Human remains from McKinstry Mound two

McKinstry Mound 2 is a burial mound of the Blackduck Culture located in northern Minnesota. The mound had been disturbed many years before it was excavated, complicating the interpretation of MNI counts. Several possible methods for extracting meaningful MNI information from a disturbed site are explored. Mortuary practices included postmortem disarticulation and defleshing, creation of openings into the occipital bone, construction of clay funerary masks, and use of red ochre. Similar clay masks and occipital openings from other sites in the Great Lakes region are discussed. Possible temporal changes in Blackduck mortuary patterns are evident at this site. The health of this skeletal population is investigated using a number of techniques and the results compared to those from a nearby Laurel burial mound. Significant differences likely existed between the health of these two populations.