The direct-historical approach in Pawnee archeology (with six plates)

The direct-historical approach in archaeology assumes the existence of an analogous relationship between historic accounts and prehistoric data, serving to establish cultural identity under the basis of cultural continuity. In this article, Dr. Waldo Wedel uses the direct-historical approach to review some preliminary findings of archaeological investigations undertaken as part of an early effort to study the Pawnee culture of eastern Nebraska. The University of Nebraska Archeological Survey was established in 1929, led by Dr. W. D. Strong, in an attempt to better understand prehistoric Pawnee culture. Previous evidence existed in the form of A. T. Hill’s artifact collection and 19th century maps and narratives. After reviewing early archaeological work conducted at various Pawnee village sites, Wedel offers a comparison of traits in historic Pawnee, Lower Loup Focus, and Oneota Aspect material culture, looking for universal traits in archaeological remains from all sites. Analysis of the data reveals that the Lower Loup Focus has a greater number of parallels in terms of material traits to the historic Pawnee. Following a discussion on the presence of early European manufactured goods and evidence supporting the presence of Pawnee in the Platte-Loupe region, Wedel concludes that there exists a direct linkage between historic and protohistoric Pawnee traditions

The direct-historical approach in Pawnee archeology (with six plates)

The direct-historical approach in archaeology assumes the existence of an analogous relationship between historic accounts and prehistoric data, serving to establish cultural identity under the basis of cultural continuity. In this article, Dr. Waldo Wedel uses the direct-historical approach to review some preliminary findings of archaeological investigations undertaken as part of an early effort to study the Pawnee culture of eastern Nebraska. The University of Nebraska Archeological Survey was established in 1929, led by Dr. W. D. Strong, in an attempt to better understand prehistoric Pawnee culture. Previous evidence existed in the form of A. T. Hill’s artifact collection and 19th century maps and narratives. After reviewing early archaeological work conducted at various Pawnee village sites, Wedel offers a comparison of traits in historic Pawnee, Lower Loup Focus, and Oneota Aspect material culture, looking for universal traits in archaeological remains from all sites. Analysis of the data reveals that the Lower Loup Focus has a greater number of parallels in terms of material traits to the historic Pawnee. Following a discussion on the presence of early European manufactured goods and evidence supporting the presence of Pawnee in the Platte-Loupe region, Wedel concludes that there exists a direct linkage between historic and protohistoric Pawnee traditions

Anthropological Papers, No. 51: Observations on Some Nineteenth-Century Pottery Vessels from the Upper Missouri

Published as a bundle of anthropological works sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, paper number 51 is an analysis of 25 pottery specimens from the Upper-Missouri area. These specimens are attributed to the Lewis and Clark expedition, to army personnel, and to other travelers. The origin of the pottery is uncertain, though there are indications that some pieces may have originated from Fort Berthold, Fort Buford, and Fort Stevenson. The paper offers background on pottery making in the Upper-Missouri, noting that the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa tribes made paddle-and-anvil pottery rather than coil pottery. Further background observations help illuminate the possible history of the pottery specimens found. The paper includes illustrations and a map.https://commons.und.edu/indigenous-gov-docs/1104/thumbnail.jp

Anthropological Papers, No 45: Archeological Materials from the Vicinity of Mobridge, South Dakota

Published as a bundle of anthropological works sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, paper number 45 is a description of findings from an excavation of four burial sites which are presumed to be associated with village sites from Grand River and Elk Creek (located north of Morbridge, South Dakota). Excavation was completed by Matthew W. Sterling in 1923, described here by Waldo R. Wedel. These sites are documented as Arikara territory. The paper begins with an overview of Arikara history from 1717 forward as documented by European explorers, followed by a description of the graves excavated and the artifacts found. The report contains illustrations, tables summarizing excavation contents, and a map.https://commons.und.edu/indigenous-gov-docs/1008/thumbnail.jp

Toward A History Of Plains Archeology

First viewed by white men in 1541, the North American Great Plains remained little known and largely misunderstood for nearly three centuries. The newcomers from Europe were impressed by the seemingly endless grasslands, the countless wild cattle, and the picturesque tent-dwelling native people who followed the herds, subsisting on the bison and dragging their possessions about on dogs. Neither these Indians nor the grasslands nor their fauna had any counterparts in the previous experience of the Spaniards. Later Euro-American expeditions, whether seeking gold, converts, or furs, added many details of much interest, but likewise found no wealth of minerals, too few heathen peoples to proselytize, and no other strong inducements to permanent occupation. Exploitation rather than settlement and development was the primary objective, and the region remained a zone to be traversed as expeditiously as possible. Partly by reason of their remoteness from the main areas of white settlement, the native peoples of the plains retained their tribal identities and often colorful lifeway’s long after the entry of Euroamericans. Since early in the nineteenth century, following acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United States, pertinent observations by such persons as Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Zebulon M. Pike, Stephen H. Long, George Catlin, Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied, and a host of others less well known, have left a wealth of ethnographic information of prime importance to the scholar. Much later, the intensive field investigations by numerous competent scholars with professional training produced impressive numbers of monographs and shorter papers sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, the American Museum of Natural History, ,the Field Museum, and other educational and scientific establishments. These dealt with the material culture, social organization, religion, art, language, and cultural relationships of the Plains Indians. They involved both the nomadic, horse-using bison hunters of the western plains and their semi-sedentary, maize-growing, village-dwelling neighbors in the eastern plains. Largely neglected were such problems as the prehistoric occupations of the region and the time depth of such occupations, the very existence of which was doubted by many scholars until a surprisingly recent period. It is my purpose to examine the beginnings and early development of professional interest in the pre-white and pre-horse peoples of the plains. It has not been possible to review exhaustively or to detail all of the widely scattered and often very obscure records pertaining to the subject, but major developments in thinking on these matters can be sketched. Emphasis is on the earlier activities, up to and including the River Basin Surveys salvage program immediately after World War II. My task has been made immeasurably easier because of several previous papers concerned in varying degrees with the early development of plains archeology. These involve particularly William Duncan Strong for Nebraska, Waldo R. wedel for Kansas, David M. Gradwohl for Nebraska and Iowa, and George C. Frison for the entire region.1 EARLY OBSERVATIONS: 1800-1865 In contrast to the numerous and prolonged researches on the lifeway’s of the historic plains tribes, systematic investigations 111 plains archeology are principally a development of the last seven or eight decades, that is, since 1900. As recently as 1930, little was under way as a planned and sustained ongoing program. Interest in the antiquities of the region, however, was manifested from the beginning of American explorations of the trans-Mississippi West, soon after AD. 1800. Much of this early work was antiquarianism, some of it arrant vandalism by later standards; but it reflected a natural and growing curiosity about the visible relics of the past, in their recording or collecting for pastime or for eastern cabinets of curiosities, and often in wide-ranging speculations regarding their age and authorship. Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the attention given to archeological remains was essentially a part of the general story of western discovery and exploration in which the antiquities were seen as one aspect of the natural history of the region. As early as 1804, mindful of President Jefferson\u27s instructions that they note any aboriginal monuments along their route, Lewis and Clark reported on ancient village sites at many points along the Missouri River.2 At the mouth of the Nemaha, they described the Leary Oneota village and nearby burial mounds, leaving their initials (still unfound today) on a nearby rock ledge. Most of the upriver sites they apparently attributed to the tribes still inhabiting the region or their immediate ancestors. Like later travelers along the Missouri, they provided few details and appear to have attempted no excavations

Pawnee Geography Historical And Sacred

The earth is a fundamental religious symbol for American Indian peoples. Among horticultural and hunting tribes alike, Mother Earth is the female principle, the expression of fertility and creator of life, begetting vegetation, animals, and humans. In this elemental role she often appears conspicuously in religious rituals. For many American Indian peoples, specific geographical features on the earth also figured prominently in tribal conceptions of the sacral world. The Pawnee Indians, who formerly lived in east central Nebraska, provide an instructive example of a people who had an elaborate and unique set of beliefs about such landmarks and who incorporated these sites into their ritualism as important symbolic entities, constituting a map of the sacred on this earth. By examining these sacred sites, Pawnee beliefs about them, and their role in Pawnee ritual, and by viewing them within the broader context of other Plains Indian beliefs about revered geographical landmarks, it is possible to gain deeper understanding of the relationship between American Indian concepts of the sacred and the environment in which these peoples lived. Among Plains Indian tribes, the Pawnees, and particularly one division, the Skiris, are recognized for a religious philosophy and ceremonial life that were at once highly developed and distinctive. They were unique\u27 in their belief in a celestial cosmogony and human descent from stars, and they developed an elaborate ritualism, presided over by priests, that commemorated their heavenly origins and association. Their doctors, who healed the sick and manipulated shamanistic powers, were no less distinctive and acquired renown among other Plains tribes as well. Pawnee doctors impressed all spectators by their magical performances, apparently even skeptical whites, who found themselves unable to explain the startling feats they witnessed.1 Early recorders of this culture also noted a distinctive feature of Pawnee beliefs about the origin of shamanistic power: that there were certain underground or underwater geographical locations where animals of all species met and conferred supernatural powers on selected Pawnee individuals.2 In 1922 the anthropologist Ruth Benedict, in a classic paper entitled The Vision in Plains Culture, drew attention to the Pawnee concept of the animal lodge when she discussed how the normal Plains pattern of a guardian spirit source of shamanistic power was little developed among the Pawnees, who had substituted for it the animal lodge, in which Pawnee doctors learned the mysteries of all the animals instead of acquiring power from an individual guardian.

Hopewellian remains near Kansas City, Missouri

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