Riv. Bas. Sur. 
Pap. No. 30] STUTSMAN FOCUS—WHEELER 175 
to 1.0 foot in depth, in order to uncover as quickly as possible the 
circular floor plan and entryway of House 4 (Feature 34). In the 
case of each excavation unit, the subsod, hard, compact, artifact- 
and debris-charged humus and the underlying shaly sand were 
loosened with sharp shovels and mattocks; the constructional features 
were exposed and, in appropriate instances, were cored out with trowels 
and handpicks. All the excavated earth was passed through or over 
screens of 34-inch mesh, so as to free the cultural materials from the 
tenacious matrix. This technique resulted in the virtually complete 
recovery of the excavated specimens. Some classes of material, 
notably pottery sherds and faunal remains, are proportionately high 
per cubic foot of turned earth as compared to yields of many far 
richer excavated sites in the Northern Plains where the matrix was 
not sifted, or was sifted only in part. 
The maximum horizontal dimensions and ranges of depth of the 25 
excavation units opened in 1952 and 1954, and the nature and quan- 
tity of their inclusive contents, are given in sequential order in the 
accompanying chart (table 1). The total count of specimens in the 
“artifact inventory” category obtained from the excavation units 
numbers, 11,976 individual items; and the total count of specimens in 
the “refuse materials” category returned from the excavation units 
amounts to 188 lots and 18,503 individual items. The bulk of the 
faunal remains—unidentifiable fragments of bones and teeth—were 
enumerated and then discarded in the field. All the other specimens 
were transported to the laboratory and were there processed and 
cataloged. The locations of the 25 excavation units are shown in 
figure 27. 
The deep test trench, noted under XU1 in table 1, measured 13 feet 
in length by 5 feet in width by 7.1 feet in maximum depth. It dis- 
closed the following stratified deposits from the surface downward 
(south wall of test, 5 feet west of southeast corner stake, depth 6.75 
feet) : humus, 0.8 foot; dark-stained shaly sand, 1.6 feet; buff-colored 
sandy clay with an admixture of flaky shale, 1.5 feet; and five dark- 
colored lenses (buried soils?) varying from 0.1 to 0.2 foot in thickness, 
each separated by layers of clay-shale, shale-sandy clay, sand, and 
shale ranging from 0.3 foot to 1.05 feet in thickness each. Only the 
uppermost 2.5 feet of the deposits—humus and underlying dark- 
stained shaly clay—yielded cultural materials. (A single animal 
bone, found at a depth of 6.5 feet below the surface, is to be regarded 
as of “natural” rather than cultural origin.) The positive and negative 
findings in this test, the only deep sounding taken at the Hintz site, 
permit the inferences that but one pottery-bearing occupation existed 
in this portion of the terrace and that the occupation occurred late 
in the history of the cut-and-fill terrace, 
