SECRETARY’S REPORT 49 
attended the 11th Conference on Iroquois Research at Red House, 
N.Y., in October 1957. At these latter two professional meetings he 
delivered three papers. In December 1957 he attended the Ameri- 
can Anthropological Association meetings in Chicago (where he also 
examined an important collection of Seminole artifacts and a large 
newly discovered collection of early photographs of the Seminole). 
In May and June 1958, Dr. Sturtevant returned for three weeks 
to the Allegany Reservation, where he concentrated on study of social 
organization, particularly residence patterns. These data should 
prove valuable for comparison with similar information, as yet un- 
published, collected some 25 years ago on this reservation by Dr. Wil- 
liam N. Fenton. Furthermore, the community studied is threatened 
with removal to make way for flooding of a large part of the reserva- 
tion by the proposed Kinzua dam. If the dam is built, present resi- 
dence patterns can then be compared with residence after relocation 
of the community. The nearly unanimous opposition of the Indians 
to relocation makes research of this sort rather difficult. 
Dr. Sturtevant’s office work included continuation of his research 
on the Florida Seminole, on which a paper was published in Publica- 
tion No. 5 of the Florida Anthropological Society, and work on a 
paper on the historical ethnobotany of the cycad Zamia. 
At the beginning of the fiscal year Carl F. Miller was continuing 
the excavations by the Smithsonian Institution—National Geographic 
Society Expedition at Russell Cave in Alabama. The work continued 
until the end of August, and during that period a section of the cave 
floor was excavated to a depth of 82 feet, where a water table was 
encountered and it was necessary to stop the digging. During the 
course of the work the skeletal remains of a very young infant were 
found at a depth of approximately 4 feet. On the basis of a carbon— 
14 date obtained during the previous season’s investigations at the 
cave, it is estimated that the burial was approximately 5,000 years 
old. There were no accompanying mortuary offerings, but the de- 
posits where the remains were interred indicated that the Early 
Woodland Period was represented. The partially flexed remains of 
an adult male were found 814 feet below the floor level and it also 
lacked any accompanying offerings. The burial probably was made 
about 7,000 years ago. The material from the deposits indicates that 
potterymaking began in that area at about 3500 B.C. Prior to that 
time the people apparently had a completely hunting-fishing economy. 
A large series of implements, discarded animal bones, and other ma- 
terials was obtained from the lower deposits, and at a depth of 23 
feet the remains of a hearth were uncovered. Charcoal from that 
hearth was recently dated by Dr. H. R. Crane at the University of 
Michigan as being 9,020+350 years old. The Russell Cave Expedi- 
