MULTIDIMENSIONAL GEOPHYSICAL RESULTS AT NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES

Geophysical results are described for four prehistoric and historic earthlodge settlements located in the Middle Missouri River basin of North and South Dakota, USA. Multi-dimensional geophysical surveys were employed to pin-point cultural anomalies for archaeological excavation and interpretation, but more importantly, the wide-area mapping of the subsurface at these villages allowed visualization of their structure and organization, yielding many new insights. At Menoken Village (AD 1240) previously unknown houses, oval in form, were revealed magnetically owing to their intense burning as was an intra-village trail system seen in resistivity data. At Whistling Elk Village (AD 1300) the first glimpse of the nature of this deeply buried settlement was achieved by resistivity and conductivity surveys, with magnetic indications that half of the houses had been burned. The geophysical evidence also hints at a second village, much more compact, that may lie within the primary settlement, supporting an attack theory established by limited excavation evidence. At Huff Village (AD 1450) the magnetometry survey revealed the presence of vast numbers of previously unsuspected food storage pits outside of the numerous dwellings that lie within this settlement. At Mitu’tahakto’s (1822-1861), an early historic Mandan/Arikara settlement, resistivity and GPR surveys discovered the presence of new and overlapping houses, while magnetometry indicated large differences in the number of iron artifacts between households, pointing to possible variations in access or status.