Plains Village town at Lynch, Nebraska, largest 14th-century Plains settlement

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Key facts

• The Lynch site (25BD1), in Boyd County, Nebraska, lies about 12 km from the Missouri River; the modern town of Lynch had only 194 residents in 2020.
• Excavated by Douglas Bamforth and Casey Carlson, the site extends over a mile and is estimated to have supported about 6,000 people.
• It is described as the largest site in the Great Plains during the 14th century, marking the Central Plains Tradition / Middle Missouri Tradition shift to permanent farming towns.
• Crops included maize, beans, squash and sunflowers, with these crops expanding north ultimately from Mexico along the Mississippi and Missouri river systems.
• Seasonal hunting remained important: summer bison kills yielded thinner hides for tipis and clothing and easier bone needle production, while winter kills of fat males in bachelor herds provided thick hides for blankets.
• The season of Plains bison kills can be inferred from the sex of the skeletons in kill sites, since only male bison indicates a winter bachelor-herd kill.
• Large-scale tobacco use appears in this period, evidenced archaeologically by pipe fragments recovered from these occupation layers.
• Radiocarbon dating of Missouri River towns shows a recurring pattern of fortification and population concentration during droughts, because maize agriculture is water-demanding.

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