Archeological Investigations Part 7

PHILLIPS CAVE

The Phillips Cave faces Roubidoux Creek near the Big Spring, a mile south of Waynesville. Access to the interior is possible only by crawling some distance on wet clay. Other caves in the same line of bluffs are either very small or almost inaccessible. No refuse appears about any of them.

BELL'S CAVE (18)

In the upper part of the bluff bordering Roubidoux Creek just west of Waynesville, on the farm of Robert A. Bell, are numerous caves, most of them quite small. One, much larger than any of the others, has an entrance 27 feet wide and 12 feet high. The floor is of earth mingled with small rocks, and rises gradually toward the rear until at 70 feet it almost reaches the roof, although the open s.p.a.ce enlarges farther in. The width of the cave varies from 19 to 32 feet. Several large rocks have fallen from the roof and walls at a comparatively recent date, as they lie directly upon the earth or are only slightly imbedded in it.

Sh.e.l.ls and flint flakes occur in small amount, but the cave is so difficult of access that it was probably but little used.

Some human bones, rooted out by hogs, were scattered over the floor; only a few remained, the hogs having chewed up most of them. Part of a femur belonged to a person about 18 or 20 years of age. A skull and part of a lower jaw, lying several feet apart but belonging to the same individual, were secured; they are shown in plate 17, c, d. Few of the teeth remained, though all had been in place at the time of interment.

CAMP-GROUND CAVE

This is three-fourths of a mile west from Waynesville. It is small, with a muddy bottom, and could never have been occupied.

BUCHER CAVE

Bucher Cave is 2 miles northeast of Waynesville. It has a small, low entrance, nearly closed by a pile of chert gravel mixed with some clay, which has been carried by surface water from the slope above.

GRAVES NEAR MCKENNAN'S

On a low spur, projecting about halfway up a high hill opposite McKennan's house, 2 miles northeast of Waynesville, are two of the ordinary stone graves or cairns, both small. One has been torn apart; the other is intact.

They are mentioned only because in the one which has not been disturbed the stones are sunken at the center, affording good evidence that timbers were placed over the corpse before the stones were piled up.

ROUBIDOUX CAVE (19)

In a vertical bluff overlooking the junction of Roubidoux Creek and the Gasconade River is a cavern with a high, wide entrance giving access to a large chamber which has several smaller but well-lighted rooms opening into it. There was formerly a considerable depth of earth on the rock bottom, but most of it has been taken out for fertilizer. What is left is dry near the entrance, but wet farther in.

Although it would make an ideal Indian home, being easy of access and within a few rods of the two streams, there could be found no indications of such habitation; and owing to the small amount of earth remaining, the presence of many large rocks, and the close proximity of a large club house on the public highway immediately in front, no excavation is possible.

A cairn on the point of the cliff over this cave has been completely demolished.

RICHLAND CAVE (20)

There is a large cave at the head of a ravine a fourth of a mile below the bridge over the Gasconade River, on the Richland and Hanna road, 7 miles from Richland. The entrance is 70 feet wide and 40 feet high; daylight extends to a point 200 feet within, where the cave divides into two parts, both of which turn abruptly. Cave earth near the entrance on one side is scanty in quant.i.ty, damp and moldy; but beyond this it is dry, unevenly surfaced, and appears to have been somewhat disturbed. There is considerable refuse on and in the dry earth as far back as the inner end of the front chamber, and were it not for the many rocks, too large to be removed, which cover nearly the entire floor and would make excavation very difficult and incomplete, the deposits would probably repay investigation.

ROLLINS CAVES (19)

On the farm of Sam T. Rollins, 2 miles northwest of Waynesville, are two large caves.

The first, in a bluff facing the Gasconade, half a mile above the mouth of Roubidoux Creek, is 50 feet above the bottom of the hill. The entrance, toward the northeast, is 45 feet wide and 36 feet high. The sides are parallel for 45 feet; at that point the east wall abruptly recedes for 12 feet and then continues in a curving line for 120 feet farther, to an outlet in the side of a shallow ravine trending toward the west. This opening, 13 feet wide, is filled nearly to the top with debris which slopes steeply for 40 feet into the cave.

The west wall, at 45 feet, makes an outward curve to a branch which leads northwest for 25 feet and has an opening on the side of the hill 25 feet wide and 20 feet high; the talus at the front is 12 feet high and slopes steeply into the cave. Beyond this branch the west wall extends in a straight line to the small outlet at the ravine.

The floor of the cave has a gentle incline from the bottom of the debris in the rear to the main entrance.

No refuse could be found in the cave or around any of the three entrances; and the place would not be suitable for a shelter in winter as the wind, no matter from what direction, blows directly through it.

The second cave is near the foot of the hill, half a mile up the river from the first. A gentle slope in front leads to the bottom land along the stream. The entrance, toward the northwest, is 60 feet wide and 10 feet high. At 65 feet within is standing water; marks in a channel along the west wall show that at times there is an outflow with a depth of a foot or more. At the front is a great amount of talus partly fallen from the ledge forming the roof, partly washed down from the hillside; the outer slope is 20 feet high, the inner slope has a slight incline to the standing water. The entire deposit within the cave and in front of it is of tough, sticky clay. Many large rocks lie on the surface or slightly imbedded, and large trees grow on the talus. No indications of occupancy could be discovered.

MIX CAVE (21)

On the Mix farm, half a mile below the Gasconade bridge on the Waynesville and Crocker road, on the left (west) side, at the head of a ravine, is a cave with an entrance 75 feet wide and 20 feet high.

Cave earth, apparently not more than 3 feet thick at any point, although it gradually rises to a level 6 feet higher than the floor at the mouth, extends back 80 feet; beyond this is water-soaked clay and gravel reaching 60 feet farther to a turn in the cave, making a distance of about 140 feet in daylight. There is a shallow channel 12 feet wide along the east wall from the gravel to the entrance; evidence that at times a volume of water of that width flows out of the cave. The cave earth is damp for several feet from the line of its contact with the clay, a certain indication that its lower portion is saturated.

Much refuse, including several mortars, is distributed over the floor, and it is especially apparent in the bed of the little stream; but fully half the surface is covered with rocks too large to be removed, and these, together with the water, will effectually prevent satisfactory excavation.

One of the mortars has a grinding cavity on one face 12 by 20 inches and 3 inches deep at the middle; on the other face, which has been pecked, apparently with a flint tool, to make it level and even, is also a cavity, but it is small and shallow, showing that this side of the stone was but little used.

DOUBLE CAVE (21)

On Walter Miller's farm, 1 miles below the Crocker and Waynesville bridge, on the left side of the river, is the "Double Cave," so called for the reason that it has two entrances. The one farthest down the river is more nearly in line with the general trend of the cavern. Its opening is 35 feet wide and 20 feet high. At 40 feet in from the mouth, on the left or up-river side, the two parts of the cavern unite, a triangular part.i.tion of the original limestone strata separating them up to the point of junction. Across the apex of the triangle the main cave is 50 feet wide; there is no vertical wall on the right (east) side along this portion, the roof sloping down gradually until it meets the earth floor; it may extend farther, making the cave that much wider at the bedrock bottom. The cave earth at its highest point is fully 10 feet higher than at the entrance; but this may not mean that it is 10 feet deeper, for there are indications that the rock floor also rises from the entrance toward the interior.

Digging in the front part of the main cave--that is, in the portion behind the lower entrance--would be impracticable owing to the huge rocks, some of them lying on the floor, others deeply imbedded in the earth; consequently part of them, at least, fell while the cave was inhabited.

From the junction of the two branches the cave earth extends back 60 feet to clay and gravel washed down from the interior; there is ample light at this point, and for some distance beyond. In part, this gravel seems to overlie the loose earth; it is still depositing, and the manner in which the various materials intermingle and overlap at their meeting place indicates that the cave earth to some extent underlies the gravel and clay. This feature is worth investigating, as it might have a bearing upon the relative age of the cave deposits.

The entrance to the branch cave is 20 feet higher in the face of the bluff than that of the main cave, and consequently much above any water flowing from the interior; it is 20 feet wide by 15 feet high.

Measured along the east wall, it is 40 feet from this entrance to the apex of the triangle separating the two parts of the cavern. The greatest width of the united caves, 70 feet, is just beyond this point. The earth floor in the branch, a fine-grained yellow earth apparently deposited by quiet or gently flowing water, is 3 feet higher than it is at the highest point farther back in the cave, and is 4 feet or more higher than the bedrock at the front. No direct communication is possible, in front, from one entrance to the other.

The only means of transference is by pa.s.sing through the caverns around the triangular part.i.tion, or by going down to the talus from one opening and then up to the other; though only a few feet of descent is necessary. There is an easy pa.s.sage to and from the Gasconade, which flows at the foot of the bluff; and a good path in either direction to the top of the hill.

Very little refuse occurs, and the site is not worth examining.

RAILROAD CAVE

On railway property, north of the Gasconade River on the east of the Waynesville and Crocker road, is a noted cave which "runs clear through the hill," and can be entered from either end. From the descriptions given it certainly could never have been utilized as a dwelling place.

BAT, OR PAGE, CAVE

Bat Cave, so named because it formerly harbored immense numbers of bats, is on Robert Page's land, 4 miles from Crocker, near the Waynesville road. The entrance is 40 feet wide and 30 feet high. Cave earth extends for more than 200 feet in plain daylight; at this depth the cave separates into two branches, one directly over the other. The lower division continues into the hill on a level; the upper rises at a slight angle; neither is high enough to permit a man to stand erect.

The greatest width, a few rods from the front, is 55 feet. A drainage channel near one wall shows a considerable outflow in wet weather. In the low, vertical bank of this drain, gravel and small rocks are mingled with the earth in such quant.i.ty as to comprise more than half the ma.s.s. But this is probably due to the fact that a large quant.i.ty of earth, mostly, of course, from the upper part of the deposits, has been taken away for fertilizer. Neither in the bank of the little channel nor about the pits left by this digging is any refuse to be seen, and there is none about the entrance. So, in spite of its suitability for residential purposes and its favorable situation, it does not seem ever to have been utilized.

TUNNEL CAVE (22)

A fourth of a mile from the Bat Cave is a natural tunnel or underground pa.s.sage which has its beginning in a deep sink hole half a mile away on the farther side of the hill. Into this depression pours all the water that comes through a ravine more than 4 miles long, receiving several tributaries on the way; thus draining several hundred acres of steep hillsides from which storm water runs off almost as quickly as from a roof. From the sink hole it pa.s.ses into the upper end of the tunnel, an opening 10 feet high and 20 feet wide.

Trash and drift around this inlet show that the water rises above its top.