A Midwest state in the country’s Heartlands, South Dakota is home to both open prairies and the dramatic Black Hills – now famous for the carved heads on Mount Rushmore. The name ‘Dakota’ was that of one of the indigenous groups who once predominated here, living alongside other peoples like the Mandan and the Arikara. The French moved into the area in the 17th and 18th centuries before selling it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The 19th century saw conflict between European American settlers and the indigenous population, culminating in the Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills attracted growing European American settlement from the 1870s on and in 1889 South Dakota became a state.
The Blue Blanket Island site (39WW9), a small, fortified, proto-historic Indian village on an island in the Missouri River, in Walworth County, South Dakota, was partially excavated by a River Basin Surveys crew in August 1961. One centrally located earthlodge, Read More …
More than 350 archeological sites have been found within the Oahe Reservoir area. A great many of these are of major scientific importance. Some are significant because they represent new and hitherto unknown cultures; others are remarkable examples of their Read More …
The archaeological field work that produced the buttons discussed in this report took place during two distinct episodes, separated by a 26-year interval. The first excavations were carried out in 1980–81 by Steven Ruple of the State Historic Preservation Office, Read More …
The Hosterman site, named for John B. Hosterman, owner of the property, is located in Potter County, South Dakota, on a high bluff on the east bank overlooking the Missouri River about 2% miles north of Whitlocks Crossing. It is Read More …
The Beaver Creek Shelter (39CU779) is a north-facing rock shelter in Wind Cave National Park. Excavations were conducted by the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in 1985 and, again by that institution and the South Dakota Archaeological Research Read More …
In the summer of 1956 an archeological field party from the State Historical Society of North Dakota carried out excavations at the Demery site, in the upper part of the Oahe Reservoir, in Corson County, South Dakota. Funds for the Read More …
During the Summer of 1978 the skeletons of at least 486 individuals were excavated from the badly eroded and looted end of the fortification ditch of the Crow Creek site (39.BFll) in Central South Dakota. The skeletal material was analyzed Read More …
It has been 10 years since the last update to the South Dakota State Plan for Archaeological Resources (“State Plan” for short) and 27 years since the original State Plan was written. In that time, changes to cultural resource management Read More …
Invasion of the Great Plains in the 1700’s by the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Sioux, their use of the horse and the tepee, and their reliance on the buffalo for food account for the popular misconception of the Plains Indian as Read More …