t6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



Kansas. The present sample is small, however, and does not permit 

 definitive conclusions. 



At site 25FT39, situated on a high terrace on the right bank of 

 Medicine Creek about 3 miles above the dam site but within the future 

 pool area, two earth-lodge floors were cleared. Both had apparently 

 been burned on abandonment, and contained large quantities of broken 

 pottery. This included several restorable vessels which had been 

 resting on the floor, bottom side up. The interior of one of these had 

 been coated with a red film. Fragments of two human skulls came 

 from a cache pit in house i, and portions of another were found in a 

 cache in house 2. Grinding slabs for crushing corn or seeds, and 

 made of limestone, were found in both houses. In addition to the 

 pottery, there were stone, bone, and other artifacts. 



Two similar house floors and a midden area were excavated at 

 site 25FT17, which lies atop a ridge that will be a part of the west 

 end of the dam. House i yielded comparatively few artifacts, other 

 than a representative series of potsherds of Upper Republican type. 

 Unusual is the finding of one rim fragment with shell tempering. 

 Two coarsely tempered, cord-roughened body sherds of apparent 

 Woodland type, were found slightly below the house floor level, sug- 

 gesting that remains of an earlier occupation may underlie the ruins 

 of the earth-lodge village. House 2 yielded much broken pottery of 

 Upper Republican types, as well as an abundance of bonework, in- 

 cluding awls, bison-scapula digging tools, a fish hook, and other 

 objects. Of interest were two ground-stone celts, as well as the usual 

 chipped forms, A refuse area approximately 250 feet northeast of 

 house I was dug, and from it was taken a good series of Upper 

 Republican pottery, bone, and stone specimens. Another extensive 

 refuse deposit on the slope east of house 2 was not opened. 



With the work done by the Nebraska State Historical Society 

 earlier in the season, seven house sites were opened by year's end in 

 the lower Medicine Creek Reservoir area. All may be attributed to 

 the Upper Republican horizon ; variations from site to site may be 

 due to time or group differences, or may represent merely inadequate 

 sampling. Charred kernels of corn occurred at nearly all sites, which 

 is in line with what we know of the semihorticultural practices of the 

 people. Charred post and beam samples, and some badly decayed post 

 sections, were collected, from which it may be possible ultimately to 

 date the occupation. 



The remains found during the above researches represent only a 

 fraction of those that will be affected by reservoir construction. It is 

 already obvious that not less than two periods of occupancy by pottery- 



