SECRETARY'S REPORT 65 



Montana. The survey of the Katka area located and recorded 14 

 sites, of which one was recommended for excavation. Three others, 

 however, were found to be worthy of testing. The Libby area contains 

 11 archeological sites, and because so little is known of the archeology 

 of the Kootenai Indians, 6 of the 11 were recommended for further 

 study. Extensive excavation would not be required at any of them, 

 however. John M. Campbell spent July and August making a survey 

 of the Priest Rapids Reservoir basin. The Priest Rapids Dam is to 

 be built in the Columbia River just below the rapids and will create 

 a pool area 56 miles long. The district to be flooded is an important 

 one from the standpoint of the aboriginal occupation of the area, 

 and 74 sites were found there. Of that number, 29 are considered 

 to be of high archeological significance. The sites consist of those 

 with well-preserved house pits, the remains of open camps, cave shel- 

 ters, burial grounds, and various groups of pictographs. The region 

 is one that was occupied by several different Indian groups, and knowl- 

 edge from it should have an important bearing on a large section of 

 the Plateau Culture area. 



At the start of the fiscal year a party under the direction of Douglas 

 Osborne, consulting archeologist, was continuing excavations at a site 

 on the Washington side of the Columbia River near Mottinger in the 

 McNary Reservoir basin. The site was that of a postcontact village 

 and probably was the location of that visited by Robert Stuart in 1812. 

 During the course of the digging three house pits and one mat lodge 

 were uncovered, and three additional house pits were tested. The 

 house pits were circular, and if the identification of the village is 

 correct it would indicate that the circular earth lodge was in use in 

 that area at a later date than most anthropologists have believed. The 

 artifacts obtained were not numerous, which is a condition found at 

 most of the places worked in the McNary basin. In addition to abo- 

 riginal stone and bone implements and shell ornaments, a variety of 

 European goods was obtained. Several of the house pits gave evi- 

 dence of several separate occupations, which may indicate that the 

 village was not lived in continuously but was revisited from time to 

 time, perhaps by the same group of people. The remains of the long 

 narrow mat house, which was a popular form of multifamily dwelling 

 during the historical period in that area, agree closely with the de- 

 scriptions of such houses given by the Umatilla Indians to ethnological 

 investigators in previous years. One complete burial was recovered 

 at that location. Late in July Mr. Osborne transferred his party to 

 a site near Cold Springs on the Oregon side of the river where he dug 

 four house pits in the remains of a small village. During periods of 

 liigh water the site appears to be located on an island, as a portion 

 of the river flows through an old channel and separates it from high 

 ground to the south. The village was situated on the side nearest 



