NO. lO NEBRASKA ARCHEOLOGY — STRONG 299 



what they could of the old settled and horticultural life, or else, like 

 the Arapaho and Cheyenne, gave up the attempt and took over the 

 entire horse complex with its consequent nomadism and parasitism 

 based on the bufifalo herds. In Nebraska, to judge from the archeo- 

 logical and historical records, such tribes as the Pawnee later at- 

 tempted to compromise between the two types of life and apparently 

 failed at both. It can be said, therefore, that although the Dakota mode 

 of life typifies the Nebraska area subsequent to 1650, the old Pawnee 

 type was certainly predominant prior to that time. The same can 

 undoubtedly be said in regard to the Arikara and Mandan on the 

 Upper Missouri, and this probably applies to all the central and east- 

 ern plains area. 



Taking the bare outlines of Nebraska prehistory as a tentative 

 cross-section of the Plains area generally, it appears that pure hunt- 

 ing cultures dominated the region during two main periods. The 

 first began with the men who hunted the ancient bison and the mam- 

 moth and extended for an indefinite period beyond ; the second 

 began with the introduction of the horse and ended with the dis- 

 appearance of the modern bison. Between these two periods, which 

 mark the beginning and the end of Plains Indian history, it now ap- 

 pears that there was a third period of considerable but as yet 

 undetermined duration, when horticulture played at least an equal 

 part with hunting in the economic life of the central plains. It is 

 this horticultural stage in the development of Plains culture which has 

 either been overlooked or disregarded in the majority of ethnological 

 theories bearing on the region. 



The fact that the Plains area generally has produced or supported 

 a considerable variety and succession of culture types indicates that 

 its environmental limitations are not so drastic as have often been 

 believed. Not only hunters but primitive agriculturists as well have 

 flourished in the region, and these cultures, while relatively simple, 

 do not exhibit that striking uniformity which characterized the 

 mounted tribes of the region in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 

 turies. Moreover, it is already apparent from the definite corre- 

 spondences between tribal cultures and geographic areas in Nebraska 

 during the early historic period that even this one State contains 

 several distinct topographic regions quite capable of shaping human 

 culture. Hence one must conclude that the much stressed uniformity 

 of Plains culture in its closing phase was in the main the result of 

 historic forces rather than the direct result of environmental factors. 

 The environment, it is true, furnished a steppe or open country and 

 the great bufifalo herds, but historic accident alone accounts for 



