Prehistoric Warfare on the Great Plains of North America (The Crow Creek Massacre of 1325 AD)

The Great Plains of North America have always been viewed by archaeologists as a much more violent place compared to other regions. Even for this region though researchers have long held the notion that the area did not see mass casualty warfare until after the arrival of guns and horses from Europe and after the arrival of European settlers. However, this view was largely upended in the latter half of the 20th century through a series of discoveries that revealed evidence of mass casualty warfare. Perhaps none was as eye opening as the discovery of a mass grave at the Crow Creek archaeological site near the present day city of Chamberlain, South Dakota on the northern Great Plains that was dated to at least several decades before Columbus’ fateful 1492 voyage . This makes the site prehistoric/pre-Columbian. The mass grave contained the skeletal remains of over 450 men, women and children who had been brutally killed and scalped and then buried in a ditch near their own village. The village itself was also once fortified with a ditch and a wooden palisade surrounding it and bore evidence of having been burned down. At the time of the massacre the inhabitants of the village were even in the process of expanding their ditches and palisades. Researchers have estimated that the amount of people in the mass grave would have constituted most of the burned village’s total population. All of these elements are strong indicators of not only mass casualty warfare but also of large scale warfare. Furthermore, many more similar sites have been found throughout the region. Fascinatingly, many of the peoples involved in these conflicts are likely the ancestors of today’s Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara peoples. ------------------------------------------------------------ Credits: All music from the YouTube Audio Library ------------------------------------------------------------------- Sources: Indigenous People, Indigenous Violence: Precontact Warfare on the North American Great Plains Author(s): Douglas B. Bamforth Source: Man , Mar., 1994, New Series, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp. 95-115 Reconsidering the Occupational History of the Crow Creek Site (39BF11) Author(s): Douglas B. Bamforth and Curtis Nepstad-Thornberry Source: Plains Anthropologist , May 2007, Vol. 52, No. 202 (May 2007), pp. 153-173 Chapter Title: The Crow Creek Massacre: The Role of Sex in Native American Scalping Practices Chapter Author(s): Ashley Kendell Book Title: Archaeological Perspectives on Warfare on the Great Plains North America's Wars Author(s): Heather Pringle Source: Science , Mar. 27, 1998, New Series, Vol. 279, No. 5359 (Mar. 27, 1998), pp. 2038- 2040 The Crow Creek Massacre: Initial Coalescent Warfare and Speculations about the Genesis of Extended Coalescent Author(s): Larry J. Zimmerman and Lawrence E. Bradley Source: Plains Anthropologist , 1993, Vol. 38, No. 145, Memoir 27: Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Western Prairies and Northern Plains. Papers in honor of Robert A. Alex (1941-1988) (1993), pp. 215-226 The Osteology and Archaeology of the Crow Creek Massacre Author(s): P. Willey and Thomas E. Emerson Source: Plains Anthropologist , 1993, Vol. 38, No. 145, Memoir 27: Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Western Prairies and Northern Plains. Papers in honor of Robert A. Alex (1941-1988) (1993), pp. 227-269