SECRETARY'S REPORT 59 



United States National Museum, made it necessary for him to with- 

 draw from the River Basin Surveys activities, and on January 23 

 Paul L. Cooper was designated as acting field director. 



Delay in the passage of the 1950 appropriation bill greatly reduced 

 field work in the Missoiu-i Basin dm-ing the summer of 1949 and 

 prevented completion of the program originally set up for the fiscal 

 year. However, it was possible to make surveys at the Onion Flat, 

 Soral Creek, and Raft Lake Reservoirs in the Big Horn River basin 

 m Wyoming during July, and to initiate an excavation program in the 

 Angostura Reservoir in South Dakota. Nothing of archeological 

 significance was noted in the three reservoirs, and no further work is 

 recommended for them. 



The investigations at the Angostura Reservoir continued from 

 early in July until November and were resumed in May. Though 

 the final results of the excavations will not be laiown until it is possible 

 to study all the materials obtained, it may be said that the sites where 

 digging was done represent a number of different cultures, most of 

 them indicating pre-pcttery-making peoples. At two of them, 

 however, evidence was obtained of two dift'erent pottery-making 

 groups. At one of the sites the occupation level was so deeply buried 

 that it was necessary to use a bulldozer to remove the sterile over- 

 burden. Material from that particular site indicates a period of 

 considerable antiquity. Tentative correlations suggest that it 

 probably is comparable in age to some of the so-called Yuma remains 

 in other parts of the Plains area. 



Other field work accomplished during the 1949 season was an 

 18-day reconnaissance in the Oahe Reservoh area in South Dakota. 

 Preliminary surveys had been made there in previous years, but 

 during the reconnaissance in November more than 50 sites, many of 

 them previously unrecorded, were visited. 



Active field work was resumed in June when a paleontological party 

 proceeded to the Angostura Reservoir, the Boysen and Anchor 

 Reservoirs in Wyoming, and the Canyon Ferry project in Montana. 

 Important fossils were recovered from the latter area. On June 7 

 excavations were started in the Garrison Reservoir in North Dakota, 

 in the Tiber Reservoir in Montana, and later in the month at the 

 Oahe project in South Dakota. All those activities were proceeding 

 satisfactorily at the end of the fiscal year. 



During the fall and winter months considerable work was done in 

 the laboratory. Eight preliminary reports were written and mimeo- 

 graphed for distribution to the cooperating agencies. In aU, 16,938 

 specimens collected from 146 sites in 16 reservoir areas were cleaned 

 and cataloged. Fifty-six maps were drawn and 1,318 negatives 

 processed. The negatives include field photographs, black-and-white 



