at one place within it, was a coa.r.s.e gritty earth fallen from the roof but not converted into a compact travertine. The section appears in figure 35.

At 180 feet the trench was carried to a depth of 6 feet. This exposed a fine clay and sand, or silt, like that deposited in the eddies of streams. Above this was another deposit of "mudhole" material which had thoroughly dried out, checked and cracked in all directions so that it formed angular ma.s.ses of various sizes, and had then become wet again so that it was now soft and sticky. To the left of this, on the silt also, was a small amount of the gravel. It had the appearance common to a bank of such material on the side of a little stream which has undermined and carried away part of it. Clearly, these three formations were of an age that witnessed the erosion of the cave. Next above them was a stratum of loose dark earth similar to that noticed in the front part of the cavern; but here were found no traces whatever of man's presence. Into the right side of this stratum projected the wedge-like edge of a ma.s.s of travertine, which was not traced to a termination. Over all lay a deposit 3 or 4 inches thick of dark, nearly black earth, mixed with ashes. This is quite modern. The section appears in figure 36.

During the Civil War the cave was continuously resorted to by deserters, refugees, moons.h.i.+ners, fugitives, and "food for powder, dodging the conscript." All these sought shelter in this chamber and behind it, in order that their fires might not be visible from the river. The piles of ashes in the crevices and corners were thrown there by these hiders-out, to get them out of the way. Similar but smaller piles of ashes are to be seen all along as far as the spring, 200 yards from the entrance.

The presence of pottery of a type common to this region in fields and sh.e.l.l heaps, and of maize, denotes that all the fire beds, etc., are the results of habitation by the modern Indian. Where these ceased nothing else was found. In or below the yellow earth, clay, or gravel, nothing can be found; for until these were laid down and the stream of the cave had sought another outlet, there was no dry place in which to live.

It may be worth recording that a dead mulberry tree stood about 20 feet in front of the entrance to the cave. Under it was a narrow crevice filled with earth, but all around it was bare rock. A root, larger than the tree, grew into the cave and followed along one side wall as if fastened there for a distance of some 60 feet. Here the earth floor of the cave came high enough to cover it. This root was exposed for 160 feet in the trench, or 180 feet from the tree; at this point it was 3 inches in diameter and turned aside into a crevice. As the root could not have grown in the open air, it furnished proof that much deposited material has been carried out of the front portion of the cavern and away from the ledge since this tree was a sprout.

III. EXPLORATIONS ALONG THE MISSOURI RIVER BLUFFS IN KANSAS AND NEBRASKA

VICINITY OF WHITE CLOUD, KANSAS

About 4 miles southeast of White Cloud, Kansas, is the "Taylor Mound,"

from which Mark E. Zimmerman and William Park took 56 skeletons, or portions of skeletons, in a s.p.a.ce not more than 6 by 20 feet. This was clearly an intrusive communal burial of skeletons carried from some other point and interred in the mound which owed its origin to persons who had piled it up at some previous time. The bones, which were not arranged in any order, were 30 inches beneath the present surface of the mound, but this does not mean they were no deeper originally, as the mound has been plowed for many years and is in a situation where it will easily wear down when cultivated.

A few feet away, at a depth of 7 feet, other bones, or fragments of bones, were found in a ma.s.s of burned clay. A cremation had taken place at some point away from the mound, and the resultant burned earth, with so much of the bone matter as was not destroyed by the fire, was carried here and buried. The depth in this instance is not significant; the earth is loose and very easily dug; besides, the grave pit was near the margin of the mound and earth had washed down over it from above.

Some stones, carried from neighboring ravines, have been exposed by the wear due to erosion from natural causes and from cultivation. The main portion of the structure is still intact, and it is probable that no deposits belonging to it at the time of its construction have been unearthed. A systematic exploration, showing the original construction as well as the alterations resulting from later burials, is much to be desired.

While this is the largest mound in the vicinity, and is claimed to be the largest mound in Kansas, it is not different except in size from many others within a few miles. All of them are made of the same earth as that which lies around them--a light, sandy loess which is easily removed with a shovel, requiring no picking or other loosening. In fact, it is almost as easy to dig as loose sand would be. Sometimes there are flat limestones in or around the graves; similar slabs are found not far away in the ravines.

Not far from this mound is a large lodge site, one of the so-called "buffalo wallows" as they are commonly known. These are the ruins of aboriginal houses. The general construction is the same, the only practical difference being that some are square in outline, others round. This difference is not always apparent prior to the excavation.

In the making, a pit was dug, square or round as desired, and the earth thrown out on every side. Posts were then set around the margin of the excavation, and the house built in the same manner as those with which we are familiar from accounts of early travelers. Many of them have been examined by Zimmerman and Park, who found ma.s.ses of hard-burned earth in which are cavities and depressions due to the burning of straw, gra.s.s, twigs, and poles, used in the construction of the houses. This results from the destruction of the houses by fire.

Sometimes the floor has a layer of this burned material which is evidently due to the falling in of the roof. Most of these are on the hilltops, but some of them are on narrow ridges leading from the high land to the creek or river bottoms. In the latter event there is always a village site on the low ground bordering the stream. The relics gathered up on these village sites are in no wise different from those found when the lodge sites are excavated; and also are of the same character as those picked up on what are no doubt modern village sites in the vicinity. This fact militates against the idea that the lodge sites are extremely ancient.

IOWA POINT

On a low hill, cut off on every side by steep ravines, is a small mound containing a cist grave. The bottom of this, which was dug slightly below the natural surface, was covered with a pavement of limestone slabs. The grave was roughly oval or triangular in outline, measuring about 7 by 9 feet. Around it was a wall of similar stones, set in contact and sloping outward at an angle of about 40 degrees from the vertical. There was nothing whatever in this grave.

At the edge of the mound was a box grave 5 by 2 by 2 feet, the longer axis on a radial line. It was made of small flat stones built up like a wall, the only grave of which I could learn that had any resemblance to the vault graves farther down the Missouri. In the grave were two skulls and some other bones, all bunched in the northern end.

NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE NEMAHA RIVER

Lewis and Clark, in their journal, mention that when camped near the mouth of the Nemaha, one or both of them went to an Indian village about 2 miles up the stream. He, or they, climbed a low ridge near the river and stood on a mound which commanded a fine view of the surrounding country. There is a dispute as to the site of this mound; but the journal plainly says it was on the lower (east) side of a little creek which comes in here. Two miles farther up is a larger mound on higher ground which is generally supposed to be the one meant by the explorer; but this is on the other side of the creek and at some distance from the p.a.w.nee village which was located near the mouth of the creek, on the lower side. The ground where this village stood is covered over a s.p.a.ce of several acres with the ordinary debris of an Indian settlement; and it is significant that all the relics found are so similar to those which are called "ancient" when found in the lodge sites, that no one could determine from inspection which kind came from which place. Unless it may exist in the markings in the pottery, no distinction can be made between these specimens and similar ones from other localities.

The p.a.w.nees lived here until 1837, when the Iowas and Otoes made a sortie upon the unsuspecting inhabitants and killed all of them they could overcome. Two women of the Iowa tribe who were living on the reservation in 1914 remember seeing dead bodies lying around wherever the invaders could find and kill a resident.

A short distance below the explorers carved their names on a rock which projected into the stream. Accounts as to this spot differ; it is generally stated that in making a road around here, the rock containing the names was blasted away; but a man in the neighborhood who claims to know the exact spot says the blasting did not extend quite so far and that the names are covered by a ma.s.s of earth and rock which slid from the bluff many years ago. If this be true, a thrill awaits the man who finds the names some centuries from now, when the river has washed away all this acc.u.mulated material.

VICINITY OF TROY, KANSAS

Near the mouth of Wolf River is a village site on which Dr. R.S.

Dinsmore, of Troy, has counted 125 tipi sites. Relics are very abundant here, especially the small chert "thumb-sc.r.a.pers," which outnumber all other specimens.

MOUTH OF MOSQUITO CREEK

Four miles east of Troy, on a ridge so steep that its top is inaccessible from either side, and so narrow that a wagon would make a track on each slope, is a little mound worn down until its true nature would not be suspected. Dr. Dinsmore was on this ridge one day and noticed a flat limestone rock. Knowing that it had no place in the loess, he began digging to ascertain the reason for it being there. At a depth of a few inches he found bones, and soon unearthed a number of skulls, with only his hands or a stick. Coming back later with tools, he found, in all, 56 skulls. Afterwards he found others, and persons in the neighborhood have exhumed many more. The deposit represents a communal burial, from a village which probably stood on the level creek bottom not far away. A few skeletons showed an attempt at orderly arrangement. These were probably of individuals who had not been dead long at the time of the general burial. Most of the bones, however, skulls and others, were piled in the smallest possible area, as if gathered up in sacks or baskets from previous burials and carried here for reinterment. The soil is so loose as to be easily dug with the hands, like sand; but at the same time so fine and close packed as to shed water almost like a roof. Owing to the steep slope at every point, except toward the summit of the ridge, there must be some erosion, and consequently the age of the burials can not be great. Yet, the same conditions prevail in other places where a great antiquity is claimed for the remains. Frost necessarily disintegrates the soil to some extent; the wind or rain carries away the loosened portions; and this process is continuous. The shape of the mound shows that when the burials were made the ridge was essentially identical in form with its present aspect. The bones also are comparatively fresh in appearance, and it may be considered certain that they can not date back many generations.

On the top of a hill rising from the opposite side of Mosquito Creek Dr. Dinsmore found a low mound, which, like that just described, would not have been suspected as such but for a stone projecting from the surface. Under this stone, with 8 inches of earth intervening, was a skull so completely mineralized that it appears to be carved from a block of limestone. No other portions of the body to which it belonged remained, though traces in the surrounding earth showed that at least the larger bones and perhaps the entire skeleton had been deposited.

Bones in other parts of the mound were in their natural condition; that is, they were not altered from their ordinary appearance, although only in fragments. It is remarkable that this entire cranium should thus change while all the other bones, even the jaw, had disappeared. The description of this find is from Dr. Dinsmore, who has the skull in his office. Possibly he may be in error in stating that traces were found of other bones belonging with it. These may have belonged to another individual. The soil is ordinary sandy loess, containing lime but not in such quant.i.ty as to account for this alteration. Perhaps the skull may be from an older burial somewhere, the petrifaction having taken place before it was buried here.

RULO, NEBRASKA

Particular attention was paid to conditions a mile north of Rulo, where it is reported that human skeletons were found in the Kansan drift. It was not the intention of the discoverer to have it understood that these remains were in undisturbed drift, but such is the impression that has gained credence.

At the settlement of the country by whites the road constructed across a ravine here, on the section line nearest the river about three-eighths of a mile away, followed the natural contour and the crossing was made without difficulty. Since then a deep washout has worked its way to some distance above this point, making a long bridge necessary. From the head of the washout to the Missouri River the banks are vertical, or nearly so, on each side of the little stream.

It was in the bank on the south side that the bones were found. It is stated they were 7 feet under the surface; if so there must have been a mound above them, for the lowest excavation does not reach over 5 feet below the present level of the ground, and at that extends slightly below the bottom of the grave.

Within 40 years the Missouri River, which is now more than a mile away toward the Missouri sh.o.r.e, flowed at the foot of a slight bluff terminating the slope from the high land toward the west; there was formerly a steamboat landing on the upper side of the ravine. On the lower side is a triangular area of about an acre, bounded by the bluff, the river bank, and the ravine. This was an excellent location for an Indian village or camp. A narrow level strip extends from the mouth of the ravine to a point near the bridge, some distance above where the remains were found. It is quite clear that the skeletons were the remains of individuals who had died at the camp on the river's bank and had been carried here for burial. This may have occurred within the last hundred years or in fact at any time while the Indians were still living in this vicinity.

The flood level of the Missouri is not more than 15 feet lower than the level s.p.a.ce along the sides of the ravine. The little intermittent stream has cut down this depth through a deposit which is composed of river sediment, wash from the hills on each side, and material carried from higher levels by the brook itself in rainy seasons. At only one point is there a real glacial deposit, and this does not extend for more than 50 feet horizontally, and does not reach to the top of the bank. It is at some distance from the graves, and may be due to a lobe of the ice or to an iceberg. However formed or deposited here it has no relation whatever to the skeletons. In a sense, the material in which they were buried is "Kansan drift"; but it is drift which has been redistributed and has come into its present position within a few centuries at the most.

NEAR HOWE, NEBRASKA

Mr. Sam P. Hughes, who lives near Howe, has done considerable excavating in that vicinity. He is an intelligent man and an ardent student, but his ideas in regard to the age of his discoveries need much revision downward. His chief work has been done north of Howe at a place 9 miles from the nearest point on the Missouri River. Here is a small level area at the end of a ridge sloping away in every direction except at the narrow isthmus connecting it with the fields beyond, which are at a level only slightly higher. Thus there is no chance for any acc.u.mulation from the adjacent surface. On this ridge are a few lodge sites which Hughes has excavated. In every respect they are similar to lodge sites reported from other localities in this region. The walls, the depression, the floor, the fireplace, are all the same. The depressions are filled with earth to a depth of 18 to 22 inches above the level of the old floor; and Hughes reports that wherever he has dug on this ridge he has found flint chips, charcoal, fragments of pottery, and sc.r.a.ps of bone to about the same depth. Next below the soil is the Kansan glacial drift; but the a.s.sertion that objects found at this depth are of the same age as the drift is not necessarily or even presumably correct.