26 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



excavation. At the beginning of the year David J. Wenner, Jr., 

 field assistant, was making a reconnaissance of the area to be flooded 

 by the Tenkiiler Ferry Keservoir on the Illinois River in the eastern 

 part of the State. That work was completed on July 27 and the 

 party moved to the Canadian Reservoir project on the Canadian 

 River. Reconnaissance of that area was finished on August 17, 

 when attention was turned to the adjacent Onapa project on the 

 North Canadian. The survey there was completed on September 3. 

 Within the 3 basins, 104 sites were found, 38 in Tenkiiler Ferry, 41 

 in the Canadian, and 25 in Onapa. The work in Tenkiiler Ferry 

 demonstrated that what were presumed to be mounds, actually are 

 natural knolls on flood plains and terraces, and all the sites present 

 are village or camp remains. Those in the other two areas are also 

 mainly village sites representing both historic and prehistoric cultures. 

 In passing it should be stated that the Canadian and Onapa are 

 two of three smaller alternate projects proposed to take the place of 

 the larger Eufaula Reservoir. The third in the group, the Gaines, 

 still remains to be surveyed. Should the single Eufaula project 

 eventually be carried through instead of the three smaller ones, very 

 little additional field work will be required to determine the archeologi- 

 cal manifestations involved. It is known that there are a number of 

 mounds that lie outside the boundaries of the smaller reservoirs but 

 which would fall within the maximum pool of the Eufaula. Mr. 

 Wenner was aided in his work by William Mayer-Oakes and Robert 

 Shalkop, student assistants. 



The excavations were at the Norman site in the Fort Gibson 

 Reservoir basin on the Grand (Neosho) River near Wagoner. Earlier 

 work by the University of Oklahoma had shown that the extensive 

 village and mound group located there belonged to a Spiro-type 

 culture and raised the possibility that the flooding of the largest 

 double mound, which had never been excavated, would represent the 

 loss of as important information and material as had the destruction 

 of the famous Spiro mounds in the adjacent county. When Dr. 

 Robert E. Bell of the Department of Anthropology of the University 

 of Oklahoma reached the site in July he found that nearly aU the 

 village area and all mounds, with the exception of the largest double 

 unit, had been removed by the bulldozers of the construction con- 

 tractor. Even the large double unit had been damaged. The 

 western periphery had been cut away and the smaller mound had 

 been cut down several feet. With the assistance of the Engineers 

 Dr. Bell was able to stop the operations so that archeological work 

 could be done. During July and the first 2 weeks in August the 

 University of Oklahoma field session under Bell excavated portions 

 of several house sites still surviving south of the larger mound. On 



