In Crafting History in the Northern Plains Mark D. Mitchell shows the crucial role archaeological methods and archaeological data can play in producing trans-Columbian histories. Mitchell provides a regional synthesis of communities located at the confluence of the Heart and Missouri rivers, home to the Mandan people for more than five centuries.

Writer and anthropologist C. Thomas Shay traces the key roles of plants since humans arrived in the northern plains at the end of the Ice Age and began to hunt the region’s woodlands, fish its waters, and gather its flora.