pLp. N^.' S^tY* ^°°^ SOLDIER SITE — ^NEUMAN 309 



below the lip. The flattened lip slopes slighty downward toward the 

 vessel exterior and is 8 mm. wide. The interior suface is smooth, 

 almost polished in appearance, and dark gray to black. The exterior, 

 tan to dark brown, has faint, vertical, cord-paddled impressions ex- 

 tending a short distance up the rim. Both specimens are abundantly 

 tempered with fine to medium-sized grit particles. The largest rim 

 was located at a depth of 1.6 feet in square N145W15. The other rim 

 came from a depth of 2,1 feet in square N145W20. These fit the 

 descriptions of the plain Great Oasis pottery reported by Lloyd A. 

 Wilford (1945 pp. 35-36; 1955 p. 138). Elden Johnson, of the Uni- 

 versity of Minnesota, examined the sherds and stated "The fiat-lipped 

 rims . . . are identical to Wilford's Great Oasis undecorated 

 rims" (Personal communication March 24, 1961). Other Great Oasis 

 sherds have been collected from at least four sites in South Dakota ; 

 the Oldham site (39CH7) in Charles Mix County (Cooper, 1955, p. 

 60), and the Gavins Point site (39YI^203) in Yankton County (Hall, 

 1961). In November 1960, this writer was allowed to examine the 

 private collection of Mr. Francis Deuder of Ree Heights, Hand 

 County. The collection included a number of decorated Great Oasis 

 rims from the Ree Heights Buffalo Kill site (39HD3). Finally, 

 sherds bearing some resemblance to Great Oasis pottery are men- 

 tioned in the Swanson report (Hurt, 1951, p. 38). The comparison is 

 made with the type Chamberlain Incised Triangle; Hurt notes that 

 ". . . none of the Chamberlain Incised Triangle found at the Swanson 

 site has a cord-marked body like Great Oasis pottery." This should 

 make little difference in the comparison, since a fair percentage of 

 Great Oasis wares do not have cord-paddled exterior surfaces (Wil- 

 ford, 1945, p. 36). It is worth mentioning here that a wooden post, 

 excavated from a rectangular house at the Swanson site was analyzed 

 at the University of Michigan carbon-14 laboratory ; it was cataloged 

 M-839 and dated A.D. 858 ±250 years. 



In a 1949 publication Wilford refers to a vessel and some sherds 

 ". . . which are clearly of the Great Oasis type" and speculates that 

 they may represent prehistoric Omaha pottery because they are from 

 the Ryan site (25DK2) which is thought to be a burial place for the 

 Omaha "Large Village." The vessel and its resemblance to Great 

 Oasis is mentioned again in Wilford's 1955 report. John L. Champe, 

 of the Laboratory of Anthropology, University of Nebraska, permitted 

 an examination of this vessel and another from the same excavation. 

 The specimens excavated in 1939 are from a natural mound designated 

 25DK2A near the town of Homer in Dakota County, Nebr. Stanley 

 Bartos, Jr., supervised the excavations and his notes, on file at the 

 University of Nebraska, state that the mound measured 125 feet 

 north-south, 20 to 50 feet east- west, and had a height of 2.5 feet (also 

 see Champe, 1946, pp. 117-118). It contained prehistoric secondary 



