14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



Harlan County Reservoir, and also to some from sites in Holt, Knox, 

 and other counties in north-central Nebraska. At Harlan County, 

 limited tests revealed shallow, vertical-walled storage pits usually 

 filled with bison bones and other domestic debris. Typologically, the 

 specimens suggest a late prehistoric or very early protohistoric com- 

 plex, and one is tempted to wonder whether it may represent the trail 

 of the Arikara or an early ancestral Skidi-Arikara group moving 

 from northern Kansas through east-central Nebraska to the upper 

 Missouri. If the makers of this material left lineal descendants among 

 the known historic groups of the area, a Caddoan or possibly some 

 Siouan people would seem the most likely possibility. This, obviously, 

 is highly conjectural ; but the problem awaiting study here would 

 seem an interesting and important one, and the point of attack readily 

 apparent. 



Of quite dissimilar nature were a few thick, coarsely tempered, 

 cord-roughened sherds apparently attributable to a Woodland complex. 



Mullen Reservoir. — This locality is far up the Middle Loup River 

 in northeastern Hooker County, well within the Sandhills region. The 

 proposed dam site lies about 5 or 6 miles east of Mullen, and the 

 reservoir will be approximately 7 miles long. Eight sites of varied 

 age and origin were recorded. Judged by the surface collections made, 

 four sites are attributable to the Dismal River complex, of late pre- 

 historic or early protohistoric age, and one to a variant of the earlier 

 Woodland culture. Another yielded a few sherds of unidentified cul- 

 tural affiliations, similar to those at the majority of sites recorded from 

 Ericson Reservoir. The remaining sites yielded only stone and bone 

 implements, which perhaps represent still another horizon ; a cache 

 of more than 140 chipped artifacts was found eroding out of the bank 

 at one of these. 



At least two of the Dismal River sites are rather extensive, and 

 show certain areas that would undoubtedly repay excavation. There 

 has been virtually no excavation at sites of any horizon in the Sandhills 

 region. 



Rockville Reservoir. — This is on the Middle Loup in southeastern 

 Sherman County, between Rockville and Loup City, and a few miles 

 above the confluence of the Middle with the South Loup. At time of 

 the reconnaissance, many of the more favorable terraces had been 

 freshly plowed, and conditions were unsuited to site hunting. Nothing 

 of archeological interest was located in the available time. It is be- 

 lieved, however, that further and more intensive search might be 

 worth while if and when construction is initiated. 



