Indian Burial Mound in Missouri

   By Horace L. Mason, Corning, Missouri. The “Mound Builders” occupied and were numerous in this portion of the Missouri River Valley, latitude 40° 17' North, longitude, 95°24' West from Greenwich. Extensive mounds now exist. I have examined their contents to some extent and sent to the Smithsonian Institute specimens of pottery that I have taken out of them. The only indication of human remains were teeth in great numbers. They were so ancient that the bones were entirely decomposed. The pottery specimens were mostly spherical shaped pots, holding about one gallon, made of material, when freshly broken, resembling slate, and from one-fourth to one-third of an inch in thickness. The outside looked as though they had been subjected to the action of fire; as though used for cooking, having an eye to accommodate a bail, resembling much in form and shape the cast iron pot of the present day, used for cooking over the fireplace. Also, open dishes from two to three inches deep, and six to eight inches in diameter, and rudely ornamented while in a plastic state, and made of the same material as before described, and about one-fourth of an inch in thickness.

   One mound in this immediate vicinity, in a good state of preservation, from one hundred to one hundred and ten feet in diameter, and six to eight feet high, situated on the Missouri bottom prairie, originally about three-fourths of a mile from the run, and near two miles to the foot of the bluffs.\

   It was formed of the soil or alluvial deposit, like the bottomlands here, except a layer at the bottom about six inches in thickness, which was brought from the bluffs. It is easily distinguished from the soil on the bottom called geologically “loess or bluff formations,” a finely pulverized marl, almost as white as sand. It must have been prepared in some manner, as when reached by the spade. We could hardly cut through it; it broke in chunks like mortar. Stone implements are rarely found here. The few specimens I have seen are entirely different from specimens frequent and numerously found in Ohio.

Megalithic Stone Chambered Burial Mounds in Missouri

Megalithic Stone Chambered Burial Mounds in Missouri

    These chambered mounds are situated in the eastern part of Clay County, Missouri, and form a large group on both sides of the Missouri River. The chambers are, in the three opened by Mr. Curtiss, about 8 feet square, and from 4½ to 5 feet high, each chamber having a passage-way several feet in length and 2 in width, leading from the southern side and opening on the edge of the mound formed by covering the chamber and passage-way with earth. The walls of the chambered passages were about 2 feet thick, vertical, and well made of stones, which were evenly laid without clay or mortar of any kind. The top of one of the chambers had a covering of large, flat rocks, but the others seem to have been closed over with wood. The chambers were filled with clay which had been burnt, and appeared as if it had fallen in from above. The inside walls of the chambers also showed signs of fire. Under the burnt clay, in each chamber, were found the remains of several human skeletons, all of which had been burnt to such an extent as to leave but small fragments of the bones, which were mixed with the ashes and charcoal. Mr. Curtiss thought that in one chamber
he found the remains of 5 skeletons and in another 13. With these skeletons, there were a few flint implements and minute fragments of vessels of clay.

A large mound near the chambered mounds was also opened, but in this no chambers were found. Neither had the bodies been burnt. This mound proved remarkably rich in large flint implements, and also contained well-made pottery and a peculiar “gorget” of red stone. The connection of the people who placed the ashes of their dead in the stone chambers with those who buried their dead in the earth mounds is, of course, yet to be determined.

It is quite possible, indeed probable, that these chambers were used for secondary burials, the bodies having first been cremated.

Prehistoric Stone Cairns Near Arlington, Missouri

STONE CAIRNS AT SUGAR TREE CAMP , 

PLATE 13 a, Cairn six miles north of Arlington, Mo

Six miles north of Arlington is a clubhouse known as Sugar Tree Camp. A short distance from the building is a high vertical cliff rising almost directly from the Gasconade. The top of this cliff, near the front, is of solid rock, almost bare of timber or brush, and in a row along it close to the edge are seven cairns, all now so defaced that any attempt at investigation is useless. The smallest, at one end of the row, is of the common circular form, about 12 feet in diameter. Three others seem to be of the same type; but their appearance may be due to their destruction. One is shown in plate [41]13, a. The other three are walled vaults. The largest, at the other end of the row, was built up like a foundation wall of sandstone slabs. It is rectangular in form, measuring on the outside 16 by 28 feet. All the walls are more or less destroyed; the small portion of one remaining is shown in plate 13, b. Two "walled-up graves" reported on the first ridge north of Sugar Tree Camp, and one reported on the first ridge south, never existed. There is a small cairn on a high peak half a mile east of the camp.

PLATE 13 b, Walled grave six miles north of Arlington, Mo.
a Front b Profile.