Systematic, fine-grained data recovery and spatial analysis facilitate interpretation of household assemblage formation and abandonment at two late prehistoric (AD 1000–1500) lodges in the Central Plains: the Scott and Phil sites in northeastern and north-central Kansas, respectively. This is based on patterns in lodge design, construction, storage, and domestic activities inferred from the distribution of burned wood, burned stone, daub, ceramics, chipped stone tools, and lithic debris. These reflect patterns of cultural material discard, displacement, clean-up, and gendered space utilization, as well as planned vs. unplanned abandonment that may compare to households of other sedentary, low level food producers in the Great Plains and other regions.

Feasting and its function among small scale societies have received little attention among many descriptive and theoretical studies of this activity. Evidence of feasting focused on large roasting pits by Late Woodland (AD 500–1000) hunter-gatherer-gardeners in the lower Missouri River region on the eastern edge of the Great Plains is presented. Two features at the Quixote site and lipid analyses of stones from them attest single events focused on roasting deer and fish, and perhaps ritual use of red cedar and ceramic pipes. Such features at other Late Woodland sites in the LMRR, specifically the Valley Falls locality of the Delaware River valley in northeastern Kansas, are reinterpreted. Burned stone features at Middle Woodland sites differ and suggest pit roasting was a practice of dispersed Late Woodland groups. Feasting for solidarity forged a social network based on reciprocity, not competition, to mitigate food insecurity among diffuse, low level food producers.

Late Prehistoric (AD 900-1500) adaptations along the lower Missouri River in the Kansas City locality include two distinct contemporaneous archaeological cultures, Steed-Kisker and Pomona. Both are reviewed with emphasis on interaction, change, and continuity. Evidence from other sites in northeastern Kansas, a prairie-woodland ecotone, points to interaction where their culture core areas overlapped, a locality that was a frontier throughout much of prehistory between cultures of the eastern woodlands and the Great Plains. Recent investigation of house remains at the Scott and Caenen sites, representing the Steed-Kisker and Pomona cultures respectively, provides significant insight concerning relations or lack thereof. About 130 years apart in time of occupation, they are only 350 m distant in Stranger Creek valley, the last major tributary of the Kansas River before its confluence with the Missouri River. Both illustrate the contrasting nature of these adaptations, specifically change from a Woodland adaptation represented by Steed-Kisker and continuity with respect to it represented by Pomona, which persisted longer. The possibility of assimilation of both cultures with the Oneota tradition during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is discussed.

Sites of the Central Plains and Oneota traditions in the Lovewell Reservoir locality, north-central Kansas, provide radiocarbon dates critical to the problem of relations between these Late Prehistoric cultures. Statistical tests of dates from eight sites of that period suggest late thirteenth century occupation by both traditions, and perhaps a third. Despite temporal and geographic proximity, there is no clear archaeological evidence of interaction between these distinct cultures at Lovewell. Temporal placement of Oneota sites at Lovewell is also critical to identification of candidate sites or areas of origin for migrants to that locality. Dates from other western Oneota sites (Leary, Swantek, Ashland, and Dixon) post-date A.D. 1300, indicating they could not have been points of origin for these migrants. Pending a greater sample of radiocarbon dates from all western Oneota sites, hypotheses are offered that posit late thirteenth century Oneota migration to the Lovewell locality from an as yet unidentified Oneota locale that may have displaced some CPt groups.

Bison utilization during the Late Prehistoric period in the central Plains varied from the diffuse pattern that characterizes the Central Plains tradition to the focal pattern of the western most Oneota. Both patterns are represented at sites in the Lovewell locality on White Rock Creek, a tributary Of the lower Republican River in north-central Kansas. Intensive bison exploitation is also represented at the Montana Creek East (I4JW46) site within this locality. A bundant faunal remains indicative of marrow and bone grease processing are associated with the varied, if modest, lithic and ceramic assemblages. These do not suggest use by Oneota or Central Plains tradition peoples although a date fits the Late Prehistoric period. A buried Plains Woodland component, previously undocumented at Lovewell, indicates earlier evidence of bison hunting. Together the remains at this and certain other sites at Lovewell indicate extensive use of bison by different groups.

Exotic lithic raw materials provide insight into exchange relations and mobility of prehistoric populations. Toward this end, obsidian flakes from two western Oneota sites, Warne in north central Kansas and Blood Run in northwestern Iowa, were sourced using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry With the exception of two artifacts from Warne, all were traced to parent obsidian sources in the northwestern Plains and Plateau regions. Obsidian pieces from Warne compare favorably with geologic samples from Malad, Idaho (n=4) and Obsidian Ridge, New Mexico (n=2). Trace element composition in the Blood Run flakes is congruent with sourced standards from Obsidian Cliff, Wyoming (n=5) and Bear Gulch, Idaho (n=1). The artifacts from Warne point to down-the-line acquisition during contact with groups closer to their sources to the west and south. Such contact may have occurred during bison hunting forays in those directions. The low incidence of New Mexico obsidian supports the Late Prehistoric temporal placement of the White Rock phase. The sources of obsidian from Blood Run are consistent with those of artifacts from earlier sites in Iowa, particularly those of the Middle Woodland period, and reflect the maintenance of trade relations with northern Plains groups.

Abstract Late Prehistoric habitation structures in the Great Plains of North America are frequently recognized from postmold patterns and associated features, such as hearths and storage pits. At sites that lack such indicators, some archaeologists have either failed to discern domestic structures or have mistakenly attributed them to other, non-habitation functions. In the absence of more conventional house remains, the spatial analysis of small scale debris, including daub, charcoal, and burned bone, in conjunction with piece-plotted lithic and ceramic artifacts, can identify the remains of houses as well as external, domestic features. Such analysis enhances our understanding of past settlement patterns of seasonally mobile agriculturalists, as seen at the Steed-Kisker phase component at the DB site (14LV1071), a late prehistoric upland occupation of the Lower Missouri Valley at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.