62 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1950 



field equipment to be used by the various parties during the summer 

 months. 



At the beginning of the fiscal year Richard P. Wheeler, archeologist, 

 was engaged in preliminary archeological surveys of the Onion Flat, 

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

 Fremont County, Wyo. He returned to the Lincoln headquarters 

 on July 11 and spent the time from then until the middle of August 

 preparing reports on the reservoir areas examined over the period 

 in which his party had been in the field. In August he joined the 

 Angostura field party and after the departure of Mr. Hughes took 

 full charge of the operations. From September 4 to November 7, 

 Wheeler and his crew partially excavated or tested and mapped 11 

 sites. He returned to Lincoln in November and devoted the time 

 from then until the middle of April in analyzing artifacts, supervising 

 the drawing of site maps and profiles, and preparing an outline and 

 notes for the final report on the Angostura investigations. On April 

 19 be m.ade a 5-day trip to the Angostura Reservoir to make plans 

 for the excavations for the coming season. One month later he 

 returned to the Angostura Reservoir with a field party and from then 

 until the end of the fiscal year he excavated and tested two sites and 

 supervised the removal of overburden with a bulldozer at two areas 

 at a third site. The use of mechanized equipment in this particular 

 instance was made necessary by the fact that the occupation level 

 occurs beneath from 9 to 10 feet of sterile deposits, and there was not 

 suflScient time to remove them by the usual hand methods. The 

 materials found in the deeply buried level indicate an early hunting 

 culture. 



Dr. Theodore E. White, paleontologist, spent the early months of 

 the fiscal year in the laboratory at Lincoln identifying osteological 

 material obtained from archeological sites and in preparing a report 

 on the physiography of the Angostura Reservoir. He worked in 

 Texas in November and December. In January he was transferred 

 to the Smithsonian Institution staff and was sent to Panamd. He 

 returned to duty with the River Basin Surveys in May. He left the 

 Lincoln headquarters on June 15 and proceeded to the Boysen Reser- 

 voir area in Wyoming, where he prospected for vertebrate fossils 

 until June 15. He then moved on to the Anchor Reservoir area 

 where he prospected the Upper Permian and Lower Triassic deposits. 

 On June 21 he moved to the Canyon Ferry Reservoir area in Montana, 

 and spent the time prospecting the Oligocene and Miocene deposits. 

 Two of the Oligocene localities produced abundant specimens, mostly 

 small mammals, while three new localities were discovered in the 

 Miocene deposits. Material obtained from two of the new localities 

 definitely establishes the presence of both Lower and Middle Miocene 



