SEVENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT 



OF THE 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



M. W. Stirling, Director 



Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report on the field 

 researches, office work, and other operations of the Bureau of Amer- 

 ican Ethnology during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1953, conducted 

 in accordance with the act of Congress of April 10, 1928, as amended 

 August 22, 1949, which provides ". . . to continue independently or 

 in cooperation anthropological researches among the American In- 

 dians and the natives of lands under the jurisdiction or protection 

 of the United States and the excavation and preservation of 

 archeologic remains." 



SYSTEMATIC RESEARCHES 



On January 28 Dr. M. W. Stirling, Director of the Bureau, left 

 for Panama on the fourth National Geographic Society-Smithsonian 

 Institution archeological expedition to Panama. From February 13 

 to March 1 the expedition was in Darien where 2 weeks were spent 

 on the Sambu Kiver studying the little-known Choco Indians. The 

 fact that their territory was opened for settlement only 2 years 

 ago offered unusual opportunity to study the beginnings of the ac- 

 culturation process. Following this. Dr. Stirling spent a month in 

 archeological work on the islands of the Gulf of Panama, with head- 

 quarters on Taboga Island. Excavations in shell-midden sites were 

 conducted on Taboga and Taboguilla Islands and a large burial site 

 in a rock shelter on Uraba was investigated. He spent the first half 

 of April on Almirante Bay in the Province of Bocas del Toro where 

 he examined midden and cave sites and made test excavations. He re- 

 turned to Washington on April 20. 



Dr. Frank H. H. Eoberts, Jr., Associate Director of the Bureau, 

 was occupied most of the year with the management of the Eiver 

 Basin Surveys, of which he is Director. In August he went to Lin- 

 coln, Nebr., to inspect the headquarters of the Missouri Basin project, 

 whence, accompanied by Ealph D. Brown, chief of the Missouri Basin 

 project, and Dr. Gordon C. Baldwin, archeologist from the Eegion 

 2 office of the National Park Service at Omaha, Nebr., he proceeded 

 to the Harlan County Eeservoir project in south-central Nebraska 

 where he visited the excavating party from the Laboratory of An- 

 thropology of the University of Nebraska, under the direction of 

 Dr. John L. Champe. The work at the Harlan County Eeservoir was 



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