NO. 10 NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 239 



the maximums given by Sears. The faunal material from the butte 

 gives no positive clues save that a postglacial dating for level I is 

 implied. However, recent research indicates that the Quaternary 

 paleontologic record is at present a poor gauge for chronology when 

 compared with the less spectacular but all important correlations with 

 glacial phenomena and postglacial climatic fluctuations. For North 

 America these last studies are in their infancy, but they promise ob- 

 jective results. Level II, from the same line of indirect evidence, 

 probably falls into the humid period (Prairie Sub-humid of Iowa) 

 (Sears, 1932, p. 621) of about 5.000 years ago, and level III into 

 the humid period (Sub-humid, Maize optimum of Iowa) of the last 

 i.ooo years. In this upper level (III), ceramics occur of a type that 

 is entirely prehistoric. The bulk of this pottery (Upper Republican 

 type) is identical with that of a prehistoric culture to the south and 

 east which has an estimated age of 500 years. Thus the cultural re- 

 mains in the three strata on top of Signal Butte appear to cover a 

 period of some 7,000 to 10.000 years. At the present time this en- 

 tirely tentative correlation with Sear's suggested chronology is a prom- 

 ising lead. Climatic fluctuations in postglacial time are suggested 

 on Signal Butte as well as in Iowa peat bogs. There is no royal road 

 to chronology, but the trail is being blazed by careful and conservative 

 geologists, paleobotanists, geographers, and anthropologists. 



Other Sites and Regions in Nebraska 



If one were to enumerate all the other known archeological sites 

 in Nebraska, they would make a surprisingly long list. A large num- 

 ber of these sites, as the foregoing account indicates, have been dug 

 over by curiosity seekers ; others fortunately have not been thus ob- 

 scured or ruined and await careful scientific excavation. An enumera- 

 tion or chart of such unworked sites would add little or nothing to 

 our comprehension of prehistoric problems in Nebraska, and their 

 publication at this time would inevitably lead to the loss of much 

 valuable historic data. The writer is very strongly opposed to the 

 publication of archeological maps w-hich show the location of sites 

 that have not been scientifically or completely excavated, for the 

 reason that such maps are too often merely guides for relic hunters 

 and thus defeat their own ends, which primarily envisage the advance- 

 ment of knowledge. Nearly every small town throughout the United 

 States has its quota of private collectors or relic hunters, and these 

 become active in the use of such maps long before qualified archeolo- 

 gists, amateur or professional, can carefully excavate the sites thus 



