Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-sh8wx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T20:22:52.032Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Unusual Side-Bladed Knife from a Protohistoric Mandan Site

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Wm. Duncan Strong
Wm. Duncan Strong*
Affiliation:
Columbia, University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1938, a seemingly unusual type of side-bladed knife with its stone blade in place was excavated at the Old Fort Abraham Lincoln Mandan village, across the Missouri River from Bismarck, North Dakota. This specimen, now in the collections of the North Dakota Historical Society, was found in an ash-filled storage pit at a depth of 90 cm. The same pit also contained two other side-bladed knife handles of bone and three ovoid stone knife blades, as well as other artifacts, some indicating European contact. The Old Fort Abraham Lincoln village is of protohistoric age and was occupied by the Mandan prior to 1800. The general characteristics of the site and the excavations in question have been outlined elsewhere. The present specimen (Fig. 6, left) is distinctive in that the lanceolate blade of Knife River flint is so inserted that one corner of the butt serves as the cutting corner or point of the knife.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , July 1945 , pp. 60 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1945

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brower, J. V. 1904. Mandan. Memoirs of Explorations in the Basin of the Mississippi, Vol. 8.Google Scholar
Henry B., Collins Jr. 1943. “Eskimo Archaeology and its Bearing on the Problem of Man's Antiquity in America.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 86, No. 2, pp. 220–235.Google Scholar
Frank H. H., Roberts Jr. 1935. A Folsom Complex. Preliminary Report on Investigations at the Lindenmeier Site in Northern Colorado. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 94, No. 4.Google Scholar
Frank H. H., Roberts Jr. 1936. Additional Information on the Folsom Complex. Report on the Second Season's Investigations at the Lindenmeier Site in Northern Colorado. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 95, No. 10.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1937. Ancient Caves of the Great Salt Lake Region. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 116.Google Scholar
Strong, Wm. Duncan 1935. An Introduction to Nebraska Archeology. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 93, No. 10.Google Scholar
Strong, Wm. Duncan 1940. “From History to Prehistory in the Northern Great Plains.” Essays in Historical Anthropology of North America, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 100.Google Scholar