SIXTY-FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT 11 



found on the surface, Solecki did some test digging. The material 

 thus obtained places the cultural horizon in late pre-Columbian times 

 and indicates certain links between the Ohio Valley and the Great Val- 

 ley of the Shenandoah. Test excavations were also made in the largest 

 of the rock shelters where both historic and prehistoric objects were 

 found, the latter occurring in the deposits to a depth of 5 feet. 

 Because no previous archeological work has been done in this district 

 the excavation of three of the village sites and the large rock shelter 

 has been recommended. Solecki found 14 small sites, presumably 

 places where transient hunting parties had camped, in the West Fork 

 Basin. None of these are of sufficient size or depth to warrant further 

 study and no additional work was recommended. The West Virginia 

 surveys were completed on May 28 and Solecki returned to Washing- 

 ton where he spent the remainder of the fiscal year preparing reports 

 on the results of his investigations. 



Dr. Gordon R. Willey, archeologist on the regular staff of the 

 Bureau of American Ethnology, was detailed to the River Basin 

 Surveys during August and September. On August 14 he went to 

 Nashville, Tenn., where he visited the office of the District Engineer 

 for the purpose of obtaining information about the Center Hill proj- 

 ect on the Caney Fork River near Baxter, Tenn. From there he 

 proceeded to Baxter and from August 20 to September 12 carried 

 on a survey of the area to be flooded. He found 39 sites consisting of 

 temple mounds, small earth-rock mounds, villages, and caves showing 

 some signs of occupation. Many of the sites proved to be Middle 

 Mississippian in culture and period; some suggested that they be- 

 longed in the pre-Mississippian category, and others may even repre- 

 sent the Archaic. The Middle Mississippian designates the period 

 when the people lived in large sedentary communities, depended pri- 

 marily on intensive agriculture for their subsistence, built temple or 

 substructure mounds, and made characteristic types of pottery and 

 other artifacts. This generally is believed to have been about A. D. 

 1300 to 1700. Pre-Mississippian also has been called the Burial Mound 

 period, or Southeastern Woodland culture. At that stage the people 

 lived in smaller communities or scattered households, lived pri- 

 marily by hunting, fishing, food gathering supplemented by a little 

 agriculture. This was during the centuries from approximately 

 A. D. 800 to 1300. The Archaic refers to small, scattered groups of 

 primitive hunters and food gatherers who are believed to have oc- 

 cupied the area prior to A. D. 700. Excavations were recommended 

 for one of the temple-mound sites and one of the earth-rock burial 

 mounds, with testing in some of the village remains. Unfortunately 

 flooding started before this could be accomplished, and the material 

 obtained from the survey constitutes most of our knowledge of that 

 portion of the Cumberland Basin. 



