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The change in the Nebraska landscape was dramatic. In just a few short years, cattle replaced the American bison as the leading, cloven-hoofed, grass-eating mammal on the Great Plains. In 1850, millions of bison ranged the grasslands and were the main natural resource for the region’s American Indians.
In 1868, the steel rails of the transcontinental railroad created a barrier that bison did not like to cross. That divided the great herd into northern and southern herds.
When the great trail drives ... Read more
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The archaeological record in western and central Nebraska suggests that Native American people migrated to the region somewhere around 1675 CE. We think they came from further west and north. Archaeologists have found evidence of these people and named the culture after where the sites were discovered in the 1930s — along the Dismal River in the Nebraska sand hills. Dismal River Cultural sites also have been excavated in the Republican River basin. So, the Dismal River cultural complex occupied ... Read more
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Plains Indians exhibited great skill and ingenuity in turning the natural materials they found around them into tools and materials to help them survive. They used stones, bones, shells, clay, hides, hair, and wood to make tools and implements. But, one of their greatest natural resources was the bison.
The Native Americans of eastern Nebraska in the late 1600s and early 1700s developed a system of seasonal travel carefully planned to put them at the right place at the right time ... Read more
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The first accepted evidence we have of human beings on the Central Plains is around 12,000 years old. Archaeologists have found spear points near Clovis, New Mexico, and elsewhere that date from that era.There is some evidence that human beings may have lived here even earlier, but that evidence is disputed. Most scientists believe the ancestors of today’s Native Americans walked across a "land bridge" from Asia to ... Read more
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The oldest known Indian tool found in Nebraska is the Clovis point, made about 10,000 B.C.E. It is a spear point with a groove or flute, at its base. Attached to a shaft, this spear point was capable of penetrating an elephant’s hide. The Clovis culture takes its name from the town in New Mexico where the striking stone projectile point characteristic of this culture was first found. The chipped flint points known as Clovis points and a variety of ... Read more
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The Pawnee was one of the earliest Native American tribes to be described in the European historical record, and they were one of the largest groups to live and roam across the territory. Their name most likely comes from a Pawnee word for horn which was “Pariki” or “Parrico” and was in reference to the way they fashioned their hair to look to have a horn or horns. The French explorers recorded the term as “Pani” as eastern native groups ... Read more
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Find out where these Protohistoric cultures are.
Around 1600 CE, the first of the Protohistoric tribal cultures to return to the Nebraska region may have been the ancestors of the Pawnee. Several archaeological sites around the present day Lower Loup River in east-central Nebraska have been found, and these sites have named for that river basin.
Precise dates are difficult, but one interpretation of Pawnee stories or oral history says that they immigrated into Nebraska from the south about 1600. Archaeologists also ... Read more
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The Central Plains Village Tradition period (from 900 -1450 CE) saw a rapid increase in population on the plains and, in one sense, was the culmination of the changes that began during the Plains Woodland period. Archaeologists estimate that there were more people in the region during the period than at any other time before or since. In other words, there were more people living on the plains than there are even now. About 5,000 archaeological sites have been discovered ... Read more
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Issues related to the environment, use of drugs and chemicals, and other problems shaped not only public policy, but consumer demand. In meeting these challenges, new and expanding niche markets for cattle grew.
Since the first days of cattle in Nebraska, producers have worked to keep up with the wishes of their consumers. Breeding and feeding technologies were developed to produce the tasty meat that Americans and people around the world wanted.
Most cattle in Nebraska belong to the Angus and Hereford ... Read more
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The Oto tribe gave this state its name, but they were not native to the region. "Nebraska" is an Oto word that means "flat water." Like migrant groups before and after, the Oto immigrated to the Central Plains from the east, just ahead of the Europeans.
The earliest mention of the Oto and Missouria tribes in the European historical record dates from the late 1600s. The Missouria were then in central Missouri and the Oto were in central Iowa. The Otos ... Read more
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1600 CE was a pivotal time in the history of Nebraska,and there are at least two compelling stories to tell.
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As Nebraska entered the 20th century, its ranchers had learned from ranching experiments of the 1870s and 1880s and the Depression of 1898. Ranchers did well with their improved herds and high demand. Meatpacking was by far the state’s leading business. Cattle ruled Nebraska’s economy.
But there were also big problems.
The jobs provided by the expanding stockyards and packing plants attracted a wave of new immigrants to South Omaha. And particularly during ... Read more
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The Redbird culture in northeastern Nebraska left an archaeological record that is similar to the Lower Loup culture, but Redbird sites were smaller villages and we find slightly different pottery styles at these sites.
Ponca and Omaha oral history suggests that the Redbird people immigrated into northeastern Nebraska about 1700 CE. Some archaeologists agree and maintain that the evidence shows that the Redbird culture descended into the Ponca. However, other archaeologists feel they are more likely ancestral to the ... Read more
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When homesteaders arrived on the Great Plains, they found a challenging environment where survival was the goal. The native tribal people had been meeting these same challenges for thousands of years and had evolved complex economic, agricultural and cultural methods of coping. What was life like for the Native Americans in the mid- to late-1800s on the Great Plains?
By the mid-1800s, the Pawnee, Omaha, Oto-Missouria, Ponca, Lakota (Sioux), and Cheyenne were the main plains tribes living in the Nebraska Territory. ... Read more
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"Which came first — the chicken or the egg?"
This is an age-old question that may not have a good answer. Neither may this question:
"Which came first — farming or a major increase in the Native American population during the Plains Woodland period?"
On the one hand, farming gave the native peoples a better way to feed themselves. On the other hand, more people were needed to maintain the ... Read more
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Nebraska entered the 21st century with impressive statistics. As of 2006, Nebraska had the top three beef cattle counties in the U.S., including the nation’s No. 1 cattle county — Cherry County, with nearly 165,000 cattle. Holt County was No. 2 (101,000) and Custer County was No. 3 (93,000). Also among the top counties in the ... Read more
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After millions of years of moving from one place on the globe to another, after millions of years covered by a shallow inland sea, and after millions of years covered with tropical jungles and savannas, what would become the northern Great Plains was plowed under by a series of huge sheets of ice that pushed down from the North Pole and then receded. The glaciers were pushed across the northern plains by the weight ... Read more
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Cattle are so much a part of Nebraska life today that it may seem strange to think of a time when there were none in our area.
We think "west" when we think about beef in America, but its story is really about going north. Cattle are not native to the American continents. The Spanish brought them to the Americas in the 16th Century.
In Mexico, strays from Spanish herds, especially ... Read more
