Riv. Bas. Sur. aon 
Pap. No. 26] SMALL SITES ABOUT FORT BERTHOLD—METCALF AT 
NUS NiO NIOS 
= Me 
BOTTOM OF EXCAVATION 
PROFILE OF EAST SIDE OF EXCAVATION LEGEND 
(LI]] sop zone 
32ME53 LIGHT, FINE SOIL 
[<=] SOIL AND STONES 
ro 
ne) 
bo 
a 
4 
Feet VZ) STERILE CLAY 
T401 
RS.P S-22-1954 
Ficure 4.—Profile of east side of test excavation at 32MES53. 
The dark soil which overlay the yellow clay yielded all the oceupa- 
tional evidence found, the lower part of the zone containing the bulk 
of it, although a fireplace was present in the upper part. This hearth, 
Feature 1, was a fire-reddened area, the redness gradually fading into 
a black smudge about the edges. Thus it was diflicult to delimit the 
feature in the dark soil, but apparently it had measured about 2 feet 
in diameter. The center was not depressed, and the burning did not 
extend to more than an inch in depth. A small amount of finely 
broken charcoal lay upon the reddened area, but no white ash was 
present. The only associated material was a bison bone. 
Only a few scattered flakes came from the upper part of the dark 
soil, practically all the occupation debris being concentrated in the 
lowermost few inches of this layer. At the north end of the trench the 
artifact-bearing level was found at a depth of 11 inches below the 
surface, but to the south the depth was somewhat greater. The level 
cf heaviest occupation sloped upward both to the south and west, 
but the rise was not as great as that found on the surface, nor did it 
rise as fast as did the subsoil. At the extreme north end of the test 
the main occupation level was 4 to 5 inches above subsoil, while at 
the south end it lay just above the clean, yellow clay. The line of 
demarcation between the dark and the yellow soil, which was sharp 
at the north end of the trench, became somewhat blurred at the south 
end. 
From this lower level in the dark soil came another hearth, Fea- 
ture 2, as well as great quantities of fire-cracked quartz and granite 
cobbles, a good yield of chips of Knife River flint, and a few poorly 
preserved bone splinters. In all, 380 fire-broken fragments of stone 
came from this level in the approximately 80 square feet of area un- 
