Leary Site, also known as 25-RH-1 or Leary-Kelly Site is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology a ...

near

Rulo, Nebraska Rulo is a village in Richardson County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 144 at the 2020 census. History Rulo was laid out in 1857. It was named for Charlie Rouleau, the original owner of the town site. In 1933, the foundation for ...

and the Big Nemaha River. The site now lies entirely on the reservation of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. The area was once a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

and

burial site Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

Excavations and Research

On July 12, 1804, during their expedition into the

Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or app ...

, Meriwether Lewis and

William Clark William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Miss ...

stopped along the

Nemaha River Nemaha is the name of several places in the United States, including: * Nemaha, Iowa * Nemaha, Nebraska * Nemaha County, Kansas * Nemaha County, Nebraska * Nemaha Township, Gage County, Nebraska Nemaha Township is one of twenty-four townships in ...

. William Clark set out and noted several mounds in the area, the smaller mounds he inferred to be most likely trash pits and where homes had formerly been and the larger mounds to be burial mounds. Frederick H. Sterns, faculty the Peabody Museum of the

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, led an excavation of the site in the year 1915. During his excavations, he noted several lodges in the valley of the Nemaha River and many more on the neighboring Missouri River Bluffs. E. E. Blackman led a three-week excavation of the site in the summer 1926. By this time, the site had been further disturbed by the use of

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

. During this three-week period, several shards of pottery were excavated. These pottery shards were shell-tempered as opposed to shard tempered or stone pottery, which is more common to this area. Blackman stated that by identifying the pottery, archaeologists would be able to then identify the people that inhabited the area. W. Duncan Strong identified the area as a site of the Oneota. This was one of the furthest western sites of this tribe, who normally resided in areas such as

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

. In 1935, Strong's theory of the Oneota was evaluated by T. A. Hill, who was a member of the staff at the Nebraska Historical Society. Hill oversaw a three-week excavation at the site and was assisted by George F. Lamb and a crew of archaeologists. In the three-week period, the group of archaeologists managed to excavate 153 pits, one housing area, seven burial sites, and several scattered test pit excavations. Lamb and his crew also found several

projectile point In North American archaeological terminology, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a weapon that was capable of being thrown or projected, such as a javelin, dart, or arrow. They are thus different from weapons presumed to have ...

s that varied in color, gray, pink, white, and brown and were made of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

. Two different samples of burnt

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

were sent to the University of Wisconsin for radiocarbon dating. The sample of pottery dated to 1210 AD and 1350 AD. In 1939 the University of Nebraska Archaeological Survey excavated two pits. In the late 1950s George A. Agogino and a crew of excavators went out to the site to dig test pits. Agogino at the time of the excavation taught anthropology course and the University of Nebraska. The pits the crew dug were about 18 inches in depth and contained

femur The femur (; ), or thigh bone, is the proximal bone of the hindlimb in tetrapod vertebrates. The head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum in the pelvic bone forming the hip joint, while the distal part of the femur articulates wit ...

tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...

s, and fragments of

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...

s. The remains were found to belong to at least three different individuals. In 1965, the

Nebraska State Historical Society History Nebraska, formerly the Nebraska State Historical Society is a Nebraska state agency, founded in 1878 to "encourage historical research and inquiry, spread historical information ... and to embrace alike aboriginal and modern history." I ...

sent a crew led by John Garrett and Wendell Frantz on a ten-week excavation of the area. During this time the crew excavated 30 pits, three burials, a house, and several other features such as hearths.

Oneota People

The Native American village was once inhabited by people of the Oneota tribe. The Leary Site in one of the further western sites of these people. The

subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...

of the people of this site was partly

horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

and partly from hunting bison. The people of the village used many tools made of both stone and parts of animals. Scrapers and other tools were we most often used by women. The Nebraska State Historical Society excavated a

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whi ...

antler that had been used as a scraper.

Artifacts Today

Many of the documents, research, and artifacts of the excavations of 1926, 1935, 1965, and 1979 are curated by the Archaeology Divisions of the

. All of the human remains excavated from burial sites in 1935 and 1965 have been

repatriated Repatriation is the process of returning a thing or a person to its country of origin or citizenship. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as to the pro ...

. Many artifacts, from Sterns excavations in 1926, reside in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University.

Ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

and other artifacts from the excavation in 1935 were given in part to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

and the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology.

Historical Landmark Status

The Leary site was declared a

National Historical Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places liste ...

in 1964."National Register Information System". ''National Register of Historic Places''. National Park Service. Though the site is not open to the public, there is a plaque on a brick marker to commemorate the site as a National Historical Landmark.

Excavations and Research

Oneota People

Artifacts Today

Historical Landmark Status

References

Further reading