PREHISTORY AND THE MISSOURI VALLEY DEVELOP- 

 MENT PROGRAM : SUMMARY REPORT ON THE 

 MISSOURI RIVER BASIN ARCHEOLOGICAL 

 SURVEY IN 1946 



By WALDO R. WEDEL 



Associate Curator, Division of Archeology, 



U. S. National Museum 



(With Two Plates) 



Archeological investigations in the Missouri River Basin have been 

 carried on intermittently for a Httle more than half a century. There 

 were, to be sure, terse comments by explorers, travelers, and others 

 at least as far back as the time of Lewis and Clark, but these obser- 

 vations were usually incidental to other activities. With a few notable 

 exceptions, most of the work prior to 1920 was done with little or no 

 sense of problem and for the primary purpose of acquiring museum 

 pieces. IMore recently, and particularly in the past two or three 

 decades, systematic archeology has taken the place of the earlier relic- 

 gathering, and with broadening of the field of inquiry, there has re- 

 sulted a rather drastic overturning of former concepts concerning 

 the pre-white occupation of the region. It is apparent already that the 

 bison-hunting, war-bonneted horsemen of the period of America's 

 westward expansion are a late phenomenon ; that behind them, in 

 areas climatically suitable, was a long period of residence by corn- 

 growing, village-dwelling peoples ; and that the total span of man's 

 occupancy of the region is a very long one — a period to be measured 

 possibly in terms of thousands of years. The outline of the story is 

 emerging ; the details remain to be filled in. 



Postwar archeology in the Missouri River Basin, as it prepares to 

 resume the researclies interrupted during the early 1940's, finds itself 

 face to face with the prospect of losing a very large part of its basic 

 materials. Here, as elsewhere throughout the major river valleys of 

 the United States, the flood control and reclamation program of the 

 Federal Government will bring complete destruction to hundreds of 

 archeological sites of varied nature and antiquity. Only prompt action, 

 carefully planned, fully coordinated throughout the region involved, 

 and executed on a scale commensurate with the basic program of 

 basin development, will enable us to salvage the information needed to 

 reconstruct the prehistory of the region, 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. 107, NO. 6 



