Antiquities of central and southeastern Missouri / by Gerard Fowke.

Fowke, Gerard, 1855-1933.

Date:: 1910

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Antiquities of central and southeastern Missouri / by Gerard Fowke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

38/170 (page 20)

The north grave, extending east and west, was 7 feet 5 inches long, 3 feet 7 inches wide, and 5 feet 6 inches deep. Here the aborigines had to dig through nearly 5 feet of tough clay, which must be loosened with a pick before a shovel can be forced into it; possibly they worked only when the ground was wet. The sides and bottom of the grave were rough and lumpy, and it had evidently been excavated with pointed implements of small size, as bone, antler, or sharpened sticks hardened by heating, used as picks, prods, and levers, the marks of such tools showing in the hard earth. On the bottom lay extended, on its back, with the head toward the east, a skeleton 5 feet 9 inches long. No ribs or phalanges and only two or three cervical vertebrae remained; the skull was soft and crushed, as were the fragments of long bones remaining. The teeth were not much worn. Near the top of the head was a mussel shell, which crumbled when touched; at the neck were nine disk shell beads, with fragments of others and of mussel shell. Opposite the center of the grave, against the north wall, were teeth of a child not more than 2 or 3 years old. Twenty inches above the graves (placed there when the mound had reached that height) were the skull and large bones of an adult, care- fully piled in as small a space as they could be made to occupy. The skull and the lower jaw lay in diagonally opposite corners of the pile. On the natural surface, 20 feet from the foot of the west slope, was a thick block of limestone, weighing perhaps 150 pounds, with three smaller rocks lying against it; but there was nothing to indicate their purpose. Loose in the earth were a rough hammer stone and a few flint chips. There was nothing else in the structure—no evi- dence of two centers, or of more than one period of construction. Numerous other mounds lie along the river bluffs on both sides of Moreau creek, and also near the mouth of Osage river. Results in this vicinity had been so discouraging that none of these were opened. MOUNDS IN THE VICINITY OF HARTSBURG, BOONE COUNTY The Shaw Mounds (8) A mile southeast of Hartsburg, on the farm of Mr. James Shaw, a spur from the table-land, projecting toward the south, practically level along the top and sloping abruptly on each side, expands toward its outer extremity to a width of about 750 feet. This spur ends in a rugged descent to a precipice facing the Missouri River bottoms. Extending in a line nearly east and west across the end of the spur, the outer margins reaching down on the slope above the bluff, were 8 mounds. Five stood near together at the western terminus of the nearly level area. Three of these were never more than 2 feet high;