At five Little River focus village sites in Rice and McPherson counties, Kansas, so-called council circles are probably the most notable features present. Each consists of a low central mound surrounded by a ditch or a series of depressions (borrow pits) or both. No village site has more than a single circle. At the only one yet excavated (Tobias site), elongate house pits arranged around a patio within the ditched zone formed a structural complex which is apparently unique in Plains archaeology. The houses were built of poles and grass, earth-covered wholly or in part, and had evidently been destroyed by fire. The covering fill contained numerous large boulders and scattered human bones, some fire-blackened. From their plan and contents, it is suggested that these house complexes were special-purpose structures; from their demonstrated orientation, it is further suggested that one of their functions may have been to record solstitial sunrise (and sunset?) points on the horizon.
Plains archaeologists have usually devoted little attention to the bird remains that normally comprise a relatively minor portion of the yield from their excavations. Bird bones from several archaeological sites on the Missouri River are shown to have been purposefully and selectively modified by man. They exhibit a remarkable similarity to prepared bird skins and other ceremonial objects found in Omaha, Osage, Arikara, and other Plains Indian medicine bundles in various museum collections. The ethnographic specimens are believed to identify the archaeological remains as to function; conversely, the archaeological materials add important time perspectives to native use of the ritual items in museum collections and in the documentary record.
Archeological materials from 8.5 meters of deposits in a stratified rock shelter in the Absaroka Mountains near Yellowstone National Park provide a projectile point sequence and cultutral record beginning more than 9000 years ago, and include evidence of human occupation durnig the Altithermal period.
This paper re-examines the thesis, which still persists in some quarters, that limited surface-water supplies, scarcity of through-flowing streams, a generally harsh environment, and shortage of wood for tipi poles, stakes, and fuel, because they precluded year-round occupation of the High Plains, would also have made regular seasonal residence and through-travel by pedestrians extremely difficult or impossible. A review of historic Indian occupation and natural resources, notably distribution and nature of the water supplies, suggests that seasonal residence patterns were entirely feasible for prehorse Indians, and that travel in and through the region, except in times of severe drought or winter storms, would have been practicable for experienced plainsmen, even on foot. The potential significance to archaeology of the larger perennial springs in and around the shortgrass country is noted.
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