Three Human Skeletons From the PK Burial Sheridan County, Wyoming

Fragmentary skeletal material from a burial found near the Big Horn Moun tains of north-central Wyoming was de termined to constitute the remains of three individuals. The few artifacts in associationprovide little basis for an as sessment of cultural affiliation, however, cranial characteristics suggest a close relationship to previously studied Siouan populations. InFebruary, 1962 Mr. Donald C. Grey of Sheridan, Wyoming submitted skeletal material recovered from the PK Burial Site in Sheridan County, Wyoming to Dr. William M. Bass for identification. Assistance in the analysis of the material was given by Mr. Donald C. Lacy, a grad uate student in physical anthropology. Ac cording to Mr. Grey (personal communi cation February 14, 1962), the PK Burial Site was discovered during the summer of 1959 by a Univer sity of Illinois geology student, a member of a summer field crew based at Sheridan College, Sheridan, Wyo ming. He discovered a human skull (See Fig. 1: a, b, and c) exposed in the side of a small hilltop overlooking a rodeo cor ral on a ranch west of Sheridan. The site is located in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains. Description of the Find The student removed the skull and in tended to keep it as a souvenir. When one of the geology instructors heard of the student's find he promptly recovered the skull and brought it directly to Mr. Grey at Sheridan College to see what should be done about the discovery (Mr. Grey men tioned that possibly a second skull was involved which was not recovered ) . Mr. Grey identified the skull as Ameri can Indian and organized an archaeologi cal party to investigate whether or not there was more skeletal material to be found at the hilltop burial site. Upon arrival at the site--designated a s the PK Burial -Mr. Gr ey and hi s party found the proximal end of a human femur protruding from the soil near the top of the small hill from which the skull had been taken, and noticed also that a small amount of digging had been done around and above this femur, apparently the area near where the skull had been removed. Mr. Grey states that an inspection of the steep slope of the hill near the burial re vealed a number of friable white bone fragments which had previously weather ed out. No other surface materials which couldbe related to the hilltop bur ial were seen. Further investigation revealed that a burial pit had been dug into the side of the hill and that the bones had been placed in the pit and covered with soil. Mr. Grey thought that possibly several excavations and subsequent interments had been made in the same spot; however, the strati graphic evidence did not bear this out. A recent badger burrow had partially dis turbed the bones in the lower levels of the burial. The degree of disturbance attri 142 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.171 on Sat, 23 Jul 2016 05:13:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms buted to the burrow could not be deter mined. Mr. Grey reported that the main mass of the hill was made up of a sandy clay of the Sundance formation; the upper two feet, roughly, consisted of alluvium from the Pleistocene. A large boulder appeared in the burial pit. By noon of the first day of excavation, a step-like trench which was dug to obtain a working platform had been finished and the grass removed from above the burial. The ends of a femur and tibia were ex posed and a humerus was found a very short distance below the surface. Weath ering couldbe noted on these bones. Also at this time, Mr. Grey noted an "extra supraorbital" in the assemblage of skull fragments which had been recovered on the hillside and in the exploratory work. This observation gave the party their first evidence of a multiple burial. This situation prompted Mr. Grey (1962) to write that: At this stage a decision had to be made. The location of the site was known to a number of people, and the site was highly accessible. To do a proper job would probably require three or four days. We felt we didn't have that much time before local pothunters would de scend on the site. To plaster en case the entire burial for labora tory study would have produced a prohibitively heavy package be cause of the volume involved. We decided that we would risk no more than one night of delay. The second (and last) day of field work was used for photography, sketching and further excavation. Attempts were made to determine the positions and associa tions of the various bones before remov ing them in order to continue the excava tion. A second skull (PK-2), badly crushed, was found directly below the ribs of the individual designated as PK-1, and a third skull (PK-3) (See Fig. 2; a, b, and c) was found about two inches below the skull PK-2. Mr. Grey stated that except for the upper portion of the skeleton going with PK-1, no sense could be made of the rest of the burial in the short time they had left to do their work. He be lieves that possibly, except for PK-1, the other bones were reburials, with their bones scrambled before interment and dug through PK-1 at a later time or times. Several bone and stone beads were found scattered throughout the soil; one small shell bead was found also. Mr. Grey believes that the bone beads were made from the long bones of a medium-sized bird or possibly a rodent. Also found were a long bone tool (possibly a chipping tool) and three projectile points--one of which was found between the ribs of PK-1 in line with the heart, in the fifth inter costal space on the left side. From the photographs enclosed with the personal communication, this projectile point seems to have a concave base with cor ner-notching. Mr. Grey statedthat the other two points differed in type from this point and from each other. To Mr. Grey, one appeared to be a corner-notched point with the base broken off, and the other point was of the triangular unnotched variety. Mr. Grey stated that the point associated with PK-1 and the corner notchedpoint missing its base bore some resemblance to the type found with the Turk Burial, 48WA301 (Birkby and Bass 1963). Except for the projectile point as sociated with PK-1 (which Mr. Grey thinks may have been accidental) no other arti facts could be associated directly with any skeletal remains. None of the asso ciated artifacts were observed by the author s. Mr. Grey concluded his observations by stating: From the artifact types pres ent, and the complete lack of con tact materials, I would say that the burial dates from between 300 and 800 years of age, although that older limit could be extended back