528 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1960 



cupied by later Indian groups, quarries, bluff and rock shelters, caves 

 giving indications of habitation, villages, large fortified villages, arti- 

 ficial mounds, burial grounds, ossuaries and cairns, and battlegrounds. 

 Associated with many of the various kinds of sites are groups of 

 petroglyphs and pictographs pecked into or painted on adjacent large 

 boulders or the faces of neighboring cliffs. Other sites consist of 

 I)laces of historic interest, such as early trading posts, pioneer forts, 

 and colonial and pioneer villages. In many cases there is a definite 

 correlation between Indian remains and those of the white men, and 

 study of the materials from them undoubtedly will throw helpful 

 light on acculturation problems and the effects of an advanced civiliza- 

 tion on primitive cultures. Considerable documentary information is 

 available on the late periods, but in many cases the written records 

 will be clarified and augmented by the archeological evidence. Of the 

 total number of sites recorded, 1,154 were recommended for excava- 

 tion or limited testing. 



As of June 30, 1960, excavations or extensive tests had been made in 

 487 sites in 54 reservoir basins located in 19 different States. These 

 totals do not include the work of cooperators since 1952, as that in- 

 formation has not been assembled for ready reference. In some of 

 the reservoir areas only a single site was dug, while in others a whole 

 series was examined. At least one example of each type of site fomid 

 in the preliminary surveys has been investigated. There is still much 

 to be done, however, with respect to the remains of different cultural 

 periods. 



EVIDENCES FOR EARLY HUNTING PEOPLES 



Among the most significant of the early remains are those excavated 

 in the IMedicine Creek Reservoir basin in southwestern Nebraska by 

 the Nebraska State Museum. In that area were three localities which 

 gave evidence that the region was occupied in late glacial times by 

 wandering groups of bison hunters. Some of those hunters, represent- 

 ing two or three different cultural traditions, camped along Medicine 

 Creek and its tributaries on numerous occasions over a fairly long 

 period of time, as demonstrated by the material obtained from in- 

 tensive digging at three sites. One of them was located on Medicine 

 Creek proper and the other two were on Lime Creek, a small tributary 

 of IMedicine Creek. The digging at two of the sites was on a purely 

 voluntary basis by the Nebraska State Museum, while that at the third 

 was under a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service. 

 At the lowest level at two of the sites the materials found indicated 

 that the basic population unit probably was a small group of semi- 

 nomadic hunters who made bone and stone tools, worked the pelts 

 and hides from animals, and possibly made some form of sewed cloth- 

 ing. Indication of the latter is a series of well-made bone needles 



