60 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 195 2 



The work of the River Basin Surveys in the past fiscal year was 

 financed by a transfer of $156,403 to the Smithsonian Institution 

 by the National Park Service. Of that amount $120,783 was for 

 investigations in the Missouri Basin and $35,620 was for all other 

 areas where projects were under way. The money comprising those 

 funds was derived in part from the Bureau of Reclamation and in 

 part from the National Park Service. Carry-over of previous funds 

 provided an additional $77,576 for the Missouri Basin and $350 for 

 other areas. The total of all funds available for the year was $234,329. 

 Because of a delay in the passage of the appropriation bill it was 

 necessary to suspend operations outside the Missouri Basin during 

 July and August. 



Activities in the field consisted of reconnaissance or surveys for 

 the purpose of locating archeological sites and paleontological 

 deposits that will be involved in construction work or are so situated 

 that they will be flooded, and in the excavation of sites observed and 

 recorded by previous surveys. In contrast to former years there was 

 greater emphasis on excavation. This was because of the fact that 

 the survey parlies were finally catching up with the over-all program 

 and there were fewer proposed reservoir areas needing attention. 

 Archeological survey parties visited 10 new reservoir basins located 

 in 6 States and a paleontological party made preliminary investiga- 

 tions at 6 reservoirs in 3 States. In addition a nmnber of reservoirs 

 where previous preliminary surveys had been made were revisited 

 for further checking. At the end of the fiscal year excavations were 

 completed or under way in 13 reservoir areas in 11 States. There 

 were 22 excavating parties in the field during the course of the year. 

 Six of the excavating projects were in areas where there had been no 

 previous digging, but the remainder were a continuation of investi- 

 gations at reservoir projects where there had been other operations. 

 At the close of the fiscal year the total of the reservoir areas where 

 archeological surveys had been made or excavations carried on since 

 the start of the actual field work in the summer of 1946 was 235 

 located in 25 States. The survey parties have located and reported 

 3,105 archeological sites, and of that number 578 have been recom- 

 mended for excavation or limited testing. Preliminary appraisal 

 reports were completed for all the reservoirs surveyed. Some, 

 together with others finished near the end of the previous fiscal 

 year, were mimeographed for limited distribution to the cooperating 

 agencies. During the year 15 such reports were distributed, bring- 

 ing to 149 the total issued since the start of the program. The 

 discrepancy between the latter figure and the total number of reser- 

 voirs is due to the fact that in some cases a series of reservoirs is 

 included in a single report covering a subbasin, while in others the 



