The Wild West was substantially ended by this date, and the Shoshone signed treaties in 1868 which gave those of Wyoming the Wind River Reservation and those of Idaho the Fort Hall Reservation. Sedentarization of these buffalo-hunting nomads was completed during the 1870's, by which time the region was being settled by white ranchers and their Texas herds. Shortly after 1880, the buffalo herds had been almost completely exterminated, and so also had Plains Indian life. The era from 1700 to 1880 was thus one of great change for the Shoshone. We recapitulate its principal periods. 1. The pre-horse period extended until approximately 1700. 2. The early equestrian period, from 1700 to 1750 was distinguished by the expansion of Shoshone-speaking peoples into the Canadian plains to the north and southward toward Texas, where they became known as Comanche. 3. After 1750, the northern tribes, especially the Blackfoot, acquired the horse and firearms and drove the Shoshone south and west, where they retreated beyond the Continental Divide, in contiguity with those Shoshone who had remained in the Great Basin. By this time, the Comanche had become differentiated from their northern colinguists. 4. The fur period began about 1810, and from this time, Shoshone history became inextricably connected with that of the American frontiers. Although the game supply declined during this epoch, the Shoshone were not dispossessed from their hunting grounds and continued substantially the same subsistence cycle. 5. The year 1840 saw the end of the fur trade and the beginning of westward emigration. As will be seen, the buffalo herds west of the Divide had disappeared by this date, and the Shoshone were increasingly forced to seek winter supplies on the Missouri waters. 6. The Shoshone signed treaties in 1868 in which they were forced to accept reservation life. At about this time, gold miners entered the Sweetwater country, and the transcontinental railroad was completed. The following decade saw the end of the buffalo in the west and the introduction of open-range cattle grazing. Shoshone history then became merged with the history of the American West. During the periods of the fur trade and early emigration increasing amounts of information on Shoshonean and Mono-Bannock speakers became available. Political organization among these peoples was characteristically amorphous, and the early diarists and chroniclers had little basis for distinguishing subgroups in this vast region. With the exception of the Paiute-Shoshone split, language differences gave no firm basis for differentiation, and even this major division of the Uto-Aztecan stock was commonly not recognized. Accordingly, travelers classified the Indians of the region on the basis of their most obvious characteristic, whether or not they possessed horses and hunted buffalo. Alexander Ross observed (1924, pp. 239-240):