This valuable book is an excellent overview of long-term archaeological investigations in the valley that remains at the forefront of studies on the First Americans.

In southwest Nebraska, a stretch of Medicine Creek approximately 20 kilometers long holds a remarkable concentration of both late Paleoindian and late prehistoric sites. Unlike several nearby similar and parallel streams that drain the divide between the Platte and Republican Rivers, Medicine Creek has undergone 70 years of archaeological excavations that reveal a long occupation by North America's earliest...

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...