The Wyoming archaeological site reveals Native American thunderstorm practices in the 1700s at the start of European contact

Dr. Spencer Pelton and his colleagues carried out a complete analysis of the River Bend site (48NA202), Wyoming. The site, located near the North Platte river in Casper, Wyoming, was searched in the 1970s as part of recovery efforts before the construction leveling. Their results were published in Plains anthropologist.

Although hundreds of square meters are excavated, it is estimated that almost 75% of the site has been lost. The site had probably been occupied around 1700 to 1750 AD, thus placing the occupation of the site after Euro-American contact, but still early enough for the site to be in the transitional phase, using a mixture of pre-contact and post-contact material culture.

At the time, the original investigator analyzed some of the recovered artifacts, determining that the site was probably occupied by ancestral people of the Eastern Shoshone tribe.

Dr. Pelton says: “The original investigator, Carolyn Buff (co-author of this study), thought that he could be shoshone based on several of the artefacts recovered, including the types of points, the steatite and Teshoas. Tri-null arrow points like those of River Bend are often found in Shoshone sites.

“Steam (or soap stone) is commonly found in the Shoshone hearts west of Wyoming, most often sculpted in large flat -bottom bowls. Teshoas are a unique form of artifacts which are essentially divided pobbles used to treat the skin.

“The combination of these elements suggested to original investigators that the site could be linked to an occupation of Shoshone. These are all good means of evidence, but there remains the potential that other cultures have also used these elements.”

Despite these ideas taken from the analysis of some of the artefacts recovered, the complete assembly had never been analyzed. Dr. Pelton and his colleagues believe that the site contained more than 5,000 artefacts, including bones, stone, ocher, metal, shell and wood, making River Bend the richest wyoming storm assembly.

“River Bend was searched with high standards, but the collection was overlooked for about 30 years before our involvement,” said Dr. Pelton.

“The search for collections always requires making an” archeology of archeology “to reconstruct things. It was not in horrible form, but it lacked labels in the artifacts, the missing (or unknown) field notes and other fairly common things that arrive at the collections when they are hosted in the laboratory rather than in a repository.

“Consequently, we were unable to attribute locations to some of the ornaments artifacts which may have added a certain depth of interpretation to our spatial analysis.”

Despite this, the study was able to provide a complete analysis of the assembly. Indian clothing and body ornament often incorporated expensive or difficult objects to paro. These ornaments have reported the status, the achievements of war and membership of society, among others.

Many anthropologists mostly know the ornaments reported in ethnographs, photographs and images, often strongly influenced by post-contact trade. The Bend River site, being a transition site at the start of the post-contact period, gives a rare overview of the storm culture of the time.

Among the discoveries were shellful disc beads, a common ornament often found in the first plains and other North American cultures. These were often suspended from necklaces or documented in tombs around the neck, wrists and ankles of the deceased.

The presence of Olivella sp. Shells, another type of adornment, were found in small numbers throughout prehistory and in the historical period. Their recovery in River Bend indicates that the occupants engaged in long -distance trade in order to obtain the shells of marine gastropods.

From subsequent historical contexts, we know that they were worn as necklaces, sewn in shirts and used as earrings, and it is likely that they served similar purposes during the prior period.

Meanwhile, the conclusions of mollusc shells and ivory pendants of the Wapitis give an overview of the changes in the skill practices. While the shell pendants were recovered from 1500 pb, the type found in River Bend is not seen in historical images.

Only a few paintings made by Bodmer in the 1830s show images of shell pendants. Meanwhile, the ivory pendants of Wapitis are common ornaments seen in historical photos and reported by traders, explorers and ethnographers.

It seems that the aesthetic role of shell’s pendants has been replaced by ivory pendants of the Wapitis between the Bodmer representations of the 1830s and the advent of photography.

Finally, the site provides evidence that the production of shell balls has probably used metallic AWLs, which have also been recovered from River Bend.

This has specific implications, explained Dr. Pelton: “We have not yet found AWLS like this on other sites, but it seems that it is among the first types of articles in these first contact era sites. The most popular articles exchanged at this start are generally utilitarian elements similar to the tools that had already been manufactured in Indian society complains for thousands of years outside the stone or bones.

“Things like metal awls, needles, knives, kettles and axes. Once metal arrow tips have started to be manufactured, scissors and files for their production have also become popular commercial items. Metal tools have lasted longer and have often performed better than their equivalents in stone and bone, so they were sought after very shortly after contact.”

It is likely that the introduction of iron awls has considerably increased the production of shell ornaments, which, unlike bones, birds and canides, were more abundant and easy to obtain.

The study gives an overview of the early post-contact plains of Indian adornment. How practices persisted despite European contacts and how they changed, incorporating new technologies while maintaining old methodologies.

© 2025 Science X Network