34 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



Poorly preserved paintings in red ocher were found on rock walls 

 ovitside the future pool area, in localities that will doubtless lead to 

 destruction by vandalism. 



The limited sample of artifact material recovered consists mainly 

 of stonework. Quartzite predominates, but there are chips of chal- 

 cedony, jasper, obsidian, etc. Projectile points, knives, scrapers, and 

 other implements are found occasionally on the surface. No pottery 

 was noted at any of the locations. 



Outside the pool area are several sites of considerable promise. 

 At least one of these is said to have yielded points and blades sug- 

 gestive of certain types of early stone industry. It is not unlikely that 

 the occupation of the region here has been intermittent since the days 

 of the paleo-Indian. Further investigation will be necessary before 

 the variant types of points and other artifacts collected sparingly on 

 the shallow camp sites and elsewhere can be arranged in a temporal 

 sequence. 



Tiber Reservoir. — The proposed Tiber Reservoir, for irrigation 

 purposes, is on the Marias River in Toole and Liberty Counties, Mont. 

 The dam site is in Liberty County, 12 miles south of Tiber, and 

 approximately 45 miles above the confluence of the Marias with the 

 Missouri. The dam is planned for a height of 185 feet ; it will create 

 a reservoir some 26 miles long, with a surface area of 17,000 acres at 

 normal pool (elevation 2,992 feet, m.s.l.). The terrain is a flat, grassy 

 plateau, cut by small gullies and dropping abruptly into the valley of 

 the Marias. Steep bluffs line the stream at many points. Cottonwood 

 and willow are found on the bottoms along the stream banks ; sage- 

 brush covers some of the flats and terraces ; grass is characteristic 

 of most of the area. 



Fifty-three archeological sites have been recorded in and about the 

 Tiber Reservoir area. Most of them fall in one or another of three 

 major categories : buried sites in the river terraces, surface sites on 

 the river terraces, and tipi rings generally located on the blufifs over- 

 looking the river valley. The buried sites obviously precede those on 

 the surface of the terraces ; the latter may precede the tipi rings, but 

 of this there is still no definite proof. 



The buried sites are exposed in cut banks where lateral erosion by 

 the Marias is removing old river terraces. Hearths, some of them 

 apparently consisting of shallow pits filled with fire-cracked stones, 

 ash, charcoal, and blackened earth, and associated with refuse animal 

 bone, flint chips, flakes, and scattered bits of charcoal are to be found 

 at depths of i to 23 feet below the terrace surfaces. Some of the over- 

 lying fill suggests river deposition, presumably by the stream in flood ; 



