The Cherokee Sewer Site is a multi-component Prehistoric Indian Archaic bison processing site excavated in 1973 and 1976 near the sewage treatment plant of

Cherokee, Iowa Cherokee is a city in Cherokee County, Iowa, United States. The population was 5,199 at the 2020 Census, down from 5,369 in 2000. It is the county seat of Cherokee County. History Cherokee was laid out as a town in 1870, and was named for the ...

, United States. (Note: It is not associated with the

Cherokee tribe The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...

of the Southeast or Oklahoma.) Analysis of evidence from the site shows a transition in bison hunting strategy on the East Plains during the

Archaic period in the Americas Archaic is a period of time preceding a designated classical period, or something from an older period of time that is also not found or used currently: *List of archaeological periods **Archaic Sumerian language, spoken between 31st - 26th cent ...

. Data from the Cherokee sewer excavations produced some of the earliest models for climate change in the Midwest. A revisiting in the 1990s of "bison dentition and fetal elements" from the site indicates that the indigenous people of the Paleoindian and Early Archaic horizons conducted a late-fall to early-winter season of bison kill, rather than a mid- to late-winter season of kill, as suggested in the 1980 report. The evidence showed that there was a shift in the age of bison killed "from younger animals to older ones" during what is now known as the "mid-Holocene, roughly 6,000 years BP. Together these results suggest that "bison hunters on the eastern Plains used different adaptive strategies to cope with climate change than those seen on the western Plains." The site is listed as an archeological site on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

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