SECRETARY'S REPORT 53 



of that nature was found, and the party moved to the Big Bend area 

 in South Dakota where it was expanded and began a series of excava- 

 tions in some burial mounds. A second party went to the Big Bend 

 area on June 13 and started excavations in a large village site on the 

 west side of the river 4 miles above the dam site. A third party 

 started working on the west side of the Missouri Eiver in the Oahe 

 Reservoir Basin on June 19. It was digging in a large village site 

 located about 5 miles south of Mobridge, S. Dak. All three parties 

 had the season's program well imder way and were busily digging 

 at the close of the fiscal year. During the fiscal year, 11 parties repre- 

 senting institutions cooperating in the Missouri Basin program worked 

 in four reservoir areas in Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota. 

 There were 24 parties from cooperating institutions working in other 

 basins throughout the country. 



As of June 30, 1961, the River Basin Surveys had carried on 

 reconnaissance work or had excavated in 255 reservoir basins located 

 in 29 States. In addition, two lock projects and four canal areas have 

 been examined. During the years since the program got under way 

 4,952 sites have been located and recorded, and of that number 1,157 

 were reconmiended for excavation or limited testing. Because com- 

 plete excavation has not been possible in any but a few exceptionally 

 small ones, when the term "excavation" is used it implies digging 

 only as much of a site as is thought essential to provide a reasonable 

 sample of the materials and information to be found there. Prelim- 

 inary appraisal reports have been issued for most of the reservoir 

 areas which were surveyed. In some cases no archeological manifes- 

 tations were noted and no general report was issued. During the past 

 fiiscal year no new reconnaissance work was undertaken and no such 

 reports were distributed. 



By the end of the fiscal year, 519 sites in 54 reservoir areas located 

 in 19 different States had either been tested or dug sufficiently to 

 provide good information about them. The sites in which digging 

 has been done cover a wide range of cultural characteristics. Some 

 of them pertain to early hunting and gathering peoples of about 

 10,000 years ago, while others represent communities lived in by 

 early historic Indians and the remains of frontier, army, and trading 

 posts of European origin. Between the two extremes are a series of 

 sites attributable to sedentary horticultural groups extending from 

 approximately the 6th to the 13th centuries A.D. 



Reports on the work have been published in the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution Miscellaneous Collections, in Bulletins of the Bureau of Ameri- 

 can Ethnology, and in various scientific journals and historical quar- 

 terlies. Bulletin 176, containing River Basin Surveys Papers Nos. 

 15-20, was distributed in December 1960. These papers consist of 

 a series of reports on historic sites excavated in the Garrison, Oahe, 



