SECRETARY'S REPORT 45 



found during an earlier season at another site in the Fort Randall area 

 and which was not well understood. Important data were also ob- 

 tained on earth-lodge types. In the vicinity of the village areas two 

 burial mounds were tested and information was obtained on burial 

 customs. The work at that location contributed so much to knowl- 

 edge of aboriginal occupation in that portion of the Missouri Basin 

 that the Historical Society in cooperation with the National Park 

 Serv'ice again sent a party to the site on June 14 where it was 

 continuing excavations at the end of the fiscal year. 



In June a party from the University of Kansas led by Dr. Carlyle 

 S. Smith proceeded to the Fort Randall Reservoir area to begin 

 excavations under a cooperative agreement with the National Park 

 Service. The Kansas group started digging at a site near Fort 

 Thompson. By the end of the fiscal year they had cut cross trenches 

 and quadrants in the remains of a large earth lodge approximately 

 52 feet in diameter and had tested several refuse mounds in a nearby 

 field. The materials recovered by the close of the year indicated that 

 the site had relationships with certain occupations at two sites pre- 

 viously excavated in the Fort Randall area. The party planned to 

 continue its operations through the month of July, and the additional 

 information obtained should make possible a better understanding 

 of aboriginal activities in that immediate district. 



The River Basin Surveys did no work in the Oahe Reservoir area 

 during the fiscal year, but a party from the South Dakota State 

 Archeological Commission and the W. H. Over Museum, under a 

 cooperating agreement with the National Park Service, carried on 

 excavations directed by Dr. Wesley R. Hurt at a location known as 

 the Swan Creek site. Three and possibly four occupations were found 

 there. The most recent of them represents the historic period. Parts 

 of two fortification ditches with palisades, earth lodges, and caches, 

 and burials of two types were uncovered. The sites proved to be so 

 important and so complex that Dr. Hurt and his party returned there 

 on June 15 and was continuing its excavations at the close of the fiscal 

 year. 



In the Garrison Reservoir area at the beginning of the fiscal year 

 a party from the Missouri Basin Project under G. Hubert Smith and 

 a group from the State Historical Society of North Dakota led by 

 Alan R. Woolworth, operating under an agreement with the National 

 Park Service, were continuing their joint investigations at the sites 

 of Forts Berthold I and II and the remains of the aboriginal village 

 named Like-a-Fishhook. Fort Berthold II had been partially dug by 

 Smith in 1952 and parties from the State Historical Society of North 

 Dakota had carried on studies in the remains of the Indian village 

 during three previous seasons. Toward the close of the 1952 season 



