12 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



weeks in August. The archeologist and field assistant detailed from 

 the Washington office returned to their regular assignments in Au- 

 gust. Two temporary field assistants were terminated in August. 

 Two other temporary field assistants were appointed as archeologists 

 on the permanent staff. One temporary field assistant was transferred 

 to duty outside the Missouri Basin in January. One illustrator was 

 added to the permanent staff in November. All other temporary 

 employees were terminated in December and January. Four museum 

 aides were added to the permanent staff during the year. One tempo- 

 rary archeologist and two temporary field assistants were added at the 

 beginning of the 1958 field season. At the end of the fiscal year there 

 were 6 archeologists in addition to the chief, 1 administrative assist- 

 ant, 1 clerk-stenographer, 1 file clerk (three-quarters time), 1 clerk- 

 typist, 1 photographer, 1 illustrator, and 4 museum aides on the 

 permanent staff. Temporary employees included 1 archeologist, 1 

 physical anthropologist, 2 field assistants, 3 cooks, and 90 crewmen. 



During the year there were 19 Smithsonian Institution River Basin 

 Surveys field parties at work within the Missouri Basin, while 

 another, working outside the Basin, also operated from the Project 

 office in Lincoln. Of the 19 Missouri Basin parties, 5 were at work 

 in July, August, and September in the Big Bend Eeservoir area in 

 South Dakota, and 5 additional parties were at work there in June. 

 Five parties worked in the Oahe Eeservoir area in July, August, and 

 September, and four other parties were at work there in June. The 

 party outside the Missouri Basin was that in the Dardanelle Reser- 

 voir area in Arkansas. 



Other field work in the Missouri Basin during the year included 11 

 field parties from State institutions working under agreements with 

 the National Park Service and in cooperation with the salvage re- 

 search program of the Smithsonian Institution. Parties from the 

 Universities of South Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, and Mis- 

 souri and from the North Dakota State Historical Society were in the 

 field during July to October. Parties from the Universities of South 

 Dakota, Idaho, Wyoming, and Missouri were conducting excavations 

 in June, as was a joint party from the North Dakota State Historical 

 Society and the University of North Dakota. 



At the beginning of the year in the Big Bend Reservoir area, 

 G. Hubert Smith and a party of 10 were engaged in excavations on 

 the right bank of the Missouri River near the mouth of Medicine 

 Creek, in Lyman County, S. Dak., at site 39LM241. This site was 

 believed to be that of Fort Defiance (or Bonis), a small, short-lived 

 trading post of the 1840's. It was one of a number of such estab- 

 lishments organized from time to time in competition with the Ameri- 

 can Fur Co. (P. Chouteau, Jr., & Co., after 1834) . It was hoped that 



