Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

190 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY
(1963, 10:4) observes that "the Missouri bottoms
in pre-historic times appear for the most part to
have been well timbered, swampy and mosquito
infested, with numerous lakes, parts of abandoned
channels."
Tabeau's description (Abel, 1939:63) of the
hardships endured in the Missouri valley in the
summertime is particularly vivid.
... of all the inconveniences and sufferings of the voyage,
mosquitoes should be put down as the worst, and nowhere
can more be seen. During the whole day the boats were
enveloped as in a cloud and the engages, who were compelled
by the extreme heat to keep the body naked, were covered
with blood and swellings. Often our hunters, not being able
to endure them, returned at full speed to throw themselves
into the boats .... In short, the mosquitoes, not leaving the
crew at liberty to take its food in the evening or its rest at
night, exhausted it as much as did all the work of the day
and they helped not a little to weaken it to the extent . . .
there was almost never a full force.
The high breezy bluffs and prairie covered
terraces of Keg Creek would have provided a
substantial measure of summer comfort for the
inhabitants of the locality. These same blufftop
Abel, A.H., editor
1939. Tabeau's Narrative of Loisel's Expedition to the Upper
Missouri. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.
Anderson, Adrian D.
1961. The Glenwood Sequence: A Local Sequence for a
Series of Archaeological Manifestations in Mills
County Iowa. Journal of the Iowa Archaeological Society,
10(3): 1-101.
1973. Phase Three Highway Salvage Archaeology,
1966-1969. In Marshall McKusick, James Boylan,
and John Hotopp, Archaeological Explorations
along Iowa Highways. Office of the State Archaeologist
Report. Iowa City: University of Iowa.
Anderson, Adrian D., and L.J. Zimmerman
1976. Settlement-Subsistence Variability in the Glenwood
Locality, Southwestern Iowa. Plains Anthropologist,
21(72): 141-154.
Baerreis, David A., and R.A. Bryson
1965. Climatic Episodes and the Dating of the Mississippian
Cultures. Wisconsin Archaeologist, 46:203-220.
Literature Cited
residences would prove far less hospitable during
the winters as they would have been fully exposed
to the bitter winds.
Variability in lodge size within the locality
poses questions for future fauna and flora studies
to determine if the lodges were seasonally occupied.
In addition, one might expect that the
ceramics found in the large lodges would exhibit
greater variation within the ware groups, especially
if Wedel's (1979) population estimate is
correct. Lodge 13ML130, for example, could accommodate
34 people according to Wedel's formula.
The above example is only one of many smallscale
problems that can be addressed within the
Glenwood locality. The emphasis upon localityspecific
problems that can be tested and the
application of these results to other localities as
hypotheses offers a promising approach to the
formulation of large-scale synthetic models. Ideally,
working from the particular to the general
will result in a deeper understanding of the ecological
and cultural adaptations of this prehistoric
culture.
Blakeslee, Donald, and Warren Caldwell
1979. The Nebraska Phase: An Appraisal. Lincoln, Nebraska:
J & L Reprint Company.
Brown, Lionel A.
1967. Pony Creek Archeology. Smithsonian Institution Publications
in Salvage Archeology, 5. [River Basin Surveys.]
Cook, Sherburne, and Robert Heiser
1968. Relationship among Houses, Settlement Areas,
and Population in Aboriginal California. In K. C.
Chang, editor. Settlement Archaeology, pages 79-116.
Palo Alto, California: National Press Books.
Cooper, Paul
1939. The Archaeological Exploration of 1938. Nebraska
History, 20{2):9^-\b\.
Cooper, Paul, and Earl Bell
1936. Archaeology of Certain Sites in Cedar County,
Nebraska. Chapters in Nebraska Archaeology, 1(1):11-
146.