NO. 2 MISSOURI VALLEY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM — WEDEL 45 



of six students, under the leadership of Dr. Gordon W. Hewes, de- 

 voted 6 weeks to the investigation of sites in proposed reservoir areas 

 on Heart River and on the Missouri. 



From June 25 to July i this expedition worked in the Heart Butte 

 Reservoir area in Grant County, south of Glen Ullin. Limited exca- 

 vations were made in a pottery-bearing deposit (32GT1) on the 

 north bank of the Heart River, about 3 miles upstream from the dam 

 site. Here, in a stratum reaching a thickness of 2 to 3 feet or more, 

 were found traces of former occupation by a group of bison-hunting, 

 semisedentary people, whose pottery tradition was quite similar to that 

 of the Mandan and Hidatsa. Objects of ground stone, bone, horn, 

 shell, wood, and other materials were absent or very scarce ; chipped- 

 stone work included end scrapers, drills, blades, and point fragments. 

 No evidence of earth-lodge habitations, of agriculture, or of contact 

 with white people were found. From the abundance of their bones, 

 bison seem to have been the chief food item, but there was also con- 

 siderable use of river mollusks. It is suggested that this site, pre- 

 viously recommended for excavation by a reconnaissance party of 

 the River Basin Surveys, may represent a camping place occupied 

 seasonally by hunting parties of the Mandan or Hidatsa, whose vil- 

 lages lay 50 or 60 miles to the east on the Missouri River. 



Surveys made concurrently with the excavations located a small 

 rock shelter (32GT5) near the dam site. From the very thin floor 

 deposit came a few pieces of chipped chalcedony and fragments of a 

 single pottery vessel of late Mandan-Hidatsa type. Fallen slabs in 

 front of the shelter, underlaid by cultural debris, suggest that addi- 

 tional data may be buried beneath the collapsed front roof of a once 

 deeper shelter. Upstream from the camp site was found a rather 

 extensive deposit of bison bones, evidently representing the debris 

 of a hunting drive or "kill." This deposit, now buried by 12 to 13 feet 

 of overburden, was exposed for nearly 500 feet along the river bank; 

 no artifacts were noted. On higher ground, above the future reservoir 

 level, was found a chalcedony quarry ; scattered spalls and a few 

 chipped implements testify to the use of the material by the Indians. 



From Heart River, the expedition moved to Fort Yates on the 

 Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Excavations were undertaken in 

 an earth-lodge village site (32SI4) 7 miles south of Fort Yates, on 

 the right bank of the Missouri River. Like an undetermined number 

 of others along the stream south of Bismarck, this site will be inun- 

 dated eventually by the proposed Oahe Reservoir. On the basis of 

 surface sherd collections, it had been previously ascribed by North 

 Dakota workers to the "Archaic Mandan" horizon. Surface remains 



