Nebraska's Earliest Documented Burial

Text

A distinct group of prehistoric hunter-gatherers known to archeologists as the Oxbow Complex once occupied the northern High Plains from western Nebraska to southern Canada. About 2500 B.C. a band of Oxbow people interred two of their own near here. The skeletal remains, found eroding from a road cut, were covered with red ocher and buried in a semi-flexed position. This interment of a young adult male and an infant in a single grave represents Nebraska's earliest documented burial. The Oxbow people participated in an extensive North American trade network. Copper from the Great Lakes and shells from the Atlantic Coast have been found at Oxbow sites. Exotic objects accompanying the Sidney burial included a neck ornament made from a turtle shell, raven bones, freshwater mussel shells, a large stone knife of local Kimball chert, and five amazonite pendants. The closest source of amazonite, which resembles turquoise, is the Pike's Peak region of Colorado. Jim and Becky Haddix of Sidney are credited with the 1992 discovery and subsequent preservation effort. The remains and associated funerary objects were reinterred in the Sidney cemetery.