Riv. Bas, Sur. 
Pav. No. 27] STAR VILLAGE—METCALF 71 
ately available to the north and east. Despite its natural advantages 
the Arikara occupation of the terrace was destined to be a short and 
tragic one. 
The site has never been under cultivation and stands out plainly 
on the terrace with house and ditch remains clear and well marked 
(pl. 14). In 1951 tall prairie grass covered the ditch and the plainly 
visible ring-mounds which marked the sites of the structures which 
once formed the village. Depressions marked the positions of caches 
and borrow pits. The large house rings showed little tendency toward 
alinement except along the north side of the site, where they were 
closely spaced and tended to be arranged in rows parallel to the 
long axis of the site. Somewhat west of the center of the site was an 
especially large ring-mound which local people insisted marked the 
site of the ceremonial lodge or “dance lodge” as they referred to it. 
A large open space had been left in front of this structure, and 16 
house rings formed a circle about it and the associated plaza in front 
with an irregular circle of mounds present outside the first. The re- 
mainder of the house rings were placed without order (map 3). The 
village arrangement, while compact, was less so than at Rock Vil- 
lage (82ME15), an earlier site believed to be attributable to the 
Hidatsa. It was also somewhat less compact than such earlier sites 
as the late component of 89ST1 at the mouth of the Cheyenne 
River, the upper component of the Dodd site (89ST30), or the 
Phillips Ranch site (39ST14), all of which are tentatively assigned 
to the Arikara. Many of the house sites showed traces of an 
irregular depression, sometimes shallow, but occasionally rather 
deep, at the outside edge of the ring-mound, a trait previously noted 
enly for the Leavenworth site (Strong, 1940, p. 366). These are 
considered to represent borrow pits from which earth was taken to 
bank the sides and cover the roofs of the lodges. No occupational 
debris was present on the surface of the site, and little was found 
in the excavations. No trace was found of a midden. 
A rectangular feature outlined by low earth banks was present 
outside the ditch, southwest of the village. We were told that this 
marked the site of a log house occupied by a white trader who was 
with the Arikara during their sojourn at the site. Excavation did 
not substantiate this identification. 
The earliest mention of this site appears to be in a report from 
Samuel N. Latta, United States Agent, Upper Missouri Agency, to 
Hon. William P. Dole, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and dated 
from Yankton, Dakota Territory, August 27, 1862. Latta writes: 
“June 5—Arrived at Fort Berthold. ...Same day [June 5] we 
passed to the opposite side of the river, where the Rees are building, 
upon a beautiful slope overlooking the river, their new village, quite 
convenient to a fine body of timber. They were so harrassed by the 
