NO. 2 SALVAGE PROGRAM, I95O-I95I — COOPER ^^ 



of Lime Creek some miles above its confluence with Medicine Creek. 

 A maximum party of eight spent approximately six weeks in the ex- 

 cavation of the two sites in 1950, and in 1951 ten weeks were devoted 

 primarily to 25FT42, most of the time with 12 workers. 



In the spring of 1950 it was apparent that 25FT41, the Lime Creek 

 site, would be inundated by the rising waters of the reservoir before 

 autumn, so an effort was made to recover all possible further informa- 

 tion as quickly as possible. The fill, near the base of which the occu- 

 pational deposits occur, has been correlated by the paleontologists 

 concerned with the studies here with Republican River Terrace 2, 

 which they believe to be referable to the Mankato stage of the Wis- 

 consin glaciation. Previous archeological work had demonstrated the 

 existence of three cultural zones — C (the lowest), K, and R (the 

 highest) — and each of these was further investigated in 1950. Work 

 in Zone C, which lay upon the surface of a compact blue clay deposit, 

 in 1947 yielded points not unlike the Scottsbluff type, as well as other 

 artifacts. Unfortunately, except for one specimen, the points were 

 not in situ. The additional work in 1949 and 1950 did not produce 

 points nor did it materially expand the inventory otherwise. Zone K, 

 about 3 feet higher, has produced only two artifacts, both during the 

 limited digging of 1950. Neither of these is a point. Finally, the exca- 

 vations of 1950 produced no identifiable artifacts in Zone R, where 

 two Plainview points were found in 1949. This horizon lies approxi- 

 mately 8 feet above Zone C. Charcoal suitable for radiocarbon dating 

 was not recovered from any of the occupational zones, but a series of 

 logs collected in 1949 from the blue clay lying beneath the lowest 

 zone has yielded a date of 9524 ± 450 years. 



Early in the summer of 1950, tests in a buried site, 25FT101, which 

 had been observed in a cliff on Medicine Creek about 6 miles above 

 the dam, produced flakes and bone, some burned, and evidence that a 

 more concentrated deposit might lie nearby. The site was revisited in 

 September to explore the possibility of further excavation, but by 

 that time the reservoir was almost full and wave action had destroyed 

 the area that it was believed might repay investigation. 



The remainder of the field season of 1950 and most of the season of 

 195 1 were devoted to 25FT42, the Red Smoke site, about half a mile 

 up Lime Creek from 25FT41. Since the discovery of the site in 1947, 

 limited investigations had revealed the existence of two cultural hori- 

 zons in a geological situation like that of site 25FT41, i.e., in fill 

 attributed to Terrace 2, and thus to the Mankato, Level 88 (occupa- 

 tional layers are designated at this site by numbers which represent 

 the elevation above the site datum) had proven to be an intensively 



