Na'nza, The Ponca Fort

The purpose of this study is to describe the remains from 25KX1, the Ponca Fort, and to assess the position of the site in Plains archaeology. While the ethnology of the Ponca has received some attention, the archaeology of the tribe is still subject for speculation. One of the objectives of the excavation program of the Nebraska State Archaeological Survey in north central Nebraska between 1933 and 1940 was to locate precisely and excavate a Ponca village site. Of the several sites investigated in this area, only one of the villages, 25KX1, is of Ponca derivation. This study provides, for the first time, a statement of a documented Ponca site. The description of such a site is critical in the direct historical approach for the reconstruction of culture history, in which the archaeologist works form the historic known to the prehistoric unknown. This study will provide a frame of reference form which it may be possible to extend the history of the Ponca into the period before European contact.

The Archives of Archaeology Series is a 29-volume set jointly published by the University of Wisconsin Press and the Society for American Archaeology on opaque microcards, a now obsolete format. The Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center at the University of Wisconsin—La Crosse has digitized the original opaque microcards and made the digital copies available through tDAR. More information on the process of digitizing the series can be found in Joseph Tiffany’s 2012 article entitled "Digitizing the Archives of Archaeology Series" in the SAA Archaeological Record (http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?i=113770).