groups of the Initial Coalescent culture in the area in competition for arable land and resources. Site The Crow Creek site, designated 39BF11 under the Smithsonian site numbering system, is located along the Missouri River in central South Dakota. The site is located on lands now under the control of the US Army Corps of Engineers due to its flood control and other projects on the river. It is surrounded by the territory of the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. The descendants of the people of the Middle Missouri and Central Plains/Initial Coalescent cultures now live in North Dakota as the Mandan and Arikara nations, respectively, of the Three Affiliated Tribes (together with the Hidatsa). Some occupy Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, but many also live off the reservation in cities. Crow Creek is now a well-preserved archaeological site. It was listed as National Historic Landmark (number 66000710) when the Register was started in 1964. In 1978, South Dakota State Archaeologist, Robert Alex, and other members of his office attended a meeting hosted by the South Dakota Archaeological Society. They toured the Crow Creek site, which had been known and had some professional excavation in the 1950s as part of surveys and salvage excavations preceding construction of Big Bend Dam on the Missouri within the reservation boundaries. They discovered human bones eroding from the end of the fortification ditch. After they received permission to excavate the site from the reservation tribal council, following consultation about how to proceed and agreement to rebury remains on site, archeology teams recovered the skeletal remains of at least 486 Crow Creek villagers. These estimates were based on the number of right temporal bones present at the scene. The characteristics of the remains at the site show they were killed in an overwhelming attack, which has been called the Crow Creek Massacre. Discovery of this event has raised many questions in the archaeological community, particularly who attacked the village and why. Skeletal remains The remains of the villagers of Crow Creek were discovered in a fortification ditch, where they were buried during the mid-14th century and covered with a small layer of clay from the river bottom. The bodies found in the fortification ditch were piled as deep as four feet in some areas. The bodies showed evidence of having lain out exposed to weather and scavengers for a period of time, becoming at least partly disarticulated