RIVER BASIN SURVEYS — F. H. H. ROBERTS 379 



the post and certain Indian relationships was obtained in the course 

 of the work. 



While no actual digging has been attempted there as yet, the re- 

 mains of Fort Charlotte were located in the Clark Hill Reservoir area 

 along the Savannah River in South Carolina. Plans call for digging 

 at that site. Fort Charlotte was built in 1705 as one of the Colonial 

 defenses against the Cherokee Indians. South Carolina troops seized 

 it on July 12, 1775, and it continued to be occupied by Colonial troops 

 until the close of the Revolutionary War. An excavation program 

 was planned for the site because there is lack of accurate information 

 about the true nature of the fort and also because certain phases of 

 its history correlate with Indian activities in that area. Materials 

 obtained there should correlate with those from late aboriginal sites 

 in Georgia and should provide useful information about the early 

 Colonial influence on the native cultures. 



As the program as a whole progresses, there undoubtedly will be in- 

 vestigations of comparable remains in other reservoir areas, but the 

 historic aspects probably will never loom as large as those pertaining 

 to the aboriginal peoples. 



Petroglyphs and rock paintings are found in many of the areas that 

 will be inundated. Particularly fine examples occur along the Colum- 

 bia River and in the canyons of its tributaries. Various localities in 

 California have interesting examples of that form of aboriginal art 

 and there are numerous locations in the Missouri Basin that have their 

 characteristic symbols. In some cases the designs and life-form fig- 

 ures were cut or pecked into the faces of cliffs and large boulders, 

 while in others they were painted on the flat surfaces of the rocks. 

 The recording of such examples of aboriginal work constitutes one of 

 the tasks of preserving information about the Indians, and a number 

 of methods were employed. In most cases the petroglyphs and rock 

 paintings were photographed both in black and white and in color. 

 Scale drawings were also made and, where possible, tracings were 

 taken from the larger and more complicated groups of figures. In a 

 vast majority of cases the pictographs probably have no particular 

 meaning but an occasional symbol may represent a particular deity 

 or refer to some specific legendary character. A^Qien studies liave 

 been completed on the mass of such material being collected, there 

 should be better understanding of the significance of the pictographs 

 and rock paintings. 



NEW AKCIIEOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES 



During the progress of the surveys and excavations under the River 

 Basin Surveys' program a number of new techniques have been de- 

 veloped. The most important, perhaps, from the standpoint of exca- 

 vation, is' the use of heavy ecpiipment for the removal of overburden 



