356 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1951 



different sites were excavated there and were found to contain occupa- 

 tion levels indicative of a simple hunting culture. The materials 

 obtained from the digging consisted of a small series of artifacts' in 

 association with bones from bison, deer, and smaller mammals. There 

 were no indications of any form of habitation and the cooking fires 

 apparently were built for the most part in simple basins in the surface 

 of the ground, although an example of a rock-ringed hearth was found. 

 There was nothing to indicate a chronological age for the remains', but 

 the artifact assemblage suggests that the culture was reasonably old 

 and that it may well fall within the period that previously has been 

 considered to constitute a gap between the Paleo-Indians such as are 

 represented by the Folsom and similar complexes and the later Indian 

 groups. At one of the Tiber sites there were several occupation levels, 

 the lowest of which was 7% feet below the present surface. The 

 strata at that location are such that careful study of their character- 

 istics may produce helpful data pertaining to the rate of deposition 

 in that region. 



EXCAVATIONS IN ANGOSTURA BASIN 



Perhaps the most significant of the early sites excavated by the River 

 Basin Surveys during the course of the current program is that in 

 the Angostura Reservoir basin in South Dakota. The Long site, as 

 it is called, contained deeply buried fireplaces with associated arti- 

 facts. The projectile points in the artifact assemblage show certain 

 similarities to types belonging to relatively early horizons in other 

 regions. Some suggest one of the so-called Yuma forms, others the 

 Plainview type, and others some of those found in the Pinto Basin 

 in the Mohave Desert. There are also examples comparable to some 

 found in the Agate Basin district in eastern Wyoming not far west 

 from the Angostura site. Probably because of the high gypsum con- 

 tent of the soil at the Long site, very little has been found to indicate 

 the type of food used by the people who made the artifacts. Bone is 

 virtually nonexistent, but the artifact complex bespeaks a heavy re- 

 liance on hunting, although there may have been some use of ground 

 seeds and nuts. The cultures containing the implements to which 

 those of the Long site bear closest resemblance definitely were based 

 on a hunting form of economy, and it seems logical that such would 

 be true for the people who roamed the Angostura Basin at the time 

 the Long site was inhabited. Charcoal from fire pits at the site has 

 given carbon-14 dates of 7073 ±300 and 7715 ±740 years before the 

 present (Roberts, 1951, p. 21). 



Three extremely significant sites belonging to the early period were 

 found and excavated in the Medicine Creek Reservoir basin in western 

 Nebraska by the State Museum of Nebraska in cooperation with the 



