Stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to central Canada, North America's great interior grasslands were home to nomadic hunters and semisedentary farmers for almost 11,500 years before the arrival of Euro-American settlers. Pan-continental trade between these hunters and horticulturists helped make the lifeways of Plains Indians among the richest and most colorful of Native Americans. This volume is the first attempt to synthesize current knowledge on the cultural history of the Great Plains since Wedel's Prehistoric Man on the Great Plains became the standard reference on the subject almost...
Stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to central Canada, North America's great interior grasslands were home to nomadic hunters and semisedentary farmers...
On the afternoon of June 25, 1867, an overwhelming force of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians quickly mounted a savage onslaught against General George Armstrong Custer's battalion, driving the doomed troopers of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry to a small hill overlooking the Little Bighorn River, where Custer and his men bravely erected their heroic last stand.
So goes the myth of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a myth perpetuated and reinforced for over 100 years. In truth, however, "Custer's Last Stand" was neither the last of the fighting nor a stand.
Using innovative and standard...
On the afternoon of June 25, 1867, an overwhelming force of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians quickly mounted a savage onslaught against General George Ar...
"Early Fur Trade on the Northern Plains presents a lengthy introduction plus a unique combination of five journals, or portions of journals, of North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company traders who left records of their travels to the country of the village-dwelling Mandan and Hidatsas along the Missouri River of North Dakota. . . . In addition to a history of events, Indian-trader relationships, and trader competition, the editors synthesize data on a number of topics, including lists of resident traders in the villages, the time required to travel between the Assiniboine River posts and...
"Early Fur Trade on the Northern Plains presents a lengthy introduction plus a unique combination of five journals, or portions of journals, of North ...
The Mackay and Evans expedition (1795-1797) was more than an exploratory mission. It was the last effort by Spain to gain control over the Missouri River basin in the decade before the United States purchased the Louisiana territory. In that respect, it failed. But the expedition was successful as a journey of exploration, and had it not occurred, Lewis and Clark would have been denied valuable documents that significantly aided their exploration. In Prologue to Lewis and Clark, W. Raymond Wood narrates the history of this long-forgotten but important expedition up the Missouri River....
The Mackay and Evans expedition (1795-1797) was more than an exploratory mission. It was the last effort by Spain to gain control over the Missouri Ri...
A survey of Native American earthlodge research from across the Great Plains.
Early explorers initially believed the earthlodge homes of Plains village peoples were made entirely of earth. Actually, however, earthlodges are timber-frame structures, with the frame covered by successive layers of willows, grass, and earth, and with a tunnel-like entryway and a smoke hole in the center of the roof. The products of nearly a millennium of engineering development, historic period lodges were massively built. With diameters up to 60 feet across, they comprise the largest and most...
A survey of Native American earthlodge research from across the Great Plains.
Early explorers initially believed the earthlodge homes ...
W. Raymond Wood played a leading role in the early days of Great Plains archaeology. In A White-Bearded Plainsman, he tells how his own career emerged, as the discipline of Plains archaeology developed during the post-World War II era. Readers will learn of the childhood influences that lead Wood to pursue the path of archaeologist, and of the events and people that shaped his professional life. In addition to telling Wood's personal story, the book provides an intellectual history of the discipline of mid-continental archaeology over the last half century. It will thus be valuable...
W. Raymond Wood played a leading role in the early days of Great Plains archaeology. In A White-Bearded Plainsman, he tells how his own care...
A thriving fur trade post between 1830 and 1860, Fort Clark, in what is today western North Dakota, also served as a way station for artists, scientists, missionaries, soldiers, and other western chroniclers traveling along the Upper Missouri River. The written and visual legacies of these visitors--among them the German prince-explorer Maximilian of Wied, Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, and American painter-author George Catlin--have long been the primary sources of information on the cultures of the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians, the peoples who met the first fur traders in the area. This book, by a...
A thriving fur trade post between 1830 and 1860, Fort Clark, in what is today western North Dakota, also served as a way station for artists, scientis...
