Although collections of stone projectile points, scrapers, hammerstones, knives, clay pottery, and other primitive Indian artifacts have been assembled from scattered sites in the North Platte Valley, the story of prehistoric man in the Scotts Bluff region is still incomplete. Only a dim outline of the ancient past is beginning to emerge from the patient studies of archeologists.
Vague evidence of aboriginal campsites and signal fires has been found on the summit of Scotts Bluff. However, the story of ancient man in this section of the Great Plains is better suggested by five other nearby Indian occupation sites:
Signal Butte.
At the western terminus of Wildcat Hills, about 12 miles southwest of Scotts Bluff, archeologists of Nebraska University, in 1932, probed the top of an isolated bluff which is now famous as a key archeological site. A 13-foot vertical cross section revealed three separate levels, each bearing cultural material. The lowest level is believed to represent a hunting complex (Early Lithic Period), perhaps 5,000 years old. The second level (Intermediate Lithic Period), described as Pre-Woodland, is given a tentative age of 1,500 years. The uppermost level (Ceramic Period) contains artifacts of the Dismal River and Upper Republican cultures, including pottery. The primitive farmers representing the Upper Republican culture occupied Signal Butte when Columbus discovered America, while the Dismal River people are believed to have been an Apache group of about A. D. 1700.
Scotts Bluff Bison Quarry.
In 1933 archeologists of the University of Nebraska State Museum, while excavating in the bank of Kiowa Creek, near Signal Butte, found stone projectile points in association with an extinct form of giant bison. This remarkable find, which established Scottsbluff points as a classic type, was among the earliest of a series of discoveries in the Great Plains which have furnished unmistakable evidence of mysterious big game hunters who inhabited the Plains some 10,000 years ago.
Spanish Diggings.
About 60 miles northwest of Scotts Bluff, in Wyoming, lies an extensive area of flinty hills and wastes which have large numbers of ancient quarries. Thousands of artifacts of primitive manufacture suggest the Intermediate Lithic Period preceding the dawn of the Christian era.
Scotts Bluff Potato Cellar Site.
Near the east Slope of Scotts Bluff, in 1934, a farmer reported the occurrence of several skeletons and associated stone and bone artifacts while excavating for a potato storage bin. This appears to have been a burial ground of early Nebraska hunters, or foragers, possibly contemporary with the Intermediate Lithic level at Signal Butte.