478 BUREAi: OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 194 



presence of any European trade material in this association, pottery 

 now known to closely resemble that of the Riggs site north of Pierre 

 was foimd. Not knowing at that stage of researches in the Plains 

 what prehistoric Arikara pottery looked like, it was assumed by us 

 that the difference in pottery at these two levels was due to the rapid 

 deterioration of the potter's art under White trader influence and the 

 introduction of metal vessels. Numerous heavily grassed sites along 

 the Missouri River showed similar lodge outlines, but the Logan 

 Museum site maps of that time, and those prepared by Will and 

 Spinden, were drawn to indicate circular lodges, it being assumed that 

 surface disturbances by wind and water must have altered their 

 original circular outlines. 



A few years later, the North Dakota Historical Society with WPA 

 funds excavated extensively in that State and confirmed the existence 

 of rectangular lodges at Huff site in North Dakota. This find was 

 followed by numerous similar discoveries by W. H. Over and E. E. 

 Meleen working in South Dakota. In 1952, Woolworth excavated 

 "Grandmother's Lodge," known by my informants as the "Sacred 

 Lodge of the Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies" who was held in reverence 

 by the Hidatsa, Crow, and Mandan. This lodge was found to con- 

 form to the same general rectangular dimensions of lodges in certain 

 village sites downstream along the Missouri River to Chamberlain, 

 S. Dak. These discoveries provide us with a new image of the cul- 

 tural history of the region. 



When field researches there were first undertaken, it was generally 

 assumed that agricultural villages were not at most more than a few 

 hundred years old. As early as 1924, George F. Will indicated that 

 certain sites near the southern border of North Dakota, which his 

 Mandan informants claimed were older than those at the mouth of 

 Heart River, had types of pottery which he identified as characteristic 

 of the older sites of Cannonball, Fort Rice, Shermer, Glencoe, Eagle's 

 Nose, Bad Water, Holbrook, and Ward. He distinguished them from 

 the later sites such as Slant, Motsiff, Scattered, Boley, Sperry, and 

 Burgois. My Hidatsa informants identify only Scattered as their 

 ancient residence. 



A cultural history of the village Indians has been slow to evolve 

 for a number of reasons: (1) The early researchers assumed that 

 agriculture was late to reach the river valleys of the Great Plains and 

 that the relatively homogeneous culture of the Hidatsa, Mandan, and 

 Arikara which they saw in Historic times was characteristic of the 

 entire period of their residence in the Plains ; (2) knowing only one or 

 two local areas, they had little knowledge of the large number of sites, 

 running into the hundreds, which dot virtually every well-drained 

 river terrace; and (3) methods and techniques for observation and 



