74 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
examine the fill, and the site was walked carefully. No indication of 
a village and no cultural material were found on the surface. This 
area will probably be flooded in 1959 and no further efforts there 
seem justified. The Pitlick site (39HU16), 8 miles downstream from 
the Sully site, is the northernmost site in the Peoria Bottom group. 
It will not be flooded in 1959, but will probably slump badly. Two 
large trenches and two deep test pits were excavated. One trench 
cut through the shoulder and floor of a house, the other through a 
fortification ditch. One of the deep test pits may have cut through 
a house floor. No artifacts were recovered at the site. This party 
disbanded on August 23, following 10 weeks in the field. The Stephen- 
son, Bass, and McNutt field parties shared camp facilities near the 
Sully site in Fielder Bottom. 
The fourth River Basin Surveys field party in the Oahe Reservoir 
area consisted of a crew of nine, directed by Richard P. Wheeler. It 
investigated a series of sites on the right bank of the Missouri River 
in the Fort Bennett area, 36 river miles above Pierre, Stanley 
County, S. Dak. The principal effort was directed toward excava- 
tions at the H. P. Thomas site (39ST12). A total of 60 circular 
earth-lodge depressions is apparent in area 1 of the site, and 21 
depressions are suggested in area 2. Three lodges were excavated 
in area 1 and two in area 2. Overburden was removed from six addi- 
tional lodges by bulldozer, and four dozer-cut trenches were carried 
across the moats in each area. Three midden deposits in area 1 were 
excavated, one containing a fragment of the floor pattern of a house. 
Three of the suggested five components appear to be assignable to 
the Snake Butte, Stanley, and Anderson-Monroe Foci, as defined by 
Lehmer for the Oahe Dam area. 
At the Agency Creek site (89ST41), adjacent to site 39ST12, seven 
small test pits and one bulldozer trench were excavated. Since time 
did not permit detailed investigation of these sample excavations, 
little can be said of the cultura] implications of the site, although 
laboratory analyses of the artifacts will prove informative. Addi- 
tional tests were made at the Lounsbury site (89ST42) and at the 
Ramsey site (89ST236), the latter situated midway between 39ST41 
and 89ST42. At the Lounsbury site, test pits were excavated into the 
centers of two circular-house depressions, exposing the central 
hearths. The overburden was bulldozed from the surface of one 
house, but the structure was not fully excavated. The Ramsey site 
appears to be a series of middens only, and a stratigraphic cut, 5 feet 
by 10 feet, provided an abundance of artifacts but no house remains. 
These test excavations at the Agency Creek, Lounsbury, and Ramsey 
sites yielded thin, horizontally incised rim sherds and simple-stamped 
body sherds characteristic of the Bennett Focus as suggested earlier 
