Structural Details of a Middle Missouri House

The long-rectangular house is one of the most distinctive traits of the Middle Missouri Tradition. Many of these structures have been excavated, but minimal data regarding details of the superstructure have been reported.While posthole placement and sizes indicated the nature of the primary framewor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plains anthropologist 1973-05, Vol.18 (60), p.160-166
Main Authors: Lehmer, D. J., Meston, L. K., Dill, C. L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Houses
Lean tos
Ranches
Roofs
Superstructures
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Summary:The long-rectangular house is one of the most distinctive traits of the Middle Missouri Tradition. Many of these structures have been excavated, but minimal data regarding details of the superstructure have been reported.While posthole placement and sizes indicated the nature of the primary framework, almost nothing was known aboutthe exterior covering.Charred superstructure remains were found in a long-rectangular house at the Bagnell site(320L 16), North Dakota, in 1971. They showed that house walls consisted of poles and split wood puncheons blanketed with successive layers of willow shoots, grass, and earth. The walls must have leaned in at the top, since the outer ends of wall members were 5 to 6.5 feet outside the postholes which supported the edges of the roof. This indicates a basic similarity to the circular earthlodge of post-contact times, and demonstrates the presence of an area in the northernmost long-rectangular structures comparable to the atuti area of the historic Hidatsa earthlodge.
ISSN:0032-0447
2052-546X
DOI:10.1080/2052546.1973.11908659