A Late Woodland Burial from Platte County, Missouri

A skeleton of a female discovered in a grave located on the west bank of Short Creek, Platte County, Missouri provides some of the first evidence for mortuary practices and human morphology for the Western Missouri-Eastern Kansas Late Woodland. The burial is a bundle type, with most of the bones placed in a central heap. Analysis of the distribution of the bones indicates that some soh tissue was still adhering to the skeleton at the time of the secondary burial. Bones of the right hand and foot and the vertebral column from cervical 7 to the coccyx are the only remains preserved in anatomical order. Many of the long bones appear to have been broken and there is also some evidence for burning and fleshing of the skeleton before final interment. Measurements of the cranial and post-cranial skeleton are given for comparison with future Late Woodland discoveries.