64 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



CAMPS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLE IN SEDGWICK COUNTY, KANSAS. 



BY J. E. MEAD, WICHITA. 



In the first exploration and settlement of the country adjacent to the Little and 

 Great Arkansas rivers, in what is now Sedgwick county, Kansas, there were no 

 evidences of previous occupation by savage or civilized people, such as mounds 

 or broken pottery; and implements of stone were rarely found upon the surface. 

 Yet the country was known to be a favorite camping-ground for Indian tribes, 

 affording unlimited supplies of game, timber sufficient for their use and shelter, 

 and pure, unfailing water in abundance, with fertile soil easily cultivated. 



The alluvial soil, lacking stone on the surface, or cliffs of rock, furnirihed no 

 material for enduring monuments or inscriptions. 



The mound-building people did not flourish here, at least did not build mounds 

 upon the convenient bluffs east of the river. If mounds were made in the valley, 

 the tramping of buffalo and blowing winds may have reduced them to the common 

 level. It is therefore evident that in seeking for traces of prehistoric peo])le who 

 may have occupied this valley, we must look beneath the surface; and here the 

 expected evidence is found. 



In 1864 the writer established a trading-post between the rivers, two miles above 

 their junction, in a walnut grove, where converging bends of the rivers bring 

 them near together, affording a beautiful and commanding location. Here hun- 

 dreds of Indians camped, came and went, and built houses of logs or- poles. Ten 

 or fifteen years later this ground was a cultivated field, nothing indicating that it 

 had been a scene of busy life, except a few stones and broken dishes; but every 

 year the plow turns up, from deep in the ground, numerous stone implements of 

 some former age and people, and unlike any found elsewhere in the country. The 

 arrow-points, peculiar, all of one pattern, triangular, very small and delicate, lack- 

 ing the usual notches, chips, and partly worked flint cores, show they were made 

 where found. The material was similar to the chert formation about Joplin, Mo. 

 Stone axes, and spear-points of jasper, were occasionally found, but no pottery. 



Four miles south of Wichita, on the west side, eighty rods from the river, on 

 the farm of Mr. Eldred, is the site of an ancient camp or village. Here are plowed 

 up decayed pottery and very beautiful arrow-points of a reddish stone, skillfully 

 notched, and all of uniform make and appearance, entirely unlike those above de- 

 scribed, evidently made by a different people from a different pattern, and of ma- 

 terial brought from some other source. 



East of the river, on Chisholm creek, two miles south of Wichita, in excavating 

 earth for brick making, there were found, one or two feet beneat hthe prairie sod, 

 numerous broken and one entire vessel of pottery ; also spear-heads and scrapers. 

 Near the mouth of the same creek there is an old camp, covering eighty or more 

 acres; here are plowed up pottery, arrow-points, knives, scrapers, hoes, axes, ham- 

 mers, pipes, and grinding-stones, of many different patterns and material; among 

 others, jjipes and unworked stone from the red pipestone quarries of Dakota. 

 These can be seen in the collection of Mr. Frank Ford, at Wichita. A few years 

 since, the caving of a bank on the Little river exposed a pottery vessel six feet 

 beneath the surface. No obsidian or painted and glazed pottery has been found in 

 these camps, which indicates that they were not of, or visitors to, the Pueblo people 

 of New Mexico. 



The Indians who frequented this region since it was first known to white men, 

 did not make or use pottery ; and as none has been found upon the surface, I con- 

 clude these camps may have, some of them at least, been made and occupied by 

 unknown tribes many ages past. 



