River Basin Surveys: The First Five 



Years of the Inter- Agency Archeologieal 



and Faleontological Salvage Program 



By Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr. 



Associate Director, Bureau of American Ethnology 

 Director, River Basin Surveys 



[With no plates] 



Late in the autumn of 1944, arclieologists throughout the United 

 States began to realize that the development and expansion of a 

 nation-wide program for flood control, irrigation, hydroelectric, and 

 navigation projects by the Federal Government would eventually 

 destroy many archeologieal sites in areas where virtually no investi- 

 gations had been made, and that whole chapters covering thousands 

 of years of the aboriginal history of North America would be lost 

 unless some steps were taken to save them. As a result of suggestions 

 stemming from various sources, an exploratory meeting of some of 

 the members of the Committee on Basic Needs in American Archeology 

 and arclieologists stationed in Washington, D, C, was held at the 

 National Besearch Council in January 1945. At that time various 

 plans were suggested for starting a program for the salvaging of 

 materials from areas which would be involved. No definite action 

 was taken then, but as an outgrowth of the discussions an independent 

 committee, the Committee for the Recovery of Archeologieal Remains, 

 composed of representatives from the Society for American Archaeol- 

 ogy, the American Anthropological Association, and the American 

 Council of Learned Societies, was organized in April of the same 

 year and undertook a careful study of tlie problem. Concurrently, 

 members of the staff of the Smithsonian Institution were working on 

 a tentative program and discussed the situation with officials in vari- 

 ous agencies interested in the development of river-basin projects. 

 During approximately the same period interbureau agreements were 

 completed between the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclama- 

 tion, and the Corps of Engineers for a survey of the recreational 



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