An early Indian cranium from the Medicine Crow site, (39BF2), Buffalo County, South Dakota
✍ Scribed by William M. Bass
- Book ID
- 101459786
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1976
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 451 KB
- Volume
- 45
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0002-9483
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Abstract
Artifacts of Paleoindians have been found in most if not all of the Plains states; however, documented human skeletal remains from this early period are rare. The Medicine Crow cranium dates by stratigraphy and by the amount of absorbed alpha and beta radiation at between 5,000 and 2,000 B.C. This places this young adult male in the Archaic period and represents the earliest documented human skeletal material from South Dakota. It compares favorably in age with other well documented human skeletons from the Plains area, such as Lansing Man (Kansas) (3579 B.C.). Metrically, (with a cranial index of 76.7) and morphologically the Medicine Crow cranium falls well within the range of other early or middle Archaic skeletons.