44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



contiguous walls of one lodge measuring 25 feet in width by 36 feet 

 in length were uncovered, and a portion of one wall in a second. Both 

 indicated a rectangular pit-house form, apparently with straight walls 

 and slightly rounded corners. Well-preserved sections of cedar house 

 posts, from which it may be possible ultimately to determine the 

 date of occupancy, were recovered. Pottery fragments were relatively 

 plentiful ; most of the sherds have cord-roughened surfaces, and the 

 general impression is one of close relationships to the prehistoric 

 Upper Republican complex of Nebraska and Kansas. Other items 

 found include bison-scapula hoes and charred cobs indicating a 

 horticultural subsistence basis ; bone fishhooks, awls, bone and shell 

 disk beads, flakers, small, well-made notched and plain triangular 

 projectile points, scrapers, leaf-shaped quartzite knives, and drills. 

 Many of these items are also reminiscent of the Upper Republican 

 horizon farther south, and a basic relationship is implied, even though 

 the house types suggest possible eastern connections or influences. 

 It seems safe to conclude that the Somers site represents an earlier 

 time period and a different cultural complex from that manifested at 

 LaRoche. At neither was there evidence of contact with Europeans. 

 Following work at the Somers site, operations were transferred to 

 the Thomas Riggs site, on the left bank of the Missouri above Pierre 

 in Hughes County. This site, which will be flooded by Oahe Dam, 

 had been investigated briefly in 1940 by the University of South 

 Dakota Museum and Works Progress Administration. In 1947, the 

 excavation of a large semisubterranean lodge site begun in 1940 was 

 completed. Rectangular in shape, this house was outlined by a double 

 row of post molds and charred posts along each of the two longer 

 sides and a single large post (12 inches) in the center at the rear end 

 (east) and two at the front, one on each side of the entryway or ramp 

 leading down onto the lodge floor. This structure was found to be 

 65 feet long by 36 feet wide. From the limited amount of pottery and 

 other material gathered from the site, connections with the Mandan 

 are suggested. These, however, are highly tentative ; like the data 

 from LaRoche and Somers, further information and more detailed 

 analysis than has so far been possible is needed before wider relation- 

 ships of the peoples represented can be suggested. 



NORTH DAKOTA 



In North Dakota, an archeological field session was sponsored 

 jointly by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University 

 of North Dakota, and the North Dakota Historical Society. A party 



