NO. 10 NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY — STRONG 277 



is the strong probability that the historic Pawnee earth lodge is a direct 

 outgrowth of the house type found at Upper Republican culture sites. 



Equally interesting is the probability of the development of historic 

 Pawnee ceramics from the types represented in the Upper Republican 

 River culture. In regard to the predominant gray to buflf tone of 

 the ware, the use of collars or overhanging rims, the decoration 

 of such rims with incisions, and the occurrence in all three cultures 

 of a small proportion of buff ware with a red hematite slip or pseudo- 

 slip on the inner surface, the Upper Republican, protohistoric and 

 historic Pawnee are the same. It is also notable that the Lost Creek 

 focus of the Upper Republican culture has a very high proportion of 

 collars but no loop handles (the Sweetwater focus has a few), the 

 protohistoric Pawnee ware also has collared rims but in many cases 

 substitutes a series of loop handles extending from flaring lip to 

 neck, whereas the historic Pawnee rim type returns to a predominantly 

 collared type but retains in many cases attenuated series of loop 

 handles extending from lip to neck as in the protohistoric stage. Pre- 

 sumably, the function of the overhanging collar is to facilitate the at- 

 tachment of thongs or cords for suspension ; hence the development 

 noted in the three wares seems logical. The prehistoric people de- 

 pended almost entirely on such collars, the protohistoric people re- 

 tained these or substituted the more decorative row of loop handles, 

 and the rather decadent pottery of the historic period not only has 

 the accentuated collar but also retains in many cases the series of loop 

 handles of the intermediate stage. In all three wares incised decoration 

 characterizes the neck or collar of the vessels. This decoration is 

 simple and geometric in the Lost Creek focus, adds cord marking 

 to incising in the Sweetwater focus, runs to great elaboration of in- 

 cised design on handles and rims in the protohistoric period, and 

 becomes more simple, conventional, and very careless in the historic 

 period. Since at the present time we have only sampled sites of these 

 three cultures, it is not to be expected that a full series of inter- 

 mediate stages between all of them would be represented in the present 

 collections. As transition sites are excavated the writer believes that 

 a clear, unbroken line of ceramic and other development will become 

 evident. If such proves to be the case, it will be permissible to change 

 the term Upper Republican to Prehistoric Pawnee culture, although 

 further research may definitely connect this early culture type with 

 prehistoric Arikara, Wichita, or other cultures, in which case a more 

 inclusive term may be desirable. 



Other artifact types in the three cultures likewise show many basic 

 similarities, and it might be possible, even with our limited data, to 



