Cross Ranch Archeological District

Cross Ranch Archeological District near Hensler, North Dakota, is a large historic and archaeological landscape spanning 6,365 acres and encompassing 149 contributing sites. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985, it is important not for a single ruin but for preserving a wide archaeological record of the northern plains. Among its notable locations is the Bagnell site, occupied in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, where excavations revealed posthole patterns and other features showing houses in transition toward the earthlodges associated with regional tribes during the historic period. Together, these sites document settlement and architectural change over time.

North Dakota · United States