The River Basin Salvage Program: After 



15 Years 



By Frank H. H, Roberts, Jr. 



Director, River Basin Surveys, Smithsonian Institution 



[With 12 plates] 



During the closing months of 1944 anthropologists, archeologists, 

 and historians throughout the United States awoke to the realization 

 that the nationwide program for flood control, irrigation, hydro- 

 electric and navigation projects by the Federal Goverimient and the 

 construction of dams by State agencies and private power companies in 

 the various river basins throughout the country were destroying and 

 would continue to destroy many archeological sites. Unfortmiat^ly, 

 most of them were in areas where few, if any, investigations had been 

 made and where there was a vast amount of material still to be studied. 

 Because about 80 percent of all archeological remains in the United 

 States are to be found in approximately 2 percent of its area, namely, 

 along the banks of the great rivers and their tributaries, much infor- 

 mation pertaining to the aborigines and the history of the Colonial 

 and westward exploration periods of our own people would be oblit- 

 erated for all time. It was recognized that unless drastic steps were 

 taken to save it, the full story of man's development in the New World 

 could never be written or even adequately outlined. The evidence 

 needed for an understanding of the methods by which people adapted 

 themselves to and overcame adverse climatic conditions, evolved di- 

 verse agricultural practices, and devised various types of land utiliza- 

 tion would be missing. Furthennore data from which to reconstruct 

 their cultural institutions — social, political, and religious — as shown 

 through settlement patterns would not be available. Without that 

 information it would not be possible to provide a clear picture of 

 American history and the knowledge of how America grew and ma- 

 tured over a period of some 10,000 years. Fui-thennore, the knowledge 

 needed to understand and evaluate the interplay of forces which pro- 

 duced the various cultures in the New World, the effects each had on 

 the others, and the light they might throw on comparable phenomena 



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