48 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill 



111 the Wyoming-Montana area, the surveys of 1946-47 have shown 

 that a great number of sites exist and that the water-control program 

 w'ill adversely affect many of them. As has long been inferred on 

 historic grounds, this was primarily a region of simple hunting and 

 gathering economies, with no native horticulture except sporadically 

 along the extreme eastern margin. Pottery occurs sparingly here 

 and there — as at Glendo and Boysen, in Wyoming; and perhaps 

 somewhat more plentifully along the valley of the Yellowstone in 

 Montana. The so-called tipi rings, whose true purpose and signifi- 

 cance are still obscure, are abundant and apparently highly character- 

 istic. They occur in limited numbers in northern Colorado and ex- 

 treme western Nebraska, and more frequently in the Dakotas east- 

 ward approximately to the Missouri from Fort Randall northward, but 

 the greatest number of such sites seem to lie in Wyoming, Montana, 

 and northward. It is possible that they correlate with a relatively late 

 hunting occupation, perhaps partly at least involving Shoshonean 

 peoples. Camp sites marked by clusters of fire-cracked stones and 

 refuse, but without tipi rings or other evidences of structures, are also 

 common, particularly in the western portions of the area. There is 

 some reason to believe that many of these hearth sites are of some 

 antiquity, since they appear to be weathering out of cut banks at vary- 

 ing depths below the present surface. Whether they represent an 

 early Shoshonean occupation, or are pre-Shoshonean in time, or both, 

 is uncertain. 



Determination of cultural succession in this region is not easy, 

 because of the simple nature of most of the site complexes and the 

 comparatively low material yield from most occupational sites. That 

 a series of peoples have successively inhabited the area, and that they 

 have carried different cultural equipment, is already demonstrable, 

 however, and there can be little doubt that continued intensive investi- 

 gation at appropriate sites will lead to clearer definition of variations 

 now only dimly recognizable. Of several stratified sites recorded by 

 River Basin Surveys personnel, only one has been adequately studied. 

 This is Birdshead Cave, in the Owl Creek Range west of Boysen 

 dam site. Here it appears, from evidence noted elsewhere in this 

 report, that peoples with a Great Basin type of subsistence economy 

 rather than Plains hunters dwelt in late prehistoric times. Aside from 

 the somewhat more advanced and more abundant remains in the upper 

 levels, the principal differences from period to period are indicated 

 by variations in form and size of projectile points. It seems probable 

 that these objects, varying from well-made, triangular, side-notched 

 forms in the later period to progressively earlier corner-notched and 



