Leary Site | |
 | |
| Nearest city | Rulo, Nebraska |
|---|---|
| NRHP reference No. | 66000449 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966[1] |
| Designated NHL | July 19, 1964[2] |
Leary Site, also known as25-RH-1 orLeary-Kelly Site is anarchaeological site nearRulo, Nebraska and the Big Nemaha River. The site now lies entirely on the reservation of theIowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. The area was once avillage andburial site.
On July 12, 1804, during their expedition into theLouisiana Purchase, Meriwether Lewis andWilliam Clark stopped along theNemaha River. William Clark set out and noted several mounds in the area, the smaller mounds he inferred to be most likely trash pits and where homes had formerly been and the larger mounds to be burial mounds.[3]
Frederick H. Sterns, faculty thePeabody Museum of theHarvard University, led an excavation of the site in the year 1915. During his excavations, he noted several lodges in the valley of the Nemaha River and many more on the neighboring Missouri River Bluffs.[3] E. E. Blackman led a three-weekexcavation of the site in the summer 1926. By this time, the site had been further disturbed by the use offarming. During this three-week period, several shards of pottery were excavated. These pottery shards wereshell-tempered as opposed to shard tempered or stone pottery, which is more common to this area. Blackman stated that by identifying the pottery,archaeologists would be able to then identify the people that inhabited the area.[3] W. Duncan Strong identified the area as a site of the Oneota. This was one of the furthest western sites of this tribe, who normally resided in areas such asMissouri.
In 1935, Strong's theory of the Oneota was evaluated by T. A. Hill, who was a member of the staff at the Nebraska Historical Society. Hill oversaw a three-week excavation at the site and was assisted by George F. Lamb and a crew ofarchaeologists. In the three-week period, the group of archaeologists managed to excavate 153 pits, one housing area, seven burial sites, and several scattered test pit excavations.[3] Lamb and his crew also found severalprojectile points that varied in color, gray, pink, white, and brown and were made offlint.[4] Two different samples of burntpottery were sent to the University of Wisconsin forradiocarbon dating. The sample of pottery dated to 1210 AD and 1350 AD.[5] In 1939 the University of Nebraska Archaeological Survey excavated two pits.
In the late 1950s George A. Agogino and a crew of excavators went out to the site to dig test pits. Agogino at the time of the excavation taught anthropology course and theUniversity of Nebraska. The pits the crew dug were about 18 inches in depth and containedfemurs,tibias, and fragments ofskulls. The remains were found to belong to at least three different individuals.[6] In 1965, theNebraska State Historical Society sent a crew led by John Garrett and Wendell Frantz on a ten-week excavation of the area. During this time the crew excavated 30 pits, three burials, a house, and several other features such ashearths.[3]
The Native American village was once inhabited by people of the Oneota tribe. The Leary Site in one of the further western sites of these people. Thesubsistence of the people of this site was partlyhorticulture and partly from huntingbison.[7] The people of the village used many tools made of both stone and parts of animals.Scrapers and other tools were we most often used by women.[8] The Nebraska State Historical Society excavated amule deerantler that had been used as a scraper.[9]
Many of the documents, research, and artifacts of the excavations of 1926, 1935, 1965, and 1979 are curated by the Archaeology Divisions of theNebraska State Historical Society. All of the human remains excavated from burial sites in 1935 and 1965 have beenrepatriated. Many artifacts, from Sterns excavations in 1926, reside in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University.Ceramics and other artifacts from the excavation in 1935 were given in part to theSmithsonian Institution and the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology.[3]
The Leary site was declared aNational Historical Landmark in 1964.[10] Though the site is not open to the public, there is a plaque on a brick marker to commemorate the site as a National Historical Landmark.
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