Turtle effigy near Canning, SDLate Prehistoric
After ca. 1200 AD the focus for Plains Village settlement shifts to the Missouri River. The period from 1400 to 1700 AD saw the incursion of Siouan-speaking peoples into the area, and later the European cultures.
The horse first appeared in the northern Plains around 1750 AD. Prior to that the Sioux were essentially a nomadic people following game.
One major settlement in the vicinity of Sioux Falls dating after 1200 AD is the Blood Run/Rock Island site that was a major Oneota site. Oneota peoples lived throughout the Midwest between ca. A.D. 1050 and 1700. Their villages were large, permanent or semipermanent. Houses varied in form from small, square or oval single-family dwellings to longhouses with many families. The subsistence economy was based on fishing, hunting, plant collecting, and agriculture. Oneota complexes are ancestral to several midwestern tribes such as the Omaha, Iowa, and Oto.
Few other sites of this period have been definitely identified around Sioux Falls, although many artifact scatters probably relate to this period. Similarly, there undoubtedly were once many tipi camps that have left little or no trace in the archeological record.
Turtle effigy near Canning, SD
Protohistoric and Historic Indians and Euro-Americans
The term protohistoric denotes a time when European influences were felt in the region, but before actual settlement by European peoples. European trade goods such as glass and ceramic beads, finger rings, brass and iron items, and gun flints are found at sites dominated by native-made material. Evidence of European diseases, particularly small pox, is also evident. The Blood Run/Rock Island Oneota site near Sioux Falls spans the period between the prehistoric and historic eras (A.D. 1640-1700).
 |
Pitted boulder at Blood Run.
Recent research into such pitted boulders suggests these may be attempts to reproduce meteorites. The cosmos holds particular significance in many cultures, and Blood Run may have been a center for such a cult. |
After around 1650, European competition for tribal alliances and trade, and European diseases, drastically changed the structure of and relationships among Indian groups. Tribal population declined and white dispossession of traditional territories became common.
Sioux Falls was founded in 1856, but was abandoned during the Sioux Indian uprising of 1862. It was resettled after the establishment of Fort Dakota here in 1865.
Back