PaleoCultural Research Group

Sully (39SL4) is a Plains Village archaeological site located along the Missouri River in central South Dakota. The village of over 200 circular houses was continuously occupied by ancestral Arikara from about AD 1460–1735 and is assigned to the Extended and Post-Contact variants of the Coalescent tradition. It covers approximately 50 acres (20.2 hectares), excluding four separate burial or cemetery areas comprising 16 acres (6.4 hectares) adjacent to and northeast of the village. Major Smithsonian Institution River Basin Surveys salvage excavations focused on the village in 1956, 1957, and 1958 under the overall direction of Robert Stephenson, with additional work in the adjacent cemeteries by William Bass continuing into 1961 and 1962. Village excavations revealed a complex series of superimposed house constructions. The village was first occupied at its western end and later settled in various other areas by one or more separate groups. The Extended Coalescent occupation lasted for approximately 190 years followed by the more extensive and intensive Post-Contact Coalescent component of about 85 years. During its occupation, there were incremental changes in material culture, along with the addition of Euro-American trade artifacts during the proto-historic period. This report demonstrates that current research questions can be addressed with artifact assemblages recovered under mid-Twentieth century salvage protocols.