Bowers] HIDATSA SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL ORGANIZATION 483 



sentially alike and to differ in several respects from the contempora- 

 neous Mandan living near the mouth of the Heart River. The 

 diagnostic traits of this Painted Woods Focus are: Circular earth 

 lodges with a well-defined atutish area or section; absence of 

 specialized ceremonial lodges, open circles, or ceremonial areas; in- 

 discriminate arrangement of lodges; absence of fortifications; distinc- 

 tive pottery types and ranges not characteristic of the contemporary 

 Mandan sites nearby. Type "S" rims fall weU below the range for 

 the Mandan while thickened rims, formed by the addition of a narrow 

 band, are common. The incidence of check-stamped rims runs as 

 high as 18 percent of the collection at the Fort Clark Station site a 

 few miles downstream from the mouth of the Knife River. Check- 

 stamped pottery bodies comprise 40 percent of the collection at the 

 Upper Sanger site, and cord-roughened bodies comprise 6.6 percent 

 at the Fort Clark Station site. 



The contemporaneous Mandan sites show numerous differences 

 from these identifiable earliest Hidatsa sites on the Missouri River. 

 Lodges were identical for both groups and had the well-defined 

 atutish section. The Mandan preserved an open area within the 

 village, a specialized ceremonial lodge distinctive in structure from 

 the habitation lodge, and a plaza complex consisting of an upright 

 cedar post, an adjacent ceremonial lodge, and habitation lodges which 

 faced the open circle. 



There were numerous similarities in the pottery of the two tradi- 

 tions, the Mandan villages of the Heart River Focus and the Hidatsa 

 villages of the Painted Woods Focus, which indicate that there had 

 been a long period of intervalley contacts prior to the arrival of the 

 Hidatsa on the Missouri. Evidence of this association is borne out by 

 the fact that, trait for trait, these early Hidatsa sites on the Missouri 

 closely resemble several sites in southeastern North Dakota along the 

 lower section of the Sheyenne River. At the Shultz site near Lisbon, 

 the pottery types and frequencies of types more closely resemble that 

 found on the Missouri River in sites of the Painted Woods Focus than 

 that found in traditional Mandan sites only 2 or 3 mUes away. Check- 

 stamp ware was never characteristic of the Missouri Valley or Chou- 

 teau traditions on the Missouri, but is very common in southeastern 

 North Dakota and thence northward into Canada. It is found 

 in the Devils Lake area and westward into the Mouse River drainage 

 and thence westward to the Yellowstone River as far west as Forsyth, 

 Mont., in a region that in late prehistoric times was traditionally 

 occupied by the various Hidatsa and Crow groups. It appears 

 occasionally in the Mandan sites near the Heart River by the time 

 of the establishment of the Huff and Shermer sites, at least a century 

 prior to the building of the fii'st Hidatsa villages on the Missomri. 



