APPENDIX 5 
REPORT ON THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the field 
researches, oflice work, and other operations of the Bureau of Ameri- 
can Ethnology during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1948, conducted 
in accordance with the Act of Congress of June 27, 1944, which pro- 
vides “* * * for continuing ethnological researches among the 
American Indians and the natives of Hawaii and the excavation and 
preservation of archeologic remains. * * *” 
SYSTEMATIC RESEARCHES 
Dr. M. W. Stirling, Director of the Bureau, spent the first part of 
the fiscal year in Washington attending to administrative duties and 
in preparing a study on “Olmec Jade.” 
On January 1 Dr. Stirling left for western Panama where he spent 
31% months in the excavation of four archeological sites on the Azuero 
Peninsula in cooperation with the National Geographic Society. Two 
of these were representative of the relatively late Coclé culture. A 
third was a mound site representing a new culture apparently ances- 
tral to Coclé, while the fourth site was a shell mound near the mouth 
of the Parita River, which was found to contain a very early and 
completely new culture, unrelated to anything heretofore known in 
Panama. During this work Dr. Stirling was assisted in the field by 
Dr. Gordon Willey of the Bureau staff. 
At the close of the archeological field season a brief visit was made 
to the Guaymi Indians in the Province of Chiriqui. 
Dr. Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., Associate Director of the Bureau 
and Director of the River Basin Surveys, was mainly occupied 
throughout the fiscal year in directing the River Basin Surveys. In 
connection with this work he established cooperative projects with 
State and local institutions in various parts of the country, aided in 
the preparation of preliminary reports pertaining to the results of 
investigations in various reservoir basins, and wrote progress reports 
for the cooperating agencies. He went to Lincoln, Nebr., November 26 
to December 5, where he inspected the field headquarters and labora- 
tory for the Missouri Basin project, received reports on the results 
of the summer’s surveys in that area, and aided in the preparation of 
plans for evaluating and handling the material collected. While in 
Lincoln he attended sessions of the Fifth Plains Conference for Ar- 
cheology and presided at a symposium on “The Paleo-Indian in the 
53 
