68 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1951 



recovered consisted in the main of stone projectile points, blades, 

 scrapers, hammers, pestles, pipes, choppers, and bowl fragments. The 

 evidence in general appears to show that a single cultural level was 

 represented at all the sites investigated. The area is one, however, 

 where the river has done considerable scouring and shifting, and it 

 is possible that older materials may have been destroyed. Though 

 many of the data from the Chief Joseph Eeservoir supplement those 

 reported by earlier workers for the Upper Columbia-Grand Coulee 

 Keservoir, there are some marked differences in certain artifact cate- 

 gories. Considerable light will be thrown on the archeology of that 

 portion of the Columbia Basin when studies on the materials from 

 the Chief Joseph Eeservoir are completed. 



On April 2 Joel L. Shiner started excavations at a site in the McNary 

 Reservoir where a cultural layer had been discovered underneath a 

 thick stratum of wind-deposited volcanic ash. The site, which was 

 reported to the River Basin Surveys in January by Thomas R. Garth, 

 represented a single occupation by a group of Indians having a simple 

 culture and, except for the projectile points, very crude tools. Some 

 100 artifacts, including hammerstones and choppers in addition to the 

 points, were found there. Large numbers of animal bones, many of 

 them burned, and mussel shells were present in the midden. There 

 were no indications, however, of any type of habitation. The culture 

 probably represents a fairly early horizon in the Columbia Basin, but 

 its proper place in the sequence for the area cannot be determined 

 definitely until the volcanic ash is correlated with one of the known 

 eruptions in the region or the burned bones have been dated by the 

 carbon-14 method. Typologically the artifacts appear to be of re- 

 spectable age. 



At the end of April Mr. Shiner moved his party to the site of a 

 former fishing village at the mouth of the Walla Walla River and 

 carried on excavations there until the middle of May. Most of the 

 digging was done in a midden deposit adjacent to the house remains, 

 and a good series of artifacts was obtained. That is one of the few 

 locations where enough material was found to make possible a satis- 

 factory statistical study of the types of artifacts. The village appar- 

 ently was occupied just prior to and during the first coming of the 

 white man. A large number of burials had been present at one time, 

 but the locality had been so thoroughly dug by local collectors that 

 only scattered bones were found by Shiner's party. 



During the year seven preliminary reports were completed and 

 mimeographed at the Eugene office. Specimens from the various 

 surveys were processed and cataloged and the photographs taken by 

 the various parties were cataloged and filed. Because of the situation 

 with respect to funds for the following fiscal year, it was necessary to 

 close the Eugene office on June 30, 1951. 



