Ancient Indian Fortress

The bronze's compliment comes backhanded, crediting the Red man with matching white inventions, but bastions here owe Europe nothing. Archaeologists call the bluff the Arzberger site. Albert Spaulding's crew dug it in 1939 and found a ditch and stockade around about 44 acres, with 24 bastions and more than forty houses inside; his report appeared in 1956. It is the type site of the Initial Coalescent, a culture tied to the ancestors of the Arikara, the Sahnish, and it was named a National Historic Landmark in 1964.

What the plaque says

Ancient Indian Fortress On the Bluff, a quarter of a mile North, ancient Indians, pre- dating the Aricara, built a fortress or strong point, involving an exterior perimeter of over 2,000 yards, enclosing about 50 acres, and with bastions, at intervals all along its palisaded wall, to provide enfilading arrow fire along its walls. In front of this was a deep dry moat. Within these palisades were many square or oblong type Indian houses. A valley in its center contained an abundance of water. Five thousand people could have been sheltered within its walls and it would have taken not less than 300 resolute warriors to defend it. Archaeologists date it back to the time of Columbus or earlier and the probability of the influence of white military design appears remote. The bastion and enfilading fire are white inventions but apparently the Red man also had his military genius and this great fortress is one of the marvels of pre-historic America. These bastions, watch guard fire points, moats are still to be seen. Cars should be left at the foot of the bluff. Erected 1955 by the Miller Studio, Pierre and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• South Dakota State Capitol — 7.1 mi
  A copper-domed capitol built to end three elections' worth of fighting over where the capital belonged, beside a lake fed by an artesian well with a gas flame burning in it.
• Verendrye Monument — 8.6 mi
  The hilltop above Fort Pierre where three children found a lead plate in 1913 that two French brothers had buried in 1743 to claim the West for their king.
• Oahe Dam — 12 mi
  One of the largest rolled-earth dams in the world, dedicated by President Kennedy in 1962, holding back a reservoir that reaches more than 230 miles to Bismarck.

More markers nearby

• Site of Old Fort Sully — 3.2 mi
• Civilian Conservation Corps Camp - Farm Island — 3.2 mi
• Old Fort Sully — 3.3 mi
• Coe Crawford, 6th Governor of South Dakota — 6.7 mi