[Illustration: PLATE 6 SKULL FROM GOAT BLUFF CAVE, PHELPS COUNTY, MO. a, Front; b, profile]
[Illustration: PLATE 7 SKULL FROM GOAT BLUFF CAVE a, Front; b, profile]
[Illustration: PLATE 8 SKULL FROM GOAT BLUFF CAVE a, Front; b, profile]
[Illustration: PLATE 9 SKULL OF CHILD FROM GOAT BLUFF CAVE a, Front; b, profile]
[Illustration: PLATE 10 FLINTS FROM GOAT BLUFF CAVE]
[Illustration: PLATE 11 BONE AND ANTLER IMPLEMENTS FROM GOAT BLUFF CAVE]
[Illustration: PLATE 12 BONE AND ANTLER IMPLEMENTS FROM GOAT BLUFF CAVE]
[Illustration: PLATE 13 a, Cairn six miles north of Arlington, Mo. b, Walled grave six miles north of Arlington, Mo.]
About 65 feet in, near the west side, an inverted pot which shows no marks of use was found in a mass of ashes filling a cavity the size of a half bushel, which had been dug in the upper deposit. Scattered here and there among the ashes were also some mussel shells and broken deer bones; but the presence of these was probably not intentional, as the whole arrangement seemed to have the nature of a votive offering. This was the only perfect vessel found in the entire course of the explorations. It is of the ordinary "cocoanut form," and is represented in figure 6.
Seventy feet in was a skeleton, on the left side; the bones were soft and came out in small fragments. This was fully 6 feet below the present surface, but some of this earth was piled up from earlier excavations.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Pot from Goat Bluff Cave.]
Beyond this point the ground had been dug over to such an extent that further examination seemed useless, and the work was concluded.
Throughout the deposit of black earth, ashes, and roof dust were scattered irregularly arrowheads and knives of flint, some types of which are seen in plate 10; mussel shells; fragments of bones from food animals; bone perforators, some of which are shown in plates 11 and 12; potsherds; hammers; pestles; two or three mortars; a grooved stone ax of granitic rock, presented in figure 7; and an abundance of flint chips.
There is a small cave near the top of the bluff facing the Gasconade, a short distance above the mouth of Little Piney. Within a few yards of the entrance earth and rock carried in from a sink on top of the hill fill the cavity to the roof. Water runs through after every hard rain.