150 INDIAN- mi i iij; PLAINS 



greater pari of the culture traits described in the preced- 

 ing pages originated in pre-( folumbian times. Our next 

 problem, then, is to determine which of these originated 



first. 



To assign relative ages to pre-Columbian advances 



in Plains culture we can proceed only by interpreting 

 the facts at hand. A people living in tents and packing 

 their belongings with a few dogs could scarcely be ex- 

 pected to leave behind them ruins or earthworks, but 

 only traces of cam]) fires, heaps of bones, and here and 

 there a stone tool. This is just what thearehaeologi-t- 

 have been able to find in the area occupied by the t ypical 

 tribes, named and located in our introductory chapter. 

 Of stone objects, there are arrow-heads, lance heads, 

 knives, scraper blades, grooved hammers, and club 

 head-, grooved rubbing stones for smoothing arrow- 

 shafts, pipes, etc. Bone objects are not so indestruct- 

 ible as the preceding, but when surviving consist of 

 skin-dressing tools, awls and other perforators, wedges, 

 pattern markers on skins, quill flatteners, knives, arrow 

 points, whistles, beads, and other ornaments. Pottery 

 is absent. Thus even a general enumeration of the 

 objects found in archaeological collections from the 

 heart of the Plains, indicates that the tribe- of the 

 buffalo country never rose above the cultural level of 

 nomadic hunters. 



Though it is true that no ruins or earthworks are to 

 be found out in the Plains there are some evidenc 

 habitation. Camping places are marked by circles <>t' 

 stones used to hold down the edges of tipis, the lines of 



