South Dakota’s First Farmers

North and South Dakota have a rich and extensive agricultural history. Hundreds of years before the first white people began farming in the Dakotas, the Native Americans living here were practicing agriculture. These people lived in villages and farmed the river bottoms. These ancient farmers were, in their way, as successful as any modern farmer.

Who were these first people? Archaeologists have excavated many ancient villages. They find and study fragments of stone and bone tools, pottery shards, seeds, and other remnants of past inhabitants. From these fragments we have learned that these peoples are the remote ancestors of the modern Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. Some of them first came to what is now South Dakota more than one thousand years ago. They lived along the edges of rivers, where they built large villages. Inside the villages they lived in timber and sod houses known as earth lodges, which kept them warm even in the coldest winters. Several families lived in each lodge. Villages were often protected from enemies by deep ditches and log palisade walls. Many of the villages were very large, with up to two thousand people living in them. This would make them larger than many modern South Dakota towns.

To learn more about early Native American farming in South Dakota, click on the map or click here!