Missouri River Resources

The Missouri River valley provided the Mandans with water, food, and shelter. Timber and game were abundant in the wooded bottomlands, bison flourished on the surrounding prairie grasslands, and village sites along the terrace edge offered access to garden land, timber, and travel up and down the valley. The Missouri River long served as a major travel route. The Mandans were one of the best known agricultural tribes of the Missouri Valley, producing surplus food that could be stored for leaner times and traded to nomadic non-farming groups. Their principal crops included corn, beans, and squash, and they also grew sunflowers and tobacco. Horticulture combined with bison hunting created a diversified and flexible economy. In the archaeological record, bison played the dominant role as a source of hides and meat, while other hunted and trapped animals included pronghorns, deer, wolves, rabbits, beavers, muskrats, porcupines, foxes, minks, badgers, and bobcats. Birds such as waterfowl, hawks and eagles, grouse, cranes, owls, woodpeckers, crows, ravens, and small songbirds, along with fishes including sturgeons, gars, mooneyes, pikes, suckers, catfishes, and cods, also contributed to the villagers' subsistence. These animals also supplied bone for tools and ornaments, as well as hides, furs, and plumage.

North Dakota · United States