Riv. Bas, Sur. 
Riv. BAS. Sy SMALL SITES ABOUT FORT BERTHOLD—METCALF 25 
the base on the outside (Ewers, 1944, pp. 183-184). As Ewers points 
out, the Blackfoot structure is, essentially, a tipi with added elabora- 
tion in the form of an angling entrance and encircling breastwork, 
“., . it may be considered as a specialized form of tipi among a 
tipi-using people” (ibid., p. 191). 
In the same way the Hidatsa-Mandan hunting lodge with its four- 
post central foundation and with sides formed of leaning poles may 
be considered a modification of the earthlodge used in the villages of 
these tribes, with the winter earthlodge occupying an intermediate 
position between them. 
The use of small lodges of this type may be a widely spread Plains 
trait with considerable historic depth. In 1941 a Nebraska State 
Historical Society field party excavated a house floor in south-central 
Nebraska that yielded only a single rimsherd, which was assignable 
to the Historic Pawnee Horizon. In the floor a central fireplace was 
present between five postholes which were arranged in a circle about 
it, but no outer ring of postholes was present (Field Notes, 1941, 
25WT7. Nebraska State Hist. Soc. files). Other floors of the same 
type but with four posts about the central fireplace and of comparable 
age and cultural affiliation are known from sites in central Nebraska 
(Field Notes, 1940, 25N2, 25PK1, 25PK2, 25PK3. Nebraska State 
Hist. Soc. files). Less closely related, but in the same general pattern, 
are the structures suggested for the Dismal River Aspect in Nebraska 
(Hill and Metcalf, 1941, pp. 170-171; Champe, 1949, pp. 286-287). 
More closely resembling the hunting lodge, except in being semi- 
subterranean, are the floors occasionally found in Upper Republican 
sites in Nebraska. A description of only one has, as yet, been pub- 
lished (Wedel, 1934, p. 145), but data are available on a number of 
others (Field Notes, 1939, 25GY4, 25HW6; 1940, 25N10, 25N8. 
Nebraska State Hist. Soc. files). 
Lodges of this type, assignable to the Upper Republican and Dismal 
River complexes, seem to have been integral parts of the villages. 
Later ones, although present in one village, seem generally to have 
stood alone and may have served to shelter gardeners whose fields 
were at a considerable distance from the village. The structures 
recorded in the ethnological literature for the northern Plains were 
hidden in dense thickets or groves, generally close to streams, in 
places where their remains may be rarely discovered by the archeolo- 
gist owing to destruction of the sites by flooding and/or lateral erosion. 
It seems certain that the hunting lodge of the Mandan and Hidatsa, 
with its four-post foundation, is a modification of the larger and more 
complex earthlodge. Whether or not it is related to similar and 
earlier structures to the south is a question that may never be satis- 
factorily answered. 
