4 PKOCEEDIIsrGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.73 



found to be common to both areas. Circles of stones which mark 

 places where cremated human remains were found in this region 

 sometimes indicate graves in the Thompson River region." 



During the months of August and September, 1924, an archeolog- 

 ical reconnaissance of the lower Columbia River region was conducted 

 for the University of California department of anthropology by W. 

 D. Strong, W. Egbert Schenck, and H. J. Biddle. One of the fea. 

 tures of this reconnaissance was a study of petroglyphs on the Wash- 

 ington or northern side of the Columbia River across from The 

 Dalles, Oreg. Some of the findings of this study were published in 

 the American Anthropologist.^ The authors correlate technique and 

 designs shown in the rock paintings and sculptures, especially those 

 of realistically conceived and executed animal figures among which 

 the buffalo, mountain sheep, elk, and deer, with those described by 

 Spinden from Idaho and by Mallery from Utah, also with recently 

 described petroglyphs from Virginia City, Nev. The authors con- 

 clude " that while the data are scattered and incomplete The Dalles 

 petroglyphs in question find their closest analogues in the Great Basin 

 area, and would appear to mark the northwesterly limit of that type. 

 * * * The validity of the tentative conclusions arrived at in this 

 paper can only be substantiated by a more thorough study of the 

 petroglyphic and pictographic art of the upper Columbia River and 

 adjacent areas." 



An area contiguous to that of the Middle Columbia River Valley 

 on the east was investigated archeologically and ethnologically by 

 Herbert J. Spinden in the summer of 1907 for the Peabody Museum. 

 The results of this and later studies were incorporated in a mono- 

 graph appearing in the Memoirs of the American Anthropological 

 Association and entitled "The Nez Perc6 Indians."* The area occu- 

 pied by the Nez Percys within historic times extended from the Bit- 

 terroot Mountains on the east to the Blue Mountains on the west, 

 so that the territory claimed by them included what is now a large 

 part of central Idaho, eastern Washington, and eastern Oregon, 

 located within the basin of the Snake River. 



The Nez Percys are of the same linguistic stock as the Shahaptian 

 tribes of the Columbia Valley. Their material culture possesses 

 many traits in common, although environmental differences, due in 

 part to the presence of the bison, and a closer proximity to the Indian 

 tribes of the Plains and remoteness from the tribes of British Colum- 

 bia have caused a cultural development along somewhat different 

 lines than that possessed by the ancient sedentary tribes of the mid- 

 dle Columbia before the coming of the horse. Other cultural differ- 

 ences may be noted in the type of house structures; art designs 



« Vol. 27, No. 1, January, 1925. * Vol. 2, pt. 3, 1908. 



