LIV REPORT OF THE BUKEAU OF ETHNOLOGY. 



Mr Miiideleff concludes that the ruins of the lower Yerde 

 valley re})resent a comparatively late period in the history of 

 the tribes living in pueblos. He infers also that the period of 

 occupancy Avas not a long one. His estimate of the prehistoric 

 population is notably moderate. His careful drawings and 

 other illustrations of the ruins, based on careful surveys and 

 measurements, will, it is believed, be found of great and per- 

 manent value. 



OMAHA DWELLINGS, FURNITURE, AND IMPLEMENTS 



The northern plains of central United States are in many 

 ways antithetic to the arid southwest ; the rainfall is consider- 

 able, and fairly distributed throughout the year ; the water- 

 ways are shallow, so that the flowing and gi'ound waters are 

 accessible to animals and within easy reach of the roots of 

 plants ; and a fairly luxuriant flora and lich fauna have long 

 occupied the region. At an unknown yet probably not 

 remote period, measured in years, and well within the recent 

 time of geology, the bison spread over the plains, and by 

 reason of exceptionally favorable conditions soon became the 

 dominant animal form of the region, pushing far into the 

 mountains on the west and still farther into the woodlands on 

 the east. The development of living things is a succession of 

 contests against enemies or inimical conditions, and a domi- 

 nant form, animal or vegetal, soon comes to be beset on all sides 

 by enemies, and frequently the development of the enemies 

 follows hard upon the development of the dominant organ- 

 isms; but the American bison seems to have come up with 

 such rapidity as to outstrip the development of natm-al ene- 

 mies ; and the gi'owth of the species chanced to be so related 

 to the aboriginal occupation that it was first controlled and 

 afterward checked by human agency. While the buff"alo and 

 the jjlains Indians Avere contemporaries, each influenced the 

 other in some measure ; and on the human associate, at least, 

 the influence was potent. Some students have opined that, 

 by reason of the extension of the bufi'alo into the cis-Missis- 

 sippi woodlands, the Indians of the interior were transformed 



