6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 93 



practical divisions in attacking a problem as vast as this one promises 

 to be. Far from apologizing for such an arbitrary limitation, the 

 writer hastens to emphasize the fact that as far as Nebraska itself is 

 concerned the present work has been a mere sampling of a very prom- 

 ising field. It is at best an introduction to a series of important prob- 

 lems and in no sense purports to be a final report. 



That the more recent work may assume significance in relation to 

 that which had already been accomplished, a fairly exhaustive resume 

 of previous archeological work in Nebraska has been included. More- 

 over, since comparative recency of white occupation in the region 

 permits the determination of many historic aboriginal sites with un- 

 usual exactitude, considerable emphasis has been put upon this line 

 of approach to the past through the historic present. In all cases the 

 conscious efifort has been to approach the unknown through the known, 

 the prehistoric through the historic. In actuality there have been 

 deviations from this ideal, but where followed out this top-to-bottom 

 method has yielded the best results. Few regions seem to promise 

 more fruitful returns to a closely combined historical, ethnological, 

 and archeological approach than do the Great Plains, and Nebraska 

 has not proved a disappointment in this regard. In addition, since the 

 interior plains of North America ofifer a si^ecial environmental setting 

 for human development, the physical geography of Nebraska has 

 been outlined in an efifort to determine whether any correlation exists 

 between cultural types and topographic, climatic, and biotic subareas. 

 The direct purpose of all these lines of approach is to obtain a cross- 

 section of human history in the central part of the Great Plains. 



To the writer, ethnology and archeology, far from being isolated 

 studies, are actually two inseparable means to an essential end — the 

 attainment of the most complete understanding possible of human 

 culture at all places and in all times. The more complete data of 

 ethnology permit certain deductions concerning the past, but these 

 can be objectively checked only when the archeological record is also 

 known. To ignore those important aspects of any human society 

 that can be understood solely by reference to the historic and pre- 

 historic past, is as inadmissible scientifically as it is fraught with 

 danger from the practical standpoint. In two earlier studies (1927 

 and 1929) I made an attempt to present and analyze the available 

 data on social and ceremonial life among the native peoples of the 

 Southwest. From these ethnological data certain conclusions regard- 

 ing the history and development of social institutions in the area 

 seemed evident. Checked against the very full and objective record 



