Report on the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology 



Sir : I have tlie honor to submit the following report on the field 

 researches, office work, and other operations of the Bureau of Ameri- 

 can Ethnology during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1954, conducted 

 in accordance with the act of Congress of April 10, 1928, as amended 

 August 22, 1949, "to continue independently or in cooperation 

 anthropological researches among the American Indians and the 

 natives of lands under the jurisdiction or protection of the United 

 States and the excavation and preservation of archeologic remains." 



SYSTEMATIC RESEARCHES 



M. W. Stirling, Director of the Bureau, studied in the laboratory 

 and prepared descriptions of the archeological materials collected 

 during 1953 on Taboga, Taboguilla, and Urava islands in the Gulf of 

 Panama, and from the region of Almirante Bay on the north coast of 

 Panama. Technical descriptions of the materials, principally 

 ceramics, were completed and photographs for illustrations made 

 preparatory to publication of the report in the Bureau's Bulletin 

 series. Otherwise most of the time during the fiscal year was occupied 

 with administrative duties. 



Dr. Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., Associate Director of the Bureau and 

 Director of the River Basin Surveys, devoted virtually all his time 

 during the year to the direction and management of the River Basin 

 Surveys. In that connection he reviewed and revised a number of 

 manuscript reports of the results of field investigations by members 

 of the Surveys' staff. In May he attended the annual meeting of the 

 Society of American Archaeology at Albany, N. Y., and as a member 

 of the executive committee presented a set of Archaeological Stand- 

 ards, prepared jointly by him and Dr. Waldo R. Wedel of the U. S. 

 National Museum, which was adopted by the Society. 



Dr. Henry B. Collins, anthropologist, continued his Eskimo research 

 and other Arctic activities. From June 24 to August 29 he and his 

 assistant, William E. Taylor, conducted archeological excavations on 

 Cornwallis Island in the Canadian Arctic, the work being sponsored 

 jointly by the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of 

 Canada. Cornwallis and the other islands in the northern part of the 

 Arctic Archipelago were uninhabited when discovered by Parry in 

 1819, and Eskimos have not lived tliat far north in Canada in historic 



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