80 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



may represent parts of a single large occupational area as one is on the 

 eastern edge of the spillway and one is on the western edge of it and 

 both have been extensively damaged by construction activities. Ma- 

 terials collected during the digging there consist of buff-colored pot- 

 sherds with gray shell-tempered paste and punctated decorations, 

 small triangular-unnotched projectile points, an abundance of stone 

 scrapers, a conical copper bangle, and some bits of sheet metal. The 

 fourth site tested (14RY10) is on the west side of the Blue River. It 

 was buried under considerable flood-borne silt but the exploratory 

 trenches indicated the former presence of an earth lodge and other 

 village features. Potsherds from the house area suggest that a cul- 

 tural transition was underway at that location. It was not possible 

 to do any extensive digging there, but at the end of the fiscal year 

 plans were being made by one of the local institutions to continue the 

 investigations as a cooperative effort. It was necessary for the River 

 Basin Surveys party to close down its work on June 26 and return to 

 the headquarters at Lincoln. 



The paleontological field party completed its activities at the Key- 

 hole Reservoir in Wyoming on July 1, 1952, and left the following 

 day for the Canyon Ferry Reservoir in Montana. En route, at the 

 request of the National Park Service, it visited the South Unit of the 

 Theodore Roosevelt National Monument to examine some paleontolog- 

 ical material found in that area. From July 5 to August 3 the party 

 explored exposures of the Oligocene and Miocene deposits in the 

 Canyon Ferry Basin. Some 75 specimens of small mammals were 

 collected, adding greatly to the knowledge of certain groups, particu- 

 larly the rabbits and small dogs of the Miocene. During the period 

 the paleontologist also identified the Tertiary sediments in a number 

 of localities in the Toston Basin for a mapping party of the United 

 States Geological Survey. From August 9 to 30 the party explored 

 the exposures of the Paleocene Fort Union formation in the Garrison 

 Reservoir near Elbowoods, N. Dak. Specimens are exceedingly rare 

 in that formation, and because of the uncertain correlation of the 

 deposits the value of those found is materially increased. During 

 that period the nearly complete skeleton of Gha/mpsosaurus^ an alli- 

 gatorlike aquatic reptile, was collected. Exposures of the Oacoma 

 member of the Upper Cretaceous Pierre shale in the vicinity of the 

 Oahe Dam were explored from September 2 to 10. A number of 

 specimens of marine reptiles were found but they had been exposed 

 too long to be worth collecting. 



The paleontological party returned to the field in June, and from 

 June 1 to 7, 1953, at the request of the National Park Service made a 

 paleontological survey of certain areas in the Badlands National 

 Monument. From the 9th to the 27th it continued explorations of the 

 Oligocene and Miocene deposits of the Canyon Ferry Reservoir area. 



