NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 63 



been built on or only a few inches below the surface of the ground. 

 At the Schuyler site one of the largest and finest houses of the Pawnee 

 type yet reported was excavated by Wedel in the summer of 193 1. 

 This house, the floor of an earth lodge, was 49 feet in diameter, had 

 4 large central posts, an intermediate circle of 15 posts, and an outer 

 circle of 112 posts. The entrance passage, lined with posts, was in the 

 eastern part of the house, and there were seven large cache or storage 

 pits in the northwest quadrant of the floor area. Another house here of 

 somewhat similar nature but very poorly defined was also partially 

 excavated. Two houses have been excavated so far at the Burkett site, 

 one by the writer in the spring of 1931 and another by Wedel in the 

 summer of that year. The two houses were very similar, having 4 

 central posts and only one outer row of 12 posts, with entrance pas- 

 sages to the east. The floor plan of the house excavated in the spring 

 of 1931 is given here (fig. 3). These houses resemble that at the 

 Schuyler site in being perfectly round in general plan, but are small 

 and lack the outer row of post molds. Only the second of the Burkett 

 site houses contained a cache pit, the house here figured lacking them. 

 The protohistoric caches are generally similar to those of the historic 

 period but the survey parties located no outside storage pits at the 

 Burkett site, though they have been reported at the Schuyler site. 

 Particularly interesting is the consistent use of four central posts in 

 these protohistoric Pawnee houses in contrast to the characteristic six 

 or eight employed in the later historic lodges. Since the four direc- 

 tional house posts played an important role in all Pawnee ceremonial 

 symbolism their uniform occurrence in this earlier culture is undoubt- 

 edly significant." It tends to refute Linton's interpretation of the 

 larger number of central posts in the historic Pawnee lodges as being 

 an example of late and incomplete borrowing from the Arikara or 

 their Siouan neighbors."^ Rather it would seem that the trait was an 

 old one in Pawnee culture that had disappeared in historic times save 

 for certain ceremonial vestiges. Equally interesting is the typical 

 bufifalo skull shrine in the first house excavated (fig. 3). It was 

 located directly opposite the passageway, between the four central 

 posts and against the western wall on a slightly raised earth platform. 

 The skull had been burned, apparently on the destruction of the lodge, 

 but with it were charred " shrine sticks " and the only Caucasian 

 artifacts found in the house, a few crude and possibly native-made 

 glass beads and small pieces of sheet copper, testifying to its cere- 



See Murie, 1914, for the symbolism connected with the four-post motif. 

 'Linton, 1924, pp. 247, 248; compare Wedel (no date). 



