REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 23 



yielded potsherds and artifacts of stone, bone, and horn, as well as 

 rare objects of copper, iron, and glass. Charred maize and squash 

 gourd rinds indicate horticulture, but quantities of animal bones 

 suggest that subsistence was primarily by hunting. Contrary to 

 expectations, Puebloan influences were almost negligible. Aside from 

 the stone-walled ruin and nearby prewhite irrigation ditches, there 

 was a bare handful of sherds, some painted, and a few incised clay 

 pipe fragments presumably attributable to late Southwestern stim- 

 ulus. Numerous bell-shaped roasting pits and large irregular trash 

 pits, as also the great bulk of artifacts recovered, show close relation- 

 ship to sites of the prehistoric Dismal River culture of southwestern 

 Nebraska. No houses of indigenous type were found. Wliatever the 

 relationship between these remains and the Pueblo structure, it is an 

 interesting historical fact that in early contact times the western plains 

 were inhabited by Apache and Comanche bands, some of whom appear 

 to have followed a semihorticultural mode of life. 



Just outside the north entrance to the Park a small burial ground, 

 probably much older than the above, yielded two long-headed skele- 

 tons and several secondary interments. With the skeletons were 

 broken tortoise shells, tubular bone beads, and chipped flints, includ- 

 ing one heavy-stemmed arrowpoint of woodland type. Persistent 

 search failed to disclose any evidence of an associated village or 

 camp site. 



About 20 miles east, on Salt Creek in Lane County, Kans., remains 

 of a different type were found. On and just below the surface of one 

 site were materials attributable to the Upper Republican culture of 

 southern Nebraska. Two small pit houses, each with four center 

 posts, were worked out. Along with shallow middens nearby, they 

 yielded typical pottery, arrowpoints, a bone fishhook, and other mate- 

 rials, but no direct proof of horticulture. Separated from this de- 

 posit by a barren stratum up to a foot thick was a second cultural 

 layer. From this came thick cord-roughened sherds and large- 

 stemmed arrowpoints markedly unlike the top-layer materials. This 

 second horizon, evidently linked with some Plains woodland mani- 

 festation, had been intruded by both pit houses. Lack of time pre- 

 cluded investigation of what may be a third cultural horizon underly- 

 ing both of the above. 



These researches seem to show that in Lane and Scott Counties 

 there were at least two groups of prehistoric pottery-making peoples. 

 On stratigraphic grounds, those bearing a woodland culture preceded 

 others with Upper Republican af&liations; neither appears to have 

 been in contact with southwestern peoples. Still later, in proto- 

 historic times, a third complex, assignable to the Dismal River cul- 

 ture, occupied the area. This sequence parallels that in western 



