The Sidney Burial: A Middle Plains Archaic Mortuary Site from Western Nebraska

The remains of a Middle Archaic (radiocarbon dated to 2288 - 2466 B. C.) young adult male and an infant of indeterminate sex were discovered eroding from a road cut near Sidney, Nebraska, and excavated. Associated cultural materials included amazonite pendants that suggest trade routes and (along with fragments of a perforated turtle carapace) represent the earliest regional examples of ornamentation in direct association with a burial. The funerary items and burial style tenuously link the Sidney Burial (25CN55) with the Oxbow Complex, best represented in the northern Plains