Plains Village period facts for kids
The Plains Village period is a time in history when people lived on the Great Plains in North America. This area stretches from North Dakota all the way down to Texas. This period lasted for a long time, roughly from 900 or 950 CE to about 1780 or 1850 CE.
These early Plains villagers lived between the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Eastern Woodlands in the east. Before horses were brought to America and before they met Europeans and Africans, most Plains people lived in a special way. They were "semi-sedentary," which means they lived in villages for part of the year and moved around for hunting. They often farmed in their villages and hunted bison from temporary camps. They used dogs to help them carry their temporary homes and the meat they hunted.
Their permanent homes were different depending on where they lived. Some built grass houses, others made stone-lined, semi-underground pit-houses, and many built large earth lodges. For farming, they used important tools like hoes made from bison shoulder blades to grow crops such as maize (corn), beans, and squash. The women were skilled at making various ceramic pots for cooking and storing food.
The people who lived during the earlier part of this period spoke Siouan and Caddoan languages. This included tribes like the Siouan-speaking Mandan and Hidatsa, and the Caddoan-speaking Arikara, Pawnee, and Wichita peoples. Later on, many more tribes from different language groups moved into the Plains from both the east and the west.
A Timeline of the Great Plains
To understand the Plains Village period, it helps to see where it fits in the bigger timeline of the Great Plains:
- Paleoindian period: About 9500–5500 BCE. These were some of the earliest people in North America.
- Plains Archaic period: About 5500–500 BCE. People started to use more varied tools and hunt smaller animals.
- Plains Woodland period: About 500 BCE–1000 CE. People began to farm and make pottery.
- Plains Village period: About 1000–1780 CE. This is when people started living in more permanent villages.
Where Did They Live?
The Plains Village period is also divided by geography:
- Northern Plains Village tradition
- Central Plains Village tradition
The Southern Plains up to Nebraska are part of the Central Plains Village period. In Nebraska, this culture existed from about 900 to 1450 CE. This was a time when Nebraska had its largest population, even more than today! Most of the archaeological sites (places where old villages or camps are found) from this period date from 1000 to 1400 CE.
The Dakotas are part of the Northern Plains Village tradition. A special Northeastern Plains Village tradition has been found around Devils Lake and near the James, Sheyenne, Maple, and Red Rivers in eastern North Dakota.
Different Village Groups and Sites
Archaeologists divide these periods into smaller, geographically specific groups called "phases" or "complexes." These are like different styles or groups of villages that existed in certain areas.
Plains Village cultures in places like southern Colorado, Kansas, northern New Mexico, northwestern Texas, and western Oklahoma are known as the Southern Plains villagers. This group includes different phases like the Redbud Plains variant of the Paoli phase (800–1250 CE) and the Washita River phase, Custer phase, and Turkey Creek phase in western Oklahoma.
Other important groups and sites include:
- The Henrietta and Wylie Creek focuses in north-central Texas.
- The Upper Canark variant in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, which includes the Antelope Creek phase, and the Buried City and Zimms complexes.
- The Apishapa phase in southeastern Colorado.
- The Bluff Creek, Wilmore, and Pratt complexes in south-central Kansas.
- A group of early Wichita people villages in central Kansas, called the Great Bend aspect.
The Wheeler phase dates from 1450 to 1700 CE. It included the Edwards complex of southwest Oklahoma (1500–1650 CE) and the Wheeler complex (1650–1725 CE). Many archaeological sites belong to the Wheeler phase, such as the Edwards I site (34BK2), Taylor site (34GR8), Little Deer site (34CU10), Duncan site (34WA2), and Goodwin-Baker site (34RM14), and Parade Ground site (34CM322) in western Oklahoma, plus other sites in northern Texas.
The Garza Complex in the Texas Panhandle-Plains also likely existed from 1450 to 1700 CE.
Thousands of Central Plains Village tradition sites have been found in Nebraska. One very important site is the Patterson site. This was a village in Sarpy County that dates from 1000 to 1400 CE.
