Drawing together a century of widely scattered scientific and technical
reports, as well as 25 years of first-hand experience in the field,
Scott Anfinson provides the first comprehensive overview of the peoples
who inhabited the Prairie Lake Region of the northeastern Plains before
the arrival of European explorers.
Minnesota Prehistoric Archaeology Series #14
Focusing on southwestern Minnesota, north-central Iowa, and southeastern
South Dakota, the author describes the dramatic environmental changes
that occurred during the precontact millennia and their impact on the
human, animal, and plant cultures of the region once treated as the
insignificant edge of the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands.
Dr. Anfinson's synthesis reveals how the successions of peoples in this
transition region selectively accepted--and denied--influences from the
better-known cultures that flourished around them.
Archaeologists and historians of Native Americans, as well as amateur
and armchair archaeologists, will welcome this valuable addition to the
region's geological, natural, and cultural history.