NO. 10 NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 245 



to sum up the characteristics of the various sites so far excavated and 

 to determine, in so far as is possible at this early stage, into what 

 larger wholes or cultures (aspects) they may be grouped. 



GROUPING OF SITES AND SUMMARY OF CULTURES 

 REPRESENTED 



Up to the present only one major prehistoric culture has been at 

 all clearly defined in Nebraska, namely, the " rectangular earth-lodge 

 culture " of Sterns or the " Nebraska culture " of Gilder, the latter 

 designation being the one employed in the present paper. To this 

 must be added the dwelling type and artifact complex revealed in 

 the lower strata at the Walker Gilmore site, which, since its discoverer 

 used no general name in describing it, I have termed the Sterns 

 Creek culture. The foregoing descriptive sections have indicated that 

 other prehistoric culture types in Nebraska are also represented in the 

 recent discoveries. In the present section all the prehistoric sites pre- 

 viously described will be grouped according to their apparent cultural 

 affiliations, and the major units thus distinguished will be discussed. 

 The " Suggested Cultural Classification " chart in the foreword of 

 the present paper should be consulted in this regard. Naturally, a 

 number of such prehistoric sites are not yet classifiable into any larger 

 comprehensive groupings or cultures. Since the historic and proto- 

 historic Pawnee cultures have already been treated in a summary 

 fashion, they are also included in table 4, which draws together all of 

 the Nebraska archeological sites dealt with in the present paper. The 

 general location of these sites is indicated on the map (fig. i), and 

 the cultural affiliation of every site that can be so classified is indicated 

 in table 4 (p. 246). 



The Upper Republican Culture 



Since the known characteristics of historic and protohistoric Pawnee 

 culture have already been summarized, they need not be discussed here. 

 However, along the Upper Republican River and on the lower reaches 

 of the different branches of the Loup River are a number of pre- 

 historic sites which show many marked Pawnee characteristics. Since 

 the first of these sites were excavated on the upper Republican River. 

 this cultural grouping has been tentatively designated as the Upper 

 Republican culture, although the writer feels that the designation 

 Prehistoric Pawnee can eventually be applied to these sites. How- 

 ever, until the transitions between the Upper Republican culture 

 and that of the protohistoric and historic Pawnee have been entirely 



