SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT 13 



work there would provide information on such lesser establishments 

 of the fur and Indian trade, of which little was ever recorded at the 

 time they were in use. Excavations at 39LM24:1 proved that it was 

 not the site of Fort Defiance (or Bonis) but that it was of a later 

 period of permanent settlement, dating after 1880. Further search 

 for the Fort Defiance site proved fruitless. While somewhat scanty, 

 the data and specimens from 39LM241 provide materials that should 

 be very useful for comparative studies relating to this later period of 

 white occupation. The Smith party completed 6 weeks of fieldwork 

 and returned to the Lincoln office early in August. 



The second River Basin Surveys field party in the Big Bend Reser- 

 voir area at the beginning of the year was directed by Dr. Warren W. 

 Caldwell and consisted of a crew of nine. The group was at work on 

 the right bank of the Missouri River in Lyman County, S. Dak., 

 some 7 miles above the Lower Brule Agency, excavating in the Black 

 Partizan site (39LM218) . The latter consists of the remains of a pre- 

 historic earth-lodge village of at least 2 component occupations and 

 perhaps 3. The party completely excavated 1 circular earth-lodge 

 ruin and a large portion of a second, cross-sectioned a defensive forti- 

 fication ditch, excavated 1 complete bastion of the stockade, and tested 

 a number of midden areas and cache pits. The circular houses were 

 situated well outside the fortification ditch and were of the late occu- 

 pation of about the end of the 17th century. The ditch and bastion 

 represent two earlier occupation periods, with the ditch being dug 

 during the earlier one, later filled in and, still later, redug. Tests 

 indicated a rectangular house inside the fortification ditch and, to- 

 gether with midden areas and cache pits in that area, provided both 

 simple-stamped and cord-roughened pottery that predates the mate- 

 rial recovered from the circular houses outside the stockade. Among 

 the finds made in the cache pits, one of particular interest was the 

 burial of two very large, adult dogs, together with a pup. After 12 

 weeks of excavation, the party disbanded and returned to the Lincoln 

 office on September 7. The Caldwell and Smith parties shared a 

 joint field camp near the mouth of Medicine Creek. 



The third River Basin Surveys field party in the Big Bend Reser- 

 voir area at the beginning of the year was under the direction of 

 Robert W. Neuman and had a crew of 10. That party conducted 

 excavations in four sites in the vicinity of Old Fort Thompson, the 

 Indian Agency, on the left bank of the Missouri River in Buffalo 

 County, S. Dak. Two of them were prehistoric village sites on the low 

 terrace bottoms, and two were burial mounds situated on the higher 

 terrace of the Missouri River. The Pretty Bull site (39BF12) was 

 found to have had three separate occupations. The earliest and 

 deepest remains were recovered from two test excavations that un- 



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