From "Fortified Village" to Sacred Site
Archaeology, Oral Tradition, and Ways of Knowing
What was once labeled as a "fortified village" has now come to represent something much deeper, shaped by both indigenous traditions and evolving historical practices.
The Eminja Mounds, also known as the Brandon Village Site or Split Rock Creek Mounds, and sometimes described by archaeologists as a “fortified village,” represent more than just one historical interpretation. The different names already show that this site means different things to different people. For the Arikara and other Plains Indigenous nations, the mounds are sacred burial grounds connected to ancestors, spiritual beliefs, and oral traditions. Rather than being viewed as ruins of the past, they are understood as part of living culture. In the Arikara narratives collected by Douglas Parks and Alfred Morsette, history is not just written down. It is remembered through storytelling, relationships, and lived experience. Stories passed down across generations preserve knowledge about people, places, and events in ways that written records sometimes cannot. Oral tradition as a way of knowing feels very different from the archaeological perspective.
Archaeologists, however, focused on the physical layout of the site and referred to it as a fortified village because of the earthworks and defensive ditches. Their interpretation centered on structures, artifacts, and material evidence. Researchers studied settlement patterns, burial mounds, and defensive features to reconstruct how people might have lived at the site centuries ago. While that approach values scientific documentation, it does not fully account for the spiritual and cultural meanings attached to the land. This contrast shows how history can look differently depending on whose knowledge is being prioritized.
In 1941, William Over and Elmer Meleen of the University of South Dakota Museum (now called the W.H. Over Museum) excavated the site. They carefully recorded structural remains, burial mounds, and artifacts. Their work helped establish the site as one of the most significant archaeological locations in eastern South Dakota. But like most archaeology at the time, the excavation treated the site as an object of study rather than a sacred space. There is little evidence that Native communities were consulted before human remains were removed. Many of the remains and artifacts were taken to museums or research collections for analysis. As Pawnee attorney Walter Echo-Hawk observed, “If you desecrate a white grave, you wind up sitting in prison. But desecrate an Indian grave, you get a Ph.D.” This reflects a larger pattern in early twentieth century archaeology where Indigenous voices were often excluded from decisions about their own ancestors.
By the 1950s, local historians and settlers began preserving the mounds as part of regional heritage. A 1954 article in the Argus Leader newspaper highlighted the site as an important historical landmark for Minnehaha County. While preservation helped protect the land physically, it still puts the site within a settler narrative of the “vanishing Indian”. The mounds were often described as part of an ancient past that had not ended, not as places still meaningful to Native American communities today. As a result, public interpretations sometimes focused more on regional pride rather than Indigenous cultural connections.
The Red Power Movement in the 1970s marked an important shift. Indigenous activists began demanding the protection of sacred sites and the return of ancestral remains, such as Yankton Dakota woman Maria Pearson, who is considered the mother of NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990), for her advocacy for a foundational state law in Iowa. As David Hurst Thomas explain in the book Skull Wars, NAGPRA changes the relationship between archaeologists and Native American communities by requiring consultation and repatriation. Institutions receiving federal dollars were now legally required to return human remains and sacred cultural items to affiliated tribes whenever possible. This law acknowledged that Native nations have authority over their ancestors and cultural items.
Today, the Eminija Mounds are approached through consultation with affiliated tribes. Archaeologists and researchers now work with Native communities when studying burial grounds of culturally sensitive sites. The shift from the 1941 excavation to modern collaboration shows how archaeological practices have since evolved. Looking at this site over time makes it clear that history is not just about uncovering the past. It is also about who has the right to interpret it and whose knowledge is recognized as legitimate.
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