42 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



As special consultant for the River Basin Surveys, Dr. Champe also 

 spent approximately i week as observer at State-sponsored excava- 

 tions on Lime Creek in the Medicine Creek Reservoir area. 



The University of Nebraska State Museum carried on extensive 

 investigations on Lime Creek, a small westerly tributary of Medicine 

 Creek lying within the area to be flooded by the proposed reservoir. 

 One fossil quarry and three sites where archeological materials are 

 reported in association with fossil bones were worked. These investi- 

 gations were under the supervision of Dr. C. B. Schultz and W. D. 

 Frankforter. 



The fossil quarry is attributed to the very late Pliocene period. 

 Several new forms of extinct mammals are reported to have come 

 from it, including the skull of a well-preserved saber-tooth cat at first 

 pronounced by those in charge of the work to be a marsupial of South 

 American type. Additional light is promised on paleontological prob- 

 lems of the Pliocene-Pleistocene transitional period, when detailed 

 analysis of the findings here will have been made. 



Of interest to archeologists no less than to paleontologists are the 

 finds at three sites situated in the basal portions of a terrace identified 

 by the University Museum investigators as Republican River Terrace 

 2 and assigned a late Pleistocene dating. At the principal locality, 

 site 25FT41, evidences of former human activity occur in a dark-gray 

 stratum 47^ feet below the terrace surface (pi. 8, fig. i). This pre- 

 sumably represents the valley floor at the time of human occupation. 

 The overburden consists of silts and loess, the upper 17 feet of which 

 have been correlated tentatively with the Bignell loess, thought to have 

 been deposited during the Mankato stage of the Wisconsin glaciation. 

 Points are said to have been found in situ ; in addition, there were leaf- 

 shaped and other blades, end scrapers, knives, fragments of a grooved 

 sandstone "shaft-smoother," numerous flakes, spalls, cores, and mis- 

 cellaneous rejectage. Worked bone and antler are also reported. 

 These were associated with bones of some 17 mammalian forms, as 

 well as those of reptiles, birds, and amphibians. Preliminary observa- 

 tions "suggest distinct differences between several of the fossil and 

 modern forms, but positive identification must wait for further 

 preparation and comparisons." 



The full report on this important site is awaited with keen interest. 

 Typologically, few of the artifacts seem to differ markedly from many 

 of those found in later pottery-bearing horizons of the region. Among 

 the individuals who have actually visited the site, there are rather 

 marked discrepancies in interpretation as regards the apparent age 

 and the relationships of the archeological remains. It seems obvious 



