154 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 176 



the Yellowstone and the Three Forks, in Montana.* Proper attention 

 (as has not always been the case in the past) should be given to 

 adequate documentary investigation, wherever this may lead, in 

 advance of excavation. The archeologist responsible may sometimes 

 make important additions to knowledge, lacking the guides of 

 thorough documentary research ; he is, however, much more likely to 

 make such additions if the indoor work has been completed in ad- 

 vance, preferably under his own eyes. 



Attention should be given also, in such planning, to selecting sites 

 for excavation and study that may afford data on operations and ac- 

 tivities of both the dominant firm, the American Fur Company (and 

 its successor, the P. Chouteau, Jr., and Company), and the nmnerous 

 and frequently short-lived opposition firms (e.g., the Columbia; the 

 Harvey, Primeau; and the Papin, Cerre groups), whose activities and 

 operations are even less well recorded in surviving documentary rec- 

 ords. And there are other lesser considerations in any such broad 

 campaign of fieldwork ; a case in point is that of sites not now formally 

 protected (as are Forts Union and Clark, now in public ownership), 

 but subject to fortuitous natural and manmade destruction. 



Any such broadly planned investigation of historic sites, including 

 coordinated excavations and documentary research, even for a limited 

 number of sites, remains to be worked out. The increasingly greater 

 public interest in and awareness of American backgrounds (not least 

 of all, those of the recently settled West) , and the increasing use of 

 existing resources of varying quality, such as private and public mu- 

 seums, historic houses, and historical parks and monuments, are note- 

 worthy phenomena. In proper recognition of the value of surviving 

 original and authentic source materials of a physical nature, much 

 more exploitation of them seems justified. The unexcavated site may 

 have sentimental values; the excavated site, properly studied, may 

 provide real additions to knowledge. 



Such work could be accomplished through the several State agencies 

 most immediately concerned (perhaps with public or private assist- 

 ance), particularly State historical bodies and park authorities, which 

 may be able from time to time to sponsor or themselves undertake 

 original site studies in their own areas of special interest. Some efforts 

 of the kind have indeed already been made by such State agencies, 

 though tentatively and hesitatingly, and not perhaps in any instance 

 as a result of coordinated plans for any State, or in proper relation 

 to work in other States. It seems probable that progress could be made 



* It should be mentioned that excavations have been underway for some years at the 

 Bite of the U.S. military factory. Fort Osage (1808-27), which supplied goods to the In- 

 dians of the region of the lower Missouri, but results of this worlr have not yet appeared 

 In print. These excavations appear to have been subordinated to reconstruction of the 

 post, still underway, and additions to general knowledge from the archeological work may 

 thereby have gone unrecognized. 



