Riv. Bas. Sur. deMERY SITE WOOLWORTH AND WOOD 129 



Pap. Pso. d4j 



13, includes both flaring rims and recurved ("S-shaped" and "col- 

 lared") rims, as well as a few residual, unclassified examples. Eighty 

 percent of the rims are flared or straight, with recurved rims of all 

 varieties comprising the remaining 20 percent. There is more varia- 

 tion in design on the recurved rims than on the flaring rims, largely 

 because the cord-impressed designs occur nearly exclusively on the 

 recurved rims : cord impressions occur on flared rims only on the four 

 rims described as Examples A-D. Decoration frequencies are as fol- 

 lows : horizontal incising, 44.8 percent ; oblique incising, 3.7 percent ; 

 cord- impressing, 6.1 percent; and plain or indented 45.4 percent. 



The affiliations of pottery groups 1 to 15 are not susceptible to ready 

 generalizations. Typological considerations intimated, even before 

 excavation, that the site was heterogeneous, and that it contained a 

 ipixture of ceramic traits typical of two geographically separated and 

 culturally distinct groups. While superposition did establish the fact 

 that 2 pottery types of the Thomas Riggs Focus — Riggs Cross- 

 Hatched and Riggs Straight Rim — predate the major occupation of 

 the site, the remaining 15 groups still convey an impression of hetero- 

 geneity, yet they appear to be characteristic of the major occupation 

 by the Demery Component. 



Three of these fifteen groups are tentatively identified as types 

 described from other sites. Group 1 resembles the type Talking Crow 

 Straight Rim, as described from sites in central South Dakota (Smith, 

 1961 ; Smith and Grange, 1958) . Groups 6 and 7 are tentatively identi- 

 fied as the types Fort Rice Cord-Impressed and Fort Rice Trailed, as 

 described from the Huff site (Wood, MS. a) of the Huff Focus. Many 

 of the other types from Demery, including Groups 2-3 and 8, seem to 

 be related to pottery from central South Dakota, including that of 

 the La Roche and Shannon Foci, and the Arzberger site. Ceramic- 

 ally Demery is "transitional" between sites of the Chouteau Aspect 

 and those of the Huff Focus. This is not to say that Demery is 

 simply a fusion of these two complexes, but it seems obvious that its 

 predecessors drew heavily upon sources both to the north (Huff 

 Focus) and to the south (Chouteau Aspect) for its roster of material 

 culture. 



The Demery site is on the west bank of the Missouri River immedi- 

 ately south of the North and South Dakota boundary. Village sites 

 are plentiful along both banks of the Missouri River to the north and 

 south, but collections from nearby sites yield no pottery that suggests 

 they are closely related to Demery. The material from the site cannot 

 be correlated with any known site within the limits of North Dakota. 

 Demery may be regarded as a site-unit intrusion (Willey, 1956, pp. 

 9-11) into the area, since it appears as a distinct complex in an area 



