SECRETARY’S REPORT 63 
found on the surface, Solecki did some test digging. The material 
thus obtained places the cultural horizon in late pre-Columbian times 
and indicates certain links between the Ohio Valley and the Great Val- 
ley of the Shenandoah. Test excavations were also made in the largest 
of the rock shelters where both historic and prehistoric objects were 
found, the latter occurring in the deposits to a depth of 5 feet. 
Because no previous archeological work has been done in this district 
the excavation of three of the village sites and the large rock shelter 
has been recommended. Solecki found 14 small sites, presumably 
places where transient hunting parties had camped, in the West Fork 
Basin. None of these are of sufficient size or depth to warrant further 
study and no additional work was recommended. The West Virginia 
surveys were completed on May 28 and Solecki returned to Washing- 
ton where he spent the remainder of the fiscal year preparing reports 
on the results of his investigations. 
Dr. Gordon R. Willey, archeologist on the regular staff of the 
Bureau of American Ethnology, was detailed to the River Basin 
Surveys during August and September. On August 14 he went to 
Nashville, Tenn., where he visited the office of the District Engineer 
for the purpose of obtaining information about the Center Hill proj- 
ect on the Caney Fork River near Baxter, Tenn. From there he 
proceeded to Baxter and from August 20 to September 12 carried 
on a survey of the area to be flooded. He found 39 sites consisting of 
temple mounds, small earth-rock mounds, villages, and caves showing 
some signs of occupation. Many of the sites proved to be Middle 
Mississippian in culture and period; some suggested that they be- 
longed in the pre-Mississippian category, and others may even repre- 
sent the Archaic. The Middle Mississippian designates the period 
when the people lived in large sedentary communities, depended pri- 
marily on intensive agriculture for their subsistence, built temple or 
substructure mounds, and made characteristic types of pottery and 
other artifacts. This generally is believed to have been about A. D. 
1300 to 1700. Pre-Mississippian also has been called the Burial Mound 
period, or Southeastern Woodland culture. At that stage the people 
lived in smaller communities or scattered households, lived pri- 
marily by hunting, fishing, food gathering supplemented by a little 
agriculture. This was during the centuries from approximately 
A. D. 800 to 1300. The Archaic refers to small, scattered groups of 
primitive hunters and food gatherers who are believed to have oc- 
cupied the area prior to A. D. 700. Excavations were recommended 
for one of the temple-mound sites and one of the earth-rock burial 
mounds, with testing in some of the village remains. Unfortunately 
flooding started before this could be accomplished, and the material 
obtained from the survey constitutes most of our knowledge of that 
portion of the Cumberland Basin. 
