362 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1951 



stage of house building than the structures with circular or oval 

 floors. The "mat house" was a popular form of multif amily dwelling 

 during the historic period in that area and the oval form found 

 in the McNary basin agrees closely with the descriptions of such 

 houses obtained by ethnological investigators working among the 

 Umatilla Indians in previous years. Most of the villages dug along 

 the Columbia were occupied just prior to the coming of the white man 

 in that region or represent the contact period. None of the latter 

 appear to have been inhabited long after the visit of the Lewis and 

 Clark expedition. The excavations also have shown that in many 

 cases hunting actually played a larger part in the economy than 

 previously supposed. The basic source of food, of course, was 

 fishing, but that activity did not provide the entire subsistence. 

 Another interesting fact gained from the excavations was that the 

 circular form of dwelling persisted into more recent times than had 

 commonly been supposed. At several locations the excavations were 

 carried on as cooperative projects of the River Basin Surveys, the 

 University of Oregon, the University of Washington, and the Wash- 

 ington State College. In the spring of 1951 materials from the 

 McNary Reservoir diggings were processed at a laboratory provided 

 by the University of Washington. 



The remains of an interesting small village were uncovered in 

 the Terminus Reservoir area on the Kaweah River in Tulare County, 

 Calif. The community had consisted of 14 houses and 3 distinct 

 milling places. It was located on a well-drained knoll adjacent to 

 the river. The house remains — with one exception — were found to 

 consist of roughly circular floors varying from 8 to 16 feet in diam- 

 eter. The differing structure was oval in form with diameters of 

 approximately 50 and 20 feet. In the floors of the houses were un- 

 prepared hearths consisting of lens-shaped deposits of wood ash. 

 The floors themselves did not give evidence of having been specially 

 prepared but probably were compacted through use. The upper 

 parts of the houses were found to have consisted of pole and thatch 

 superstructures covered with a layer of clay plastering. The fact 

 that the houses had burned and that the clay was fired sufficiently 

 to preserve the imprints of the twigs and grass showed the type of 

 construction. At three different locations adjacent to the village 

 the exposed bedrock provided places where the women had ground 

 the acorns and other seeds used for food. At those milling places 

 there were groups of mortar pits varying in depth from 1 to 9 inches 

 and from 4 to 10 inches in diameter. The pestles used in the mor- 

 tars were not present at the milling places although a few were 

 found in the course of excavation in the village. The regular ceme- 

 tery for the village was not located but the remains of eight individuals 



