NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 275 



Other group is represented here. This should become clear when the 

 archeology of the historic and protohistoric Siouan tribes has been 

 undertaken. One significant fact, however, is already evident, and 

 that is the dissimilarity that exists between the Nebraska culture and 

 the later Pawnee cultures. This is particularly marked in the pottery 

 characteristic of these cultures but extends into other cultural features 

 as well. 



The Upper Republican culture, like the above, is marked by numer- 

 ous small, scattered villages which exhibit no attempt at close organiza- 

 tion or defense precautions. The remains of this culture seem to 

 center on the Republican and Loup Rivers in the heart of the historic 

 Pawnee territory but extend still farther to the west and north. Ap- 

 parently, they occur in Kansas as well, but the archeology of this State 

 is still obscure. From the amount of subsequent accumulation of un- 

 mixed soil over certain of the abandoned sites an antiquity rather 

 similar to that of the Nebraska culture is suggested. This belief in 

 contemporaneity is strengthened by certain general similarities in house 

 type, disposal of the dead, and the nature of the total artifact com- 

 plex (excepting pottery) that exists between the two cultures. More- 

 over, both Sterns and the writer found a few Upper Republican type 

 rim sherds mixed in with the typical Nebraska culture remains on 

 the plowed surface at the Walker Gilmore site. 



At the Butte site in extreme northeastern Nebraska the relationship 

 between these two types of pottery appears to be even more com- 

 plex, suggesting that some sort of cultural amalgamation may have 

 occurred in the north. In this region the range of the sedentary 

 Siouan tribes and the Caddoan Arikara seems to have overlapped in 

 protohistoric and prehistoric times. Omaha ethnology strongly indi- 

 cates early and close contacts with the Arikara in this area ( Fletcher 

 and La Flesche, 191 1). The latter were evidently derived from the 

 generalized, prehistoric Upper Republican culture and, if the historic 

 Omaha and Ponca prove to be derived from the prehistoric Nebraska 

 culture, such a fusion would be expectable. Elsewhere the ceramic 

 complexes of the Nebraska and Upper Republican cultures differ very 

 markedly, and since slight though seemingly persistent differences 

 occur in their remaining cultural content, it would appear that the 

 two had persisted for some time side by side, very much as the Cad- 

 doan Pawnee and the sedentary Siouan tribes did in the historic 

 period. In both cases there appears to have been mutual borrowing of 

 traits, but the two cultures, at least in the central and southern por- 

 tions of Nebraska, seem to have maintained their own integrity. 



