70 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



Work had not progressed sufficiently at either location by the end of 

 the fiscal year to indicate what results might be expected. 



At the Garrison Reservoir in North Dakota two excavating parties 

 spent the 1951 field season digging in Indian and historic sites. At 

 one Indian village location the remains of 8 circular houses, 4 sweat 

 lodges, 48 cache pits, and numerous other miscellaneous features were 

 uncovered. The artifact yield was good, including uncommon stea- 

 tite fragments from bowls made from that material. The bowls 

 probably reached the area by trade from the west. They may have 

 come up the Columbia and down the Missouri as that was a main 

 aboriginal trade route. During the 1950 field season at that location 

 five houses were excavated and the palisade and moat were traced. 

 The combined data for the two seasons give a satisfactory story of the 

 village and its material culture. The village was reputedly occupied in 

 the late eighteenth century by the Hidatsa Indians and is particularly 

 interesting because it presumably was the most northerly of the forti- 

 fied earth-lodge communities belonging to the period preceding the 

 replacement of aboriginal material culture by trade goods obtained 

 from the white man. The other site investigated had also been a 

 fortified village. Five houses and parts of a sixth were excavated 

 there, and a ceremonial structure 72 feet in diameter, a large village 

 gateway, and several other features were found. Cross sections were 

 taken of the surrounding defensive ditch. This site, believed to have 

 been occupied chiefly by the Ankara Indians, produced relatively 

 few artifacts but it throws valuable light on the architecture and 

 community plan of the period. In June 1952 an excavating party 

 proceeded to the Night Walker's Butte to begin digging the remains 

 of one of the few known Indian villages located on top of a butte. 



The historic-sites party spent the period from July 1 to October 7, 

 1951, in the excavation of Fort Stevenson, a mile above the Garrison 

 Reservoir dam site. The foundations of five of the more important 

 military buildings and of several minor ones were traced and a con- 

 siderable quantity of materials was obtained. Fort Stevenson was a 

 typical Missouri River frontier post and was built to keep the river 

 open for navigation and to protect the Fort Berthold Indians from the 

 Sioux. In addition the post served as one of the main points on the 

 overland mail route which ran from St. Paul to Montana. Although 

 the fort was started in 1867 and was completed late in 1868 and there 

 are considerable documentary data about it, useful new information 

 pertinent to the actual character of the post and certain Indian rela- 

 tionships was obtained during the course of the work. Before stop- 

 ping for the season the Fort Stevenson party made tests in a trading- 

 post site at the mouth of the White Earth River and obtained some 

 trade goods. The historic-sites party returned to the Garrison area 

 in June 1952 and began work at a site in the Fort Berthold district. 



