By the early 1600s, the ancestors of the Pawnee Nation began consolidating into a few large communities. Each was home to hundreds, if not thousands, of people. Some of these were built along nearby Shell Creek. These Shell Creek cities may have been built by ancestors of the Čawî, Kitkehahki, and Pîtahawirâta bands. Oral tradition mentions an ancestral group, the Kawarakîs. The other major division of the Pawnee, the Ckîri, built their early communities near Genoa.
The Shell Creek villages were occupied before the Pawnees acquired horses and guns. A few items of European manufacture found at these sites show direct or indirect contact with early French traders. During this time, the Pawnees made a beautiful assortment of tools and ornaments fashioned from bone, stone, shell, antler, and clay. The Pawnees built and lived in sturdy earth lodges, timber-framed lodges covered with earth. These lodges were occupied for decades. Community members grew large amounts of corn and other crops. They went on long-distance hunting trips into Kansas, using dogs to carry home processed buffalo meat and stone for tool manufacture.
]]>Near here was a large permanent village of the Republican band of the Pawnee tribe which may have been occupied as early as 1777. On September 25, 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike visited the village with a small party of soldiers. He was greeted by Chief Characterish and 300 horsemen. The American party found that the village had been recently visited by a large Spanish expedition from Santa Fe. Pike set up camp with rifle pits on the north bank of the river opposite the village. He persuaded the Pawnee to lower a Spanish flag and raise the American flag. After holding peace conferences between the Osage, Kansa and Pawnee, Pike served notice the land was now a part of the United States and the Spanish would be forbidden in the area. On October 7th, the American party defied the warnings of the Pawnee not to travel toward the Spanish settlements. He and his party were captured by the Spanish but were eventually released. A short distance downstream from the village site is one of the five "sacred places" of the Pawnee. It is known as Pa-hur' to the Pawnee or "hill that points the way" and as Guide Rock to the whites.
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