84 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1964 



of the work was concentrated in the digging or testing of sites, but 

 surveys were made in four new reservoir areas in North Dakota and 

 one new reservoir area in South Dakota. At the beginning of the fiscal 

 year there were 12 crews at work. One field crew was operating in 

 the Smith Mountain Reservoir area in southern Virginia, seven parties 

 were at work in the Oahe and Big Bend Eeservoir areas of South 

 Dakota, one party was excavating in the Yellowtail Reservoir area in 

 Montana and Wyoming, and another was working in the Pony Creek 

 drainage area in Iowa. A special crew was in Lawrence, Kans., study- 

 ing human skeletal remains from the Oahe Reservoir, and one survey 

 team was at work in North and South Dakota. During the second 

 quarter of the year, parties worked briefly in Alabama, Nebraska, 

 and Wyoming. In May two brief surveys were made in South Dakota, 

 and in June nine parties began major operations in the Missouri Basin, 

 where they were at work at the end of the fiscal year. 



As of June 30, 1964, archeological surveys and excavations had 

 been made, since the start of the salvage program, in a total of 269 

 reservoir areas, located in 29 States, as well as in 2 lock projects, 4 

 canal areas, and 2 watershed areas. Since 1946, when the field work 

 of the program got underway, 5,040 sites have been located and re- 

 corded; of that number 1,186 were recommended for excavation or 

 limited testing. Because of the emergency conditions under which the 

 salvage program must operate, it is rarely possible to fully excavate a 

 site. "Excavation," as used here, usually means that about 10 percent 

 of the site was dug. By the end of the fiscal year, 526 sites in 55 

 reservoir basins and 2 watershed areas had been tested or excavated 

 to a degree where good information about them had been obtained. 

 These sites range in nature from simple camping areas, once occupied 

 by early hunting and gathering Indians of some 10,000 years ago, to 

 village remains left by the historic Indians of the mid-19th century 

 and the remains of frontier trading posts and military installations 

 of European origin. 



The results of these extensive investigations have been incorporated 

 in teclinical reports that have been published in various scientific 

 journals, in Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletins, and in the 

 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections. River Basm Surveys Papers 

 Nos. 33-38, constituting Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 189, 

 were released in June. Tliese papers pertain to excavations carried out 

 in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Kansas. Reports of other ex- 

 cavations in the Dakotas and in Oregon and Idaho are now being as- 

 sembled for another Bulletin. Staff members cooperated throughout 

 the year with representatives of other Federal agencies in the prepara- 

 tion of short popular pamphlets about some of the major reservoir 

 projects. 



