4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



examined by parties from the University of Nebraska. About 8 weeks 

 were devoted to excavation of houses and middens at the Burkett 

 site near Genoa and at the Gray- Wolfe site north of Schuyler. All 

 but one week of this field-work was in direct charge of the present 

 writer, under the supervision of Dr. Strong and with much active 

 assistance in the field from Mr. Hill. A detailed description of the 

 findings has been published recently by the University, and the 

 remains have been assigned to the "Lower Loup Focus of an 

 unnamed aspect of the Upper Mississippi Phase." ^ A wealth of 

 additional information has since been gathered by Mr. Hill for the 

 Nebraska Historical Society at three other protohistoric sites near 

 Genoa. This latest work, completed in 1936 and as yet unpublished, 

 included the opening of 10 houses, a number of large and prolific 

 caches, and the collecting of several thousand artifacts, all at sites 

 lying within 4 or 5 miles of the Burkett site. Pending future analysis 

 and detailed comparison, it must suffice to say that preliminary exami- 

 nations indicate a close similarity between this material and that 

 already described in print from the Burkett and Gray- Wolfe sites. 

 In passing it may be noted also that extensive surface collections 

 from most of the other protohistoric sites in the immediate locality 

 diverge in no significant respect. In short, a fairly uniform and 

 consistent cultural complex seems to be manifested at the sites 

 designated on the map as belonging to the Lower Loup Focus. 



Plistoric archeology in Nebraska received added stimulus in the 

 summer of 1935, when Hill explored the large protohistoric Leary 

 site on the Nemaha River in the extreme southeastern corner of the 

 State. This has been elsewhere described and identified as Oneota. 

 Midwestern archeologists are inclined to view the Oneota culture 

 in Iowa and adjacent States as possibly early Siouan.* There are 

 indications that the Leary site was inhabited contemporaneously with 

 or possibly slightly earlier than the known sites of the Lower Loup 



differ from historic sites in that the written records are too general to permit 

 their individual identification with villages actually visited by white men. In 

 time they antedate 1800. 



^ Dunlevy, 1936, pp. 147-248 (quot. p. 216). A discussion of the placing of 

 the Lower Loup Focus in the McKern taxonomic system is beyond the scope 

 of this paper. However, it may be pointed out that at least four of the nine 

 Upper Mississippi Phase determinants listed by Deuel (F. C. Cole and T. Deuel, 

 Rediscovering Illinois, table 2, p. 214, 1936) are unreported from the Lower 

 Loup Focus and incidentally from the historic Pawnee as well. The present 

 writer regards as debatable the assignment of either complex, or of a hypo- 

 thetical aspect which might include both, to the Upper Mississippi Phase. 



*Hill and Wedel, 1936; Griffin, 1937. 



