Native American Village Observation Paper

Words: 767
Pages: 4

On November 5th I went to the prehistoric Indian Village in Mitchell South Dakota for the very first time. This archaeological site was once a Native American village. It is now a public place for people to come and learn about Native Americans that once lived there and about the process of archaeology. Walking into the museum the first thing I noticed was this lodge. The tour guide talked about the lodge. The lodge is a model of what is believed the Native Americans lived in. It is a rectangular earthen lodge made out of clay and grass. The roof on the model is pointed, sort of like modern day roofs, but this is because it is not entirely known what they actually looked like. Due to what the lodges were made of they required a lot of fixing …show more content…
They used tons of wood on the inside of the lodge. They used for the structure of the lodge and they also used it for their beds. In the lodges are multiple beds, it is estimated that twelve to fifteen people lived in a single lodge and about 70 to 80 lodges are at the site. They used bison hides for blankets and possibly had antlers has hangers. They had an opening right above where the fire pit would be. They used cache pits to store their food. Eventually these pits would become susceptible to rodents and mold, when this occurred it would become a trash pile. Outside of their homes they had drying racks for food and they were also doing some agriculture. They had some tools that were made out of animals; such as: hoe made out of deer antlers and a shovel made out of bison bones. These people also had many tamed dogs. According to what the tour guide said, “it is estimated that the number of dogs was about the same as the number of people.” They hunted bison, deer, and other animals; they also gathered mussels from the lake. They grew corn, squash, beans, sunflowers and a few other different types of food. The tribe that once lived, in the now town of Mitchell, were decently skilled