South Dakota State Historical Society
Archaeological Research Center

A Plains Village Pot from the Twelve Mile Creek Site

This vessel was found during a 1939 excavation at the Twelve Mile Creek site, an earthlodge village situated on the James River in eastern South Dakota. The village is associated with the early garden farmers of the Lower James phase, which in turn was part of the Plains Village pattern on the North American Plains. This phase marks the arrival of garden farming people into South Dakota, about A.D. 1000. The pot had originally been made with a cord-wrapped paddle, but it was later scraped and burnished to a shiny luster before firing. It is undecorated. The wedge-shaped lip allows archaeologists to classify it as an Anderson ware vessel.