SECRETARY’S REPORT 73 
Reservoir project on the Missouri River a few miles above Pierre, 
S. Dak. On the basis of findings by that unit, it appears unlikely 
that remains of any great importance to archeology will be lost at 
Heart Butte. At Oahe, 61 sites were recorded between Pierre and 
the Cheyenne River, a distance of about 40 miles. They include some 
of the largest, best preserved, and most impressive Indian village re- 
mains in the Missouri Basin. Most of them are virtually untouched 
by trained archeologists and, with one or two possible exceptions, none 
has been adequately tested by excavation. Five of the sites will be 
affected almost as soon as construction work begins on the dam site, 
the access roads, and the railroad classification yards. Hence, 
salvage operations will be necessary at an early date. Because of the 
abundance and variety of remains, comprehensive excavation has 
been recommended to begin soon and to be carried forward vigorously 
so that a representative sample of the materials to be affected by Oahe 
Reservoir may be saved. 
From November 9 to 24 Cooper and Shippee excavated a burial 
mound in the spillway area of Fort Randall Dam, South Dakota. The 
Corps of Engineers provided a bulldozer and operator as needed, and 
assisted in numerous other ways. Without that cooperation, the 
work there would not have been possible. The findings, although not 
spectacular, are important because burial mounds are extremely rare 
on that portion of the Missouri, and their temporal and cultural 
relationships to other archeological complexes of the region can be 
determined, if at all, only through controlled excavations by trained 
investigators. 
A paleontological unit under Dr. T. E. White was in the field from 
July 1 to October 1. It worked at the Boysen Reservoir, Wyoming; 
in the Canyon Ferry Reservoir area on the Missouri River north of 
Townsend, Mont.; at the Angostura Reservoir, South Dakota; and at 
the Cedar Bluff Reservoir on the Smoky Hill River in Kansas. 
Limited field work was resumed in the spring. Richard P. Wheeler, 
archeologist, left Lincoln on May 27 for preliminary reconnaissance 
at several hitherto unvisited reservoir projects and for further survey 
of others previously examined in preliminary fashion. Projects 
visited by Wheeler prior to June 30 include Rocky Ford, Philip, Bixby, 
and Shadehill, in South Dakota; Cannonball and Dickinson, in North 
Dakota; Moorhead, in Wyoming-Montana, and Onion Flat in 
Wyoming. 
Among the particularly gratifying features of the year’s field work 
were the results achieved through use of power machinery and the 
direct cooperation extended by the Bureau of Reclamation at Medicine 
Creek and by the Corps of Engineers at Fort Randall Reservoir. 
Such cooperative work, in terms of research accomplished, is the most 
