122 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 176 



or exterior of the post. It is possible, of course, that evidence of such 

 an opening had been destroyed. It is also possible that this small 

 enclosure had originally supported a second story or platform, but 

 if so the whole unit would have been unusual. If such a second level 

 had once been used, it is also possible that the first level had not been 

 furnished with any direct access, and had been a closed, dead space. 

 Relatively few artifacts were recovered near this southwest angle 

 of the stockade, and there is, therefore, little hint of the use of this 

 area, as, for example, the site of a blockhouse. 



Despite the lack of documentary or archeological evidence that Fort 

 Pierre II had been provided with blockhouses, it should be repeated 

 that evidence of such blockhouses may have been obliterated during 

 cultivation. Elsewhere, at the site of Fort Berthold II (a part of site 

 32IML2, a site not disturbed by cultivation prior to excavation), little 

 evidence of the former existence of its two blockhouses was found on 

 excavation, though photographic and other pictorial record was avail- 

 able of their former existence (Smith, MS.). In that instance, the 

 blockhouses had been built of hewn and fitted horizontal timbers, 

 apparently set directly upon the surface of the ground without foot- 

 ings, but no physical evidence of them had remained in place. 



It is worthy of note that for "Ft. Galpin," apparently used 1857-59, 

 the statement was made (as noted on p. 93) that the post was similar 

 to Fort Pierre Chouteau except that it lacked "bastions" (i.e., block- 

 houses) . The description of "Ft. Galpin" as having been only par- 

 tially stockaded suggests that the establishment may never have been 

 completed, or blockhouses added during its short existence. Wliat- 

 ever the actual reasons for omitting such defensive features at the 

 later post, their absence is a hint of important changes that were 

 occurring in the trading posts at this period. 



The site of a dwelling (House-site A) was first observed during 

 trial blading of the north part of the interior of the present site, in 

 the remains of an incomplete platform of unfired adobe-clay bricks, 

 regularly laid, probably in adobe mortar (pi. 20, «) . Associated with 

 this structure, probably a chimney base, were a small ash pit and 

 loose adobe bricks and fragments, which had been accidentally fired 

 on one or more surfaces, together with a few loose kiln-fired red brick 

 and brick fragments. This ash pit was not a true hearth pit, in 

 which fire had been laid directly, and lacked extensive scorching such 

 as would have resulted from such use. It appeared rather to be an 

 ash accumulation from a chim,ney, associated with random adobe 

 brick tumbled from the chimney, which had previously been accident- 

 ally and indirectly fired by the heat of a stove used with the chimney 

 or subsequently, upon destruction of the building by fire. 



The incomplete adobe-brick-paved platform lay outside the building 

 lines, which were marked throughout a part of their extent, contigu- 



