Looking at the ethnohistoric sources of the Crow Indians can help construct the settlement and subsistence patterns of the prehistoric counterparts of the Crow. According to one source, Joseph Medicine Crow's book From the Heart of the Crow Country, the reader is informed that when the Absarokee separated from the main tribe, believed to be the Hidatsa, they abandoned the ways of agriculture and went back to the nomadic ways of hunting and gathering. Because …showed first 75 words of 1243 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1243 total…for hunting that may keep them away for a few days. Tress were nearby, used for fuel, tipi construction, and bow and arrow construction. As for resources of the arrowheads, bone would come from the hunt, but no mention of lithic resources was made. The Crow were grouped together based on family ties, based mainly on matrilineal descent. There is also ties through the military groups that patrol band actions, such as the communal hunt.