148 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 176 



Dakota — and Fort Lower Brule (39LM53), a shortlived military 

 post of 1870 in the Fort Eandall Reservoir area, South Dakota 

 (Roberts, 1952, pp. 377-379; also Mills, 1960, this volume). Thus 

 some previous experience in the excavation of comparable sites of 

 White origin was available for orientation when the present work 

 was begun. 



The choice of any site for actual excavation or sampling has, of 

 course, necessarily been governed, first, by the consideration of whether 

 the site is ultimately to be inundated or destroyed by construction 

 activities and, secondly, by the probable significance of the surviving 

 physical remains. Ideally, the archeologist seeks for a site for excava- 

 tion that promises informative data and object materials, or offers 

 hope of answers to specific questions in the prehistory or history of 

 any region, rather than having to consider arbitrary (and, from the 

 standpoint of historical use of the areas by man, artificial) bound- 

 aries such as maximum pool elevations. 



For various reasons it has not always been possible to attack de- 

 finable logical problems in reservoir areas, such as the physical his- 

 tories of trading establishments, whose sites dot the banks of the 

 Missouri, or even of the several military posts that succeeded to a 

 part of the role of the trading posts. Thus the sites of the great capi- 

 tals of the trade on the upper river, posts that once dominated all 

 of the Northern Plains such as Fort Union and Fort Pierre Chouteau, 

 remain untouched, together with the more important military installa- 

 tions of the late 19th century such as Forts Sully, Bennett, Rice, and 

 Buford, where rewards in new information will doubtless be note- 

 worthy, when systematic excavation becomes possible. In some re- 

 spects, this is a fortunate circumstance, since experience and knowledge 

 are slowly being acquired, and methods of excavation and study im- 

 proved, mitil such time as these irreplaceable sources of knowledge 

 of earlier western history are at last opened. Fortunately, also, a 

 few of such sites have already been set aside as historical reserves 

 (e.g.. Forts Union, Clark, and others) by the State of North Dakota. 



Other logical (rather than arbitrary) problems, of a scientific or 

 historical character, are suggested by experience thus far gained in 

 the investigation of sites of earlier White occupation and settlement, 

 as well as by that from numerous investigations at sites of native 

 origin, of historic time levels (such as Like-a-Fishhook Village, 

 adjacent to Fort Berthold I and II, which were dependent upon it). 

 Thus it would be of importance to know more than is now known 

 concerning the true nature of the material culture of the Indian fron- 

 tier in the region (ca. 1812-1880), which differed from that of the 

 military frontier (ca. 1855-1895), or that of permanent Wliite settle- 

 ment (ca. 1880 to date). Materials, some of them now from arche- 

 ological work, others in contemporaiy documents of various kinds 



