2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I26 



total accomplishments during the period, since these will not be known 

 until the completion of studies still under way. I have attempted to 

 keep interpretations at a minimum, partly because they must rest 

 primarily upon preliminary and tentative statements by the research 

 men, who will undoubtedly in some instances revise their opinions at 

 later stages of their studies. Periodic progress reports and more 

 comprehensive summary reports, when available, have been the main 

 sources relied upon, and I hope that little violence has been done to 

 the facts and to the opinions of those who have compiled the reports. 



The work of the Missouri Basin Project continued to be facilitated 

 by the freely given assistance of many organizations, agencies, and 

 individuals. Personnel of the Washington and regional offices of the 

 National Park Service, and of the Bureau of Reclamation and Corps 

 of Engineers, were consistently helpful. In the National Park Serv- 

 ice, various officials assisted in planning operations and provided con- 

 sultative services, especially in the field of historic-sites archeology. 

 Officials in the district and various field offices of the Corps of Engi- 

 neers and in the regional and field offices of the Bureau of Reclama- 

 tion contributed in many ways to the success of our fieldwork. In 

 addition to making information of all kinds freely available, both 

 agencies also provided various facilities, including space for field 

 headquarters and storage, and the loan of equipment. In the Fort 

 Randall Reservoir area the schedule for acquisition of certain tracts 

 of land was accelerated, and these were withheld from agricultural 

 leases to permit cost-free access for excavation. State agencies 

 throughout the Basin cooperated in every possible way, including the 

 provision of needed information and making their research and other 

 facilities available. The University of Nebraska, through its Labora- 

 tory of Anthropology, continued to provide office and laboratory 

 space and to offer the use of its library. Landowners were uniformly 

 indulgent in permitting excavations, often at the cost of personal 

 inconvenience, and they and other local residents were helpful to field 

 personnel in ways too numerous to mention. As in the past, the 

 Committee for the Recovery of Archeological Remains, representing 

 the anthropological profession, gave invaluable aid and support to 

 the salvage program. 



In previous years, with a few notable exceptions, funds were pro- 

 vided only for survey and test excavation to determine the extent of 

 the salvage problem. In the meantime, construction on a number of 

 dams was proceeding apace, and the day when large numbers of sites 

 not duplicated elsewhere would disappear beneath the waters of the 

 newly created reservoirs was looming ever closer. Construction on 



