80 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1949 
excavation. At the beginning of the year David J. Wenner, Jr., 
field assistant, was making a reconnaissance of the area to be flooded 
by the Tenkiller Ferry Reservoir on the Illinois River in the eastern 
part of the State. That work was completed on July 27 and the 
party moved to the Canadian Reservoir project on the Canadian 
River. Reconnaissance of that area was finished on August 17, 
when attention was turned to the adjacent Onapa project on the 
North Canadian. The survey there was completed on September 8. 
Within the 3 basins, 104 sites were found, 38 in Tenkiller Ferry, 41 
in the Canadian, and 25 in Onapa. The work in Tenkiller Ferry 
demonstrated that what were presumed to be mounds, actually are 
natural knolls on flood plains and terraces, and all the sites present 
are village or camp remains. Those in the other two areas are also 
mainly village sites representing both historic and prehistoric cultures. 
In passing it should be stated that the Canadian and Onapa are 
two of three smaller alternate projects proposed to take the place of 
the larger Eufaula Reservoir. The third in the group, the Gaines, 
still remains to be surveyed. Should the single Eufaula project 
eventually be carried through instead of the three smaller ones, very 
little additional field work will be required to determine the archeologi- 
cal manifestations involved. It is known that there are a number of 
mounds that lie outside the boundaries of the smaller reservoirs but 
which would fall within the maximum pool of the Eufaula. Mr. 
Wenner was aided in his work by William Mayer-Oakes and Robert 
Shalkop, student assistants. 
The excavations were at the Norman site in the Fort Gibson 
Reservoir basin on the Grand (Neosho) River near Wagoner. Earlier 
work by the University of Oklahoma had shown that the extensive 
village and mound group located there belonged to a Spiro-type 
culture and raised the possibility that the flooding of the largest 
double mound, which had never been excavated, would represent the 
loss of as important information and material as had the destruction 
of the famous Spiro mounds in the adjacent county. When Dr. 
Robert E. Bell of the Department of Anthropology of the University 
of Oklahoma reached the site in July he found that nearly all the 
village area and all mounds, with the exception of the largest double 
unit, had been removed by the bulldozers of the construction con- 
tractor. Even the large double unit had been damaged. The 
western periphery had been cut away and the smaller mound had 
been cut down several feet. With the assistance of the Engineers 
Dr. Bell was able to stop the operations so that archeological work 
could be done. During July and the first 2 weeks in August the 
University of Oklahoma field session under Bell excavated portions 
of several house sites still surviving south of the larger mound. On 
