The Algonquian-speaking Blackfeet in the North and a branch of the Uto-Aztecan Shoshone in the South are the only non-cultivators on the Great Plains at the time of Contact.

The Blackfeet had previously occupied the forests above Lake Winnipeg; the southern Shoshone, eventually to be known as the Comanches, had formerly inhabited the region around Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

Semi-nomadic villagers and farmers along the Missouri may include the Siouan-speaking Mandans and Hidatsa.

Other early Plains agriculturists migrating north from present Louisiana include the ancestors of the Caddo, Wichita and Pawnee, as well as the Arikara (who will later separate from the Pawnee in the same manner as will the Absaroke, or Crow, from the Hidatsa).