364 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1951 



one village left off and another started. However, there are exam- 

 ples showing that villages sometimes might contain as many as 18 

 to 35 or 40 houses. The houses were of the earth-lodge type. The 

 floors sometimes were on or slightly below the original surface of the 

 ground, while in other instances they had been excavated to a depth 

 of 6 to 20 inches. They were roughly rectangular in form. The 

 superstructure was supported by four to six large posts set at approx- 

 imately equal distances from the single central fireplace. The outer 

 walls consisted of a series of smaller posts set in the ground around 

 the periphery of the floor. Rafters probably extended from the 

 outer walls to the smoke hole above the fireplace. Brush, grass, and sod 

 were then placed as a roof cover. The outer walls probably were 

 enclosed by interwoven willows and grass and seemingly were banked 

 around the outside with earth. The houses had entranceways extend- 

 ing outward 8 to 10 feet from a point near the center of one wall. 

 The entranceways were 2 to 4 feet in width, and their floors usually 

 were on the same general level as that of the house. Occasionally, 

 however, the floor of the entrance was excavated below the general 

 level to facilitate drainage. The entranceways usually opened to 

 the south but examples were found where they faced the east, south- 

 east, or southwest. Midden or refuse areas generally were located 

 at the end and around either side of the entranceway. Outside stor- 

 age pits were also dug near the entrances, but a more common place 

 for them was beneath the house floors. After such pits had served 

 their purpose for the storage of vegetal products they frequently were 

 used as dumj^ing places for refuse. 



Artifacts associated with such houses consist of potsherds, stone 

 and bone implements, objects of antler, and a limited number of shell 

 ornaments. The storage pits yielded charred kernels of corn, corn- 

 cobs, sunflower seeds, charred nuts, and mellon or squash seeds ; also 

 bison bones, fish bones, crayfish, and shells from fresh-water mussels. 

 The economy obviously was one based primarily on agriculture with 

 hunting a secondary feature. During the period that the River Basin 

 Surveys' work was being done the Nebraska State Historical Society 

 excavated 14 house remains in 6 Upper Republican village sites in 

 the Medicine Creek basin, and the material and information obtained 

 from them is being correlated with that from the other locations. 



Evidence from the two village sites where the Woodland variant 

 occurred shows that the house type was much less developed than that 

 of the Upper Republican. The dwellings were of the semisubterra- 

 nean type, with the floors 12 to 18 inches below the ground level. The 

 superstructure, while fairly permanent, was rather flimsy and prob- 

 ably had a roof of brush with a grass and bark or skin covering. The 

 houses were grouped rather closely with a maximum of four to six 



