74 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



sistence was based partly on horticulture, partly on hunting and 

 gathering. Pottery of distinctive type — grit-tempered, often with 

 paddle-marked surfaces and loop handles — was plentiful (fig. 70). 

 Also abundant were small triangular flint arrowpoints, end scrapers, 

 knives, drills, arrowshaft smoothers, grooved mauls, and mealing 

 implements. Bonework included awls, needles, stemmed projectile 

 points, fleshers, wedge-shaped paint "brushes," arrowshaft wrenches, 

 and unidentified forms. There were well-turned L-shaped pipes of 

 red sandstone, and finely chipped blades of chert. Outstanding finds 

 include a coiled basket (fig. 71, left) preserved by charring, and 

 the remains of a necklace of blue glass, bird bone, and turquoise 

 beads. Far-flung trade contacts are evidenced by obsidian from Yel- 

 lowstone or the Southwest, by turquoise and glazed-ware potsherds 

 from New Mexico, by banded chert from aboriginal quarries near 

 Maple City, Kans., and Hardy, Okla., and possibly by other items. 

 There is some reason to believe that secondary burial of the dis- 

 membered dead, possibly in special structures, was practiced. 



Glass, iron, and similar evidence of trade with white men was 

 extremely scanty. Puebloan sherds from storage pits and middens 

 have been identified as late Rio Grande glaze-ware types dating from 

 1525 to 1650. A badly rusted mass of interlocking iron rings, identi- 

 fied as chain mail, may or may not be attributable to Spanish contact. 



Excavations in the Walnut Valley near Arkansas City showed 

 that similar remains exist here. There were no house or burial sites, 

 but among the artifacts taken from storage pits were additional 

 puebloan sherds (ca. 1 525-1650). Lack of time prevented more than 

 a brief test at a large and very promising mound site on the river 

 bluffs east of Arkansas City (fig. 72). Throughout, it should be 

 noted, there was a gratifying willingness on the part of landowners 

 and others to cooperate in the work. 



Despite their preliminary character, the investigations show that 

 in very early historic days central Kansas from Rice County east 

 to Marion County and south to Oklahoma was dominated by a semi- 

 sedentary, partly horticultural people with a comparatively uniform 

 and somewhat distinctive material culture. The marked scarcity of 

 European trade goods, coupled with the rare but consistent occurrence 

 of datable pueblo sherds, suggests that these sites may have been in- 

 habited during the period of Spanish exploration in the sixteenth 

 and early seventeenth centuries. Further detailed studies may 

 strengthen the growing suspicion that they are of Wichita origin and 

 possibly represent some of the Quivira villages seen by Coronado, 

 Jumana, Bonilla, and Ohate. 



