62 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 



investigations and reconnaissance along the Pearl Kiver in Missis- 

 sippi, the prehistoric home of the Choctaw Tribe. The results of 

 this work were very satisfactory. 



Work on the Miiskhogean culture, or the antiquities of the Gulf 

 States, promises important results in comparative ways, and will, it 

 is hoped, shed light on the religion of aboriginal tribes of North 

 America. We are able to reconstruct, in a way, from historical 

 sources, the main outlines of the Gulf culture, but the documentary 

 references to the material culture of the Muskhogean tribes are 

 incomplete. More information is needed regarding the ritualistic 

 sacra, idols, ceremonial objects, and sj'mbolism on pottery, before 

 we can reconstruct the cultias. The material for this study is now 

 buried in the soil, but intensive archeological work will bring it to 

 light. In essentials, the culture of the prehistoric people of the 

 Gulf States is such as we find universal among agricultural people 

 in America emerging from savagery into barbarism, and the religion 

 has much in common with that of the pueblos. 



SYSTEMATIC RESEARCHES 



The chief spent several weeks in reconnaissance near Florence, 

 Ala., making excursions to several mounds in that vicinity, espe- 

 cially those that will be submerged when the Wilson Dam at Muscle 

 Shoals is flooded. Mr. Gerard Fowke, who had immediate charge 

 of the excavations in two of these mounds, obtained a considerable 

 collection containing unique objects, among which are three rare 

 copper ornaments, the largest ever found in the valley of the Ten- 

 nessee. His report will be published later. 



The chief at that time visited Montgomery, Ala., where he was 

 most hospitably received. While there he made an examination of 

 the Graves collection, one of the most remarkable in the State. 



The chief has given advice to the National Park Service of the 

 Interior Department on the new National Monument near Flagstaff, 

 Ariz., which is now called by the Hopi name AVupatki. This monu- 

 ment includes the well-preserved buildings near Black Falls on the 

 Little Colorado, first described and figured by the writer a quarter 

 of a century ago, at which time he recommended that they be made 

 a National Monument, and this has now been done by proclamation 

 of the President. 



The most important collection of archeolgical objects received dur- 

 ing the past year was contributed by Mr. J. C. Clarke, of Flagstaff, 

 Ariz., custodian of the Wupatki ruin. It consists of about a hun- 

 dred specimens of pottery, shell and bone implements, and other arti- 

 facts from a burial mound at Youngs Canyon excavated by work- 

 men in the course of construction of a road near the city. These 



