2 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



A study of the much discussed Norse expeditions to America was 

 undertaken and a manuscript completed embodying the results. 



During the course of the year Dr. Swanton furnished to the Navy 

 Department more than 1,000 Indian tribal names and names of prom- 

 inent Indians, to be used for naming war vessels. Approximately 200 

 of these have been used. 



On June 30, 1944, Dr. Swanton retired from the Bureau after 

 almost 44 years of service. 



Dr. John P. Harrington, ethnologist, continuing his American In- 

 dian linguistic studies, discovered evidence suggesting that Quechua 

 and Aymara, the languages of the two most highly civilized groups 

 of aboriginal South America, are related to the Hokan stock of western 

 North America. This is the first time that a linguistic relationship 

 has been indicated between North and South America. In addition 

 to this Dr. Harrington has reduced the number of linguistic stocks in 

 South America by establishing the relationship of many groups previ- 

 ously considered to be separate. 



Because of his unique knowledge of languages. Dr. Harrington has 

 been called upon daily by the Office of Censorship to translate letters 

 written in little-known languages from all over the world. 



During the year several short papers on linguistic subjects have been 

 published in scientific journals. 



On July 5, 1943, Dr. Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., senior archeologist, 

 went to Abilene, Tex., where he spent 5 days investigating a prehistoric 

 Indian burial which had been exposed 21 feet below the surface in a 

 bank of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River by fioodwaters and which 

 was in danger of being washed away by a new rise. Studies of the 

 deposits at the site showed that the burial had been made during the 

 closing days of the Pleistocene or the beginning of the Early Recent 

 geologic period about 10,000 years ago. The skeleton was turned over 

 to the division of physical anthropology of the United States National 

 Museum, where it has received careful study and has added to the 

 knowledge of the physical type of the early Texas Indians. 



Returning to Washington, Dr. Roberts spent the remainder of the 

 summer and the months of early autumn preparing contributions 

 to, obtaining pictures for, editing the manuscript, and reading proof 

 of a manual, "Survival on Land and Sea," which was prepared for 

 the Publications Branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence, United 

 States Navy, by the Ethnogeographic Board and the staff of the 

 Smithsonian Institution. He later worked on a revision of this man- 

 ual for a second edition and also served as a consultant for a similar 

 manual being prepared for the Army Air Forces. During this period 

 he also furnished information to several other branches of the armed 

 services and some of the war agencies. 



