By Lotte Govaerts
We’ve been a bit absent from the blog this past year, but we do have some new content lined up for you. First up, a return to our series on the historic archaeology of the Missouri Basin Project, with an installment on the archaeology of the Garrison Dam survey area. [Note: the site descriptions in this blog post are excerpts from my 2016 paper on the impacts of Garrison Dam (Govaerts 2016)].
In the most recent installments in this series (here and here) I discussed the construction of Garrison dam and its ecological and social impacts. In earlier installments I described how large-scale archaeological salvage took place between the 1940s and the 1960s, due to the construction of large dams: concerned archaeologists formed the “Committee for the Recovery of Archaeological Remains” (CRAR) and the Interagency Archaeological Salvage Program (IASP). The Smithsonian Institution (SI) created the River Basin Surveys (RBS) to conduct archaeological fieldwork under the IASP. A local office, the “Missouri Basin Project” (MBP) was established to deal specifically with RBS salvage work in the Pick Sloan dam area. This office was located in Lincoln, Nebraska. Operations began in July 1946. Ten local state universities and historical societies (from communities along the river from Kansas to Ohio), the Science Museum of St. Paul, and the University of Wisconsin joined field parties along the Upper Missouri. (Wood 2014, p.41)
The contribution of the Missouri Basin project to the archaeology of the Northern Plains was significant. Hundreds of sites were recorded in these dam areas, over 150 of them in the Garrison survey area (Caldwell and Smith 1952). Only a handful of those were excavated more extensively in the limited time available to researchers. Even so, these excavations in the dam survey areas were important to the study of indigenous cultures and the expanding Euro-American presence in the Northern Plains. As we’ve discussed previously, the investigation of “historic” sites was approached a little differently, compared to the investigation of other sites. Because these “historic” sites form the topic of my research, I will discuss them separately in upcoming installments in this series.
Plains Village Culture
Plains Village peoples were living in the Central and Northern Plains throughout the second millennium of the current era. They resided in permanent earth lodge villages near rivers, and practiced horticulture as well as bison hunting. The chronology of the Middle Missouri region of the Plains Village tradition was constructed based on the findings of excavations associated with the main stem Missouri dams. (Bamford and Nepstad-Thornberry 2007)
The excavation of Plains Village sites was prioritized over sites associated with earlier hunter/gatherer groups because they were considered more unique. Such sites existed only along the river, and thus a large percentage of them would be lost in the dam project, while hunter/gatherer sites are also found elsewhere. Further, Village Plains sites and historic period villages were easier to locate than deeply buried older sites, as they are more recognizable at the surface. (Wood 2014, p. 43)
Plains Village sites in the Garrison Survey Area
Among the Plains Village sites investigated in the Garrison Dam area was “Grandmother’s Lodge” (32ME59), which probably dates to the earliest Plains Village occupation of the area (Woolworth 1956). The site is associated with the “Grandmother” or “Old Woman Who Never Dies”, a mythological figure held in reverence by the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Crow. The Grandmother’s Lodge site probably dates to AD 1200-1300 (Johnson 2007, p. 15, 174). The site consists of a single rectangular structure, making it a northern outpost of the “rectangular house tradition,” a building tradition associated with the earliest Plains Village occupations further south.
Nightwalker’s Butte-In-The-Bullpasture (32ML39), was given such a specific name to distinguish it from two other nearby butte sites associated with Nightwalker. “Nightwalker” is a mistranslation of a Hidatsa leader’s name that means something like “He Who Walks in Twilight,” and should more accurately be referred to as “Duskwalker.” The site consists of an isolated bluff-top village in a badland area of McLean country. The village is associated with a breakaway band of Hidatsa. It was palisaded and contained 27 circular earth lodges (Lippincott 2007). Analysis of some of the recovered material dates associated the site with the Knife River phase (1675–1862) of the “Disorganized Coalescent Variant” (Lehmer, p. 172-177). Further analysis of recovered materials later narrowed the village occupation date down to 1700-1750 (Johnson 2007, p. 194).
Later Village Sites
Later earth lodge villages examined during the RBS in the Garrison dam area include Rock Village, a Hidatsa village established in the late eighteenth century and occupied through the mid-nineteenth century; and Star Village, the last independent Arikara village, established in 1861 and abandoned one year later when the occupants joined the Mandan and Hidatsa at Like-A-Fishhook village across the river (Caldwell and Smith 1952). A still more recent Native site excavated by RBS crews was 32MZ1, also known as Crow-Flies-High (Malouf 1963). This was the site where another breakaway band of Hidatsa established a village away from the main Three Tribes villages at Like-A-Fishhook around 1870. This band of Hidatsa, led by and named after a man named Crow-Flies-High resisted reservation life and allotment. They established a village near Fort Buford at the mouth of the Yellowstone, and remained independent from the reservation for almost twenty-five years (Meyer 1977, p. 138-142).
Next up in this series , I will discuss the three “historic” sites excavated in the Garrison Dam survey area: Fort Stevenson, Fort Floyd, and Fort Berthold. Stay tuned!
Previous posts in this series:
What is Historical Archaeology?
How the River Basin Surveys Shaped Historical Archaeology
The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Fur Trade
The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Military Frontier
The Upper Missouri River Basin in the Nineteenth Century: Indian Agencies
Lake Sakakawea and the Woman it was Named After
References
Bamforth, Douglas B., and Curtis Nepstad-Thornberry. “The Shifting Social Landscape of the Fifteenth-Century Middle Missouri Region.” In Plains Village Archaeology: Bison-Hunting Farmers in the Central and Northern Plains, 139–54. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2007.
Caldwell, Warren W., and G. Hubert Smith. Garrison Reservoir: Geology, Paleontology, Archeology, History. Missouri Basin Project of Smithsonian Institution, 1952. http://www.npshistory.com/publications/corps/garrison-reservoir/index.htm.
Govaerts, Lotte E. “Transformative Consequences of Garrison Dam: Land, People, and the Practice of Archaeology.” Great Plains Quarterly 36, no. 4 (December 30, 2016): 281–308.
Johnson, Craig M. A Chronology of Middle Missouri Plains Village Sites. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 47. Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2007.
Lehmer, Donald J. Introduction to Middle Missouri Archaeology. Anthropological Papers 1. Washington, D. C.: National Park Service, 1971.
Lippincott, Kerry. “Nightwalker’s Buttes: A Study in the Closing of an Archaeological Tradition and an Example of Hidatsa Oral History.” In Plains Village Archaeology: Bison-Hunting Farmers in the Central and Northern Plains, 259–69. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2007.
Malouf, C. River Basin Surveys Papers, No. 29: Crow-Flies-High (32MZ1), A Historic Hidatsa Village In the Garrison Reservoir Area, North Dakota. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 185. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1963.
Meyer, Roy W. The Village Indians of the Upper Missouri: The Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977.
Thiessen, Thomas D. “Emergency Archeology in the Missouri River Basin: The Role of the Missouri Basin Project and the Midwest Archeological Center in the Interagency Archeological Salvage Program, 1946–1975.” United States Department of the Interior National Park Service Midwest Archeological Center Lincoln, Nebraska, 1999.
Wood, W. Raymond. “The Lincoln Office and the Upper Missouri River Basin.” In Dam Projects and the Growth of American Archaeology - The River Basin Surveys and the Interagency Archeological Salvage Program, 41–52. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, 2014.
Woolworth, Alan R. “Archeological Investigations at Site 32ME59 (Grandmother’s Lodge).” North Dakota History. 23, no. 2 (1956).