SECRETARY'S REPORT Fal 
National Museum, was in charge of the program. He prepared gen- 
eral plans and coordinated all phases of the work, making numerous 
trips of inspection to the areas where surveys and excavations were in 
progress and supervising the work at Lincoln. He returned to his 
official station at Washington on October 31, but during the fall and 
winter months made regular monthly trips to Lincoln to check on the 
work being done at the field headquarters and laboratory and to assist, 
through advice and discussion, in the preparation of the reports on 
the summer’s activities. He left Washington on May 26 for Lincoln 
and on his arrival there resumed active direction of the program for 
the field season. 
J. Joseph Bauxar, archeologist, was at Chamberlain, 8. Dak., at 
the beginning of the fiscal year with the party, under the direction 
of Paul L. Cooper, which was engaged in making a preliminary 
reconnaissance of the west side of the Missouri River in the Fort 
Randall Reservoir area. During the continuance of this work 82 
sites were visited, and data on about 20 others were obtained from local 
people. On July 19 test digging was initiated in some of the more 
promising sites. The period from July 19 to August 20 was devoted 
to the examination of burials at the Wheeler Bridge mound site. 
These occurred in2 low mounds. At one of these there were 12 bundle 
burials, and at the other 2, or possibly 3, of the same type. Inasmuch 
as there were no funerary offerings accompanying any of the burials 
and the material in the mounds was scarce, there was nothing to 
indicate possible cultural relationship for these remains. On August 
20 Mr. Bauxar shifted his operations to the Pease Creek site where 
he opened an exploratory trench through a large refuse mound. 
Two definite occupation levels were noted there, and a large quantity 
of cultural material was recovered. The specimens suggest affiliation 
with either Upper Republican or prehistoric Arikara peoples. On 
September 17 investigations were started at another site which gave 
indications of a well-defined occupation level. Two trenches were 
dug at that location. They revealed a well-defined occupation level 
which extended below the plow zone. This work was completed on 
October 6, and attention was then turned to the Oldham site where two 
subsurface circular house floors were uncovered. These presumably 
belong to a late occupation which apparently was Arikara. Some 
slight evidence of an earlier Woodland occupation was also noted. 
A preliminary examination of all the data collected from the various 
sites investigated indicates a range of cultural types extending back 
from late historic Yankton through what possibly was early Arikara 
and even earlier Woodland. 
Mr. Bauxar returned to Lincoln on November 6 and from then 
until April 4 was engaged in working up his material and in establish- 
ing an ethnohistory file for the Missouri Basin to be used as a ready 
817369—49——_6 
