64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
In the fall of 1921 Mr. W. E. Myer investigated sites in 
South Dakota and western Missouri, known to have been 
occupied by the Omahas and Osages in early historic times, 
after they had come in contact with the whites but before 
they had been changed thereby to any considerable extent. 
Especial attention was paid to any resemblance to the 
ancient cultures found in the valleys of the Ohio, Cumber- 
land, and Tennessee Rivers. ‘This line of research was sug- 
gested by certain traditions of both the Omahas and the 
Osages, and other branches of the great Siouan linguistic 
family, that they had at one time lived east of the Mississippi 
River, and after many wanderings, stopping here and there 
for years, finally reached their present homes in South 
Dakota and western Missouri. 
Mr. Francis La Flesche reported that the traditions of his 
people, the Omahas, were that they had occupied two im- 
portant villages on what the Omahas call “the Big Bend of 
the Xe,” at some time in the seventeenth or eighteenth 
century. 
Mr. Myer was enabled to locate these two ancient villages; 
one, Split Rock site on the Big Sioux River, at its junction 
with Split Rock River; the other where the Rock Island Rail- 
road now crosses the Big Sioux River, about 10 miles south- 
east of Sioux Falls. It is here designated the Rock Island 
site. 
Sometime in the seventeenth century the Omahas and— 
Poncas removed from the Pipestone region in Minnesota and 
finally, after some further wanderings, built a fortified town 
on the Rock Island site. While living in this fortified place 
they were attacked and defeated by an enemy, most probably 
the Dakotas, and finally forced to leave the region. There 
is a tradition that they buried their dead from this fight in a 
mound. ‘This tradition was confirmed by excavations made 
by Mr. A. G. Risty and Mr. F. W. Pettigrew, who report 
finding a considerable amount of human bones. Some glass 
beads and small copper bells of white man’s make were also 
found in one of these mounds. There is evidence that this 
site was occupied somewhere between 1700 and 1725. 
