536 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1960 



scribed in detail in Bulletin 158 of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 

 The remains of several fortified villages were excavated by River 

 Basin Surveys parties and by parties from cooperating institutions. 

 They represent several different periods but all are relatively late 

 in the precontact period. Extensive digging also was done at the 

 Sully site which was the largest of the earth-lodge village sites in 

 the Missouri Basin. Two different periods of occupation were found 

 there but they probably fall in the period betw^een A.D. 1600 and 

 1750. Reports on the investigations in these large sites have not yet 

 been completed. 



Farther upstream in the Garrison Reservoir area, N. Dak., survey 

 parties located 153 sites. They consisted for the most part of the 

 remains of winter villages which had been located on the river bottoms, 

 earth-lodge villages situated on terraces or butte tops, scattered small 

 campsites, and occasional groups of stone circles of the debated tipi 

 ring type. In spite of the extensive remains present in the area, no 

 excavation work had been done there before 1950. During that season 

 the River Basm Surveys and the State Historical Society of North 

 Dakota began investigations in several of the more important sites. 

 That work was continued each season through 1954, being augmented 

 in the summer of 1951 by a party from Montana State University. 

 River Basin Surveys parties excavated in several large village sites of 

 relatively recent date. One of them, called Rock Village, on the right 

 bank of the river about 9 miles above the dam, was occupied by a group 

 of Hidatsa for about a decade from the late 1820's to 1838. Originally 

 it had consisted of some 25 to 30 closely spaced lodges and had been 

 fortified by an enciixling ditch and palisade. Later about 10 new 

 lodges were built and a portion of the original ditch and palisade was 

 abandoned and a new segment constructed to include the additional 

 dwellings. The remains of 13 earth lodges, several sweat lodges, 60 

 cache pits, and a number of other features were excavated. It was 

 found that the houses had been circular in form, averaging somewhat 

 more than 40 feet m diameter, and followed the general type of con- 

 struction in which there was a central rectangle and series of outer 

 support posts forming the framework for the superstructure. 



Most of the artifacts obtained from the digging were of Indian 

 manufacture, but materials obtained through trade with the whites 

 occurred in considerable quantities. The main reliance of the inhabit- 

 ants at that period still was on products of native handicraft although 

 objects of European manufacture were rapidly being adopted. Of 

 particular interest was the finding of seashells derived from the Pacific 

 Coast and a nmnber of pieces from steatite vessels. The latter objects, 

 as well as the shells, definitely suggest trade relations with more west- 

 erly tribes and may well have reached that part of North Dakota by 



