Prehistoric Village

The climate existing now in South Dakota is the same as it was 1,000 years ago-hot summers and bitterly cold winters.  Climate was just one of the challenges the prehistoric peoples had over the one hundred years they chose to live here at a site discovered in Mitchell, South Dakota.  On a bluff overlooking a stream, they settled into farming and hunting.  Building houses into the ground, they achieved warmth in the winter and protection from the wind and snow.  The construction also provided a cool place to retreat to during hot summer days and offered protection from the rainstorms that could sweep violently across the plains.

An elaborate system of precious wood and sticks gathered with difficulty from the mostly grass covered plains was used to make supports for the roof and to hold the home’s clay walls in place.  Food storage pits were dug in its floor to preserve food.  Buffalo hide covered cots were constructed providing beds for the adults while children slept on the floor-all surrounding a central fire pit for warmth and cooking.  Unfortunately, the fire pit also led to their early demise in their late thirties or forties from lung diseases.

This matriarchal society revolved around the grandmother who taught house construction, cooking, the making of pottery and gardening while the older men passed on hunting skills to the youth.  These people were one of the first to grow crops for survival including corn, squash and beans mingling all three when planting the seeds in their gardens.  The corn in the center gave a stalk for the beans to grow up while the squash surrounded and supported the other two.  They sliced, dried and stored the squash.  Corn and beans were dried.  All were stored in cache pits within the home and then boiled to reconstitute the vegetables in large pots made from the clay they found in the area.  Every bit of the buffalo brought home from hunts was used for food, tools, clothing, blankets and even decorative items.  The buffalo skeleton below stands higher than Jim and he's 6' 2" tall!

All this and more is being learned by archeological excavations going on at this site.  The site has an ongoing, active excavation occurring here every summer.  Removing layer after layer of soil to reveal more and more details about these people and the way they lived, the site has been very successful in expanding our knowledge of prehistoric peoples.  The ability to see an actual archeological excavation and the methods used to preserve the history of this site is what makes it so interesting.