NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY STRONG 279 



Butte II yielded no human skeletal remains at all, but level III con- 

 tained partial and infant burials in crude cists, and a seated adult 

 burial. No dwelling remains were found in any level. Signal Butte I 

 has deeper fire pits and small, often stone-lined, storage pits. Shallow 

 fireplaces and irregular storage pits occur in levels II and III. Ceram- 

 ics are entirely limited to level III, suggesting that pottery was in- 

 troduced into the western plains in relatively late prehistoric times. 

 Signal Butte I is characterized by a relative abundance of fragmen- 

 tary grinding slabs and a few pestles, shaft smoothers, grooved mauls, 

 and a notched ax. Ovoid lap stones occur in Signal Butte II, but in 

 general the peoples who occupied levels II and III seem to have picked 

 up the majority of their larger stone artifacts from the outcrops of 

 level I. This is one of several indications suggesting that occupations 

 II and III were sporadic and transitory compared to the long, continu- 

 ous inhabitation of level I. 



A marked change in types of projectile points occurs on the butte. 

 The people of Signal Butte I preferred a leaf-shaped point of medium 

 to large size, especially one with a concave base, very similar in out- 

 line to the Folsom point (pi. 25, fig. i, o). This level I type, which 

 occurs only occasionally as an intrusion in the upper levels, links 

 Signal Butte I with other, and presumably earlier, cultures. It is the 

 only type other than the typical, longitudinally grooved, Folsom type, 

 so far known to occur in the Lindenmeier Folsom site in Colorado. 

 On the other hand, the Signal Butte I people also used a smaller 

 number of medium-sized to large stemmed points (pi. 25, fig. i, a-d). 

 This is a connecting link with the later Signal Butte II horizon. In 

 Signal Butte II, the predominant projectile point is a medium-sized 

 to large stemmed, and often barbed, point (pi. 24, fig. 2, e, /). By 

 the time of the level III occupation, tiny, thin, triangular points, 

 often with two notches, were predominant (pi. 24, fig. i, h, k, p). 

 Thus there is a definite change from the larger, leaf-shaped points, 

 through medium-sized stemmed points, to the small, delicate, tri- 

 angular points so common in the later prehistoric (Upper Republican 

 and Nebraska) and historic cultures (Pawnee and Arikara). The 

 common, planoconvex end scraper shows a similar transition ; in 

 Signal Butte I a coarse type with an unretouched back predominates, 

 in Signal Butte II end scrapers with unretouched and retouched backs 

 are about evenly divided, and in level III those with retouched backs 

 predominate. The occurrence in level III alone of the diamond-shaped, 

 beveled knife is another link with the late prehistoric horizons (table 

 3). In the types and abundance of side scrapers, end scrapers, re- 

 touched and unretouched flake knives, stone drills with a tiny point. 



