Culture
Everything that people do including their language, their tools, and their beliefs. Arikara Indian culture was different from Lakota (Sioux) culture.
Drought
Lack of rainfall. Crops such as maize and beans cannot grow well when there is drought.
Floodplain
The usually flat area on both sides of a stream or river that can be flooded when the river goes out of its banks. The flooding deposits good soil in which to grow crops. Many Plains villagers planted their gardens on the floodplain to take advanta
ge of good soils and water.
Fortifications
Structures built to make a village stronger. Usualy these were deep ditches surrounding the village. Posts stuck in the ground on the inside of the ditch were interwoven with brush and hides. This is called a pallisade line. Sometimes the villagers used t
he natural landscape. For example, steep banks along rivers would sometimes be used to protect the village. The Crow Creek village had a wide and deep fortification ditch.
Hypothesis
A special statement that proposes that two or more ideas are related. Scientists try to prove or disprove this relationship. In the case of Crow Creek, some archaeologists proposed an hypothesis that population grew to
o large for the land to support by growing crops. This caused people to compete or fight for available garden space.
Maize
Corn. Indians developed many types of corn that could stand the cold weather of the northern Plains. The corn was smaller than modern hybrid corn. Sometimes people ate it as sweet corn, but usually they dried it, later grinding it on stone slabs to make f
lour. Maize was one of the most important crops for the Indian people of North America.