River Basin Surveys Papers, 1 - 39

DOCUMENT Full-Text Waldo R. Wedel.

The Missouri River Basin Survey of the Smithsonian Institution, organized in 1946, continued during calendar year 1948 its archeological and paleontological investigations at Federal water-control projects throughout the watershed of the Missouri. The present report, third in a continuing series, briefly reviews the year's activities in field and laboratory. Although primarily concerned with the work of the River Basin Surveys, it includes also summary statements on the researches of various...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Waldo R. Wedel.

Continuing its studies of the archeological and paleontological materials that will be adversely affected by the expanding Federal watercontrol program in the Missouri River watershed, the Missouri River Basin Survey carried on its field and laboratory activities throughout calendar year 1949. For various reasons the year was an unusually trying one, even frustrating in some respects; but within the limit of available funds and in the face of a rapidly changing personnel picture, a measure of...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Marvin F. Kivett.

The River Basin Surveys concept marks a nationwide acceptance by archaeologists of a leading role in the conservationist movement. If one agrees that an increment of archaeological knowledge has value, then it follows that every time a site is excavated ahead of inundation the act is one of preservation of a national as well as an intellectual resource. Beginning in 1945, the River Basin Survey Papers describe inter-agency salvage archaeological projects in thirteen states which include Oregon,...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Joe Ben Wheat.

The archeological survey of the Addicks Dam Basin was initiated in March 1947 by the writer as a part of the River Basin Surveys. The initial phase of the operation involved the locating, testing, and evaluation of all sites likely to be damaged or lost through the construction of the reservoir and associated channel rectification and subsequent inundation, silting, etc. This phase culminated in the partial excavation of two sites, begun late in May and concluded on July 15, 1947. This paper...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Herbert W. Dick. Sheldon Judson.

The excavation of the Hodges site was undertaken during August 1947, because the site was being looted by workmen from construction projects nearby. The site actually was not in danger of inundation but was being destroyed as completely as it would have been had the site fallen within the pool area. Secondary factors were to aid the geologist in determining the date of an alluvial deposit through cultural material and to obtain and record additional archeological evidence for determining...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Joseph R. Caldwell.

The River Basin Surveys concept marks a nationwide acceptance by archaeologists of a leading role in the conservationist movement. If one agrees that an increment of archaeological knowledge has value, then it follows that every time a site is excavated ahead of inundation the act is one of preservation of a national as well as an intellectual resource. Beginning in 1945, the River Basin Survey Papers describe inter-agency salvage archaeological projects in thirteen states which include Oregon,...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr. Waldo R. Wedel. Marvin F. Kivett. Joe B. Wheat. Marshall T. Newman. Sheldon Judson. Joseph Caldwell.

The Inter-Agency program for the recovery of archeological and paleontological remains which would otherwise be lost as a result of the numerous projects for Hood control, irrigation, hydroelectric installations, and navigation improvements in the river basins of the United States got under way in 1946 as a cooperative effort on the part of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army. Preliminary steps...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Donald J. Lehmer.

The Inter-Agency Archeological Salvage Program is a cooperative plan of the Smithsonian Institution; the National Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of the Interior; and the Corps of Engineers, Department of the Army. It was formulated, through a series of interbureau agreements, for the purpose of recovering archeological and paleontological remains which would otherwise be lost as a result of the numerous projects for flood control, irrigation, hydroelectric power, and...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Paul L. Cooper.

The investigations upon which this report is based were carried out as a part of the inter-agency salvage program in the Missouri Basin and reflect the cooperation of a number of agencies and individuals. The work was instigated by the plan of the Bureau of Reclamation to construct the Heart Butte Dam, a unit of the comprehensive water-resources development program under the Pick-Sloan plan. The dam, now completed, is on the Heart River south of Glen Ullin, North Dakota., and is designed to...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Donald J. Lehmer.

The accompanying report on Archeological Investigations in the Oahe Dam Area, South Dakota, is Paper No.7 in the River Basin Surveys Papers and constitutes the second Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin to be devoted to results of the Inter-Agency Archaeological Salvage Program. It is the first detailed, technical report to be issued covering a completed series of excavations carried on by the Missouri Basin Project of the River Basin Surveys of the Smithsonian Institution. The area where the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Douglas Osborne. Marshall T. Newman. Arthur Woodward. W. J. Kroll. B. H. McLeod.

The archeological sites described herein were excavated during August and early September of 1948 in the McNary Reservoir, as part of the River Basin Surveys' program for the salvage of scientific and historic remains from areas to be flooded by the dams being built or to be built by the Corps of Engineers, Department of the Army, and the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of the Interior. McNary Reservoir itself will occupy the Columbia River from Umatilla, Oregon, up to some 12 miles beyond...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Robert B. Cumming, Jr..

The Missouri Basin Project of the Smithsonian Institution River Basin Surveys, conducted archeological excavations in the construction area of the Tuttle Creek Dam site from June 10 to June 30, 1953. These field activities and the present report resulting from them were a part of the Inter-Agency Archeological Salvage Program. This program combines the cooperative efforts of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Park Service, the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and various...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Carlyle S. Smith. Roger Grange, Jr..

The Spain site in Fort Randall Reservoir, S. Dak., was excavated under a cooperative agreement between the University of Kansas and the United States National Park Service as a part of the InterAgency Archeological Salvage Program in the Missouri Basin. Gordon C. Baldwin, Merrill J. Mattes, John M. Corbett, and Paul L. Beaubien of the National Park Service were helpful in many ways. The Missouri Basin Project of the Smithsonian Institution, through Robert L. Stephenson, chief, was especially...

DOCUMENT Full-Text William H. Sears.

The Wilbanks site, 9CK-5 in the nomenclature of the River Basin Surveys, Smithsonian Institution, is located on the flat bottom lands of the Etowah River in north Georgia. As this river is in the foothills of the Appalachians, it flows in a southwest-northeast direction, following the line of the ridges and valleys, rather than flowing north and south as do most of the rivers in Georgia. At Rome, near the Alabama border, the Etowah joins the Oostanaula to form the Coosa, and eventually empties...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Mark F. Boyd.

The Apalachicola River is wholly a Florida stream, formed at the western extremity of the boundary line between Georgia and the colonial East Florida by the union of the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. The Flint is the shorter and more pellucid member of the union, while the Chattahoochee has greater volume and marked turbidity. "Rugged" is not a term that with strict propriety can be applied to Florida topography, but if understood to be used in a relative sense it may be said that the terrain...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Ripley P. Bullen.

In the fall of 1952, construction of the Jim Woodruff Dam in northwest Florida approached the stage when water would be impounded and Indian sites flooded (map 9). Negotiations were started between the National Park Service and the Florida State Museum, University of Florida, with a view to salvaging archeological data within the State of Florida. In April1953, contract 14-10-0100-134 was signed, under which the work covered by this report was completed. Reports by Joseph R. Caldwell and Carl F....

DOCUMENT Full-Text Paul L. Cooper. Robert B. Cumming, Jr.. Carlyle S. Smith. Roger T. Grange, Jr.. William H. Sears. Mark F. Boyd. Ripley P. Bullen.

The six reports which fonn the contents of this volume of the River Basin Surveys Papers are based on the results of field investigations carried on as a part of the Inter-Agency Archeological Salvage Program. Three of the articles are concerned with projects in the Missouri Basin and three with studies made in the Georgia-Florida area. Three reservoirs were involved in the Missouri Basin and two in Georgia-Florida. The work at two Missouri Basin reservoirs was done by field parties under the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Smithsonian Institute Missouri Basin Project.

The Missouri Basin Project was established in 1946 as a large-scale archaeological and paleontological salvage operation. The laboratory of that project, located in Lincoln, Nebraska, processes large quantities of archaeological specimens each month. This laboratory is neither a museum nor a permanent repository for specimens. It is a research laboratory in which specimens brought in from the field are cleaned, prepared, cataloged and repaired preparatory to technical analysis and preparation...

DOCUMENT Full-Text M. J. Mattes.

The data compiled by the Missouri River Basin historical survey have not been limited to those found in published material. Inevitably, the broad scope of this survey has enabled the historians to sweep up in their net an imposing array of new data, derived from interviews and unexploited documents, which have not only expanded the historical horizon but have compelled scholars to revise many long cherished misconceptions. The survey has provided fish, so to speak, for many years of historical...

DOCUMENT Full-Text John E. Mills.

This report is a summary of the field activities concerning historic sites archeology in the Fort Randall Reservoir, S.Dak., undertaken in years 1947-52. It is not offered as a final work but is essentially a summary progress report of reconnaissance and excavation of several historic sites in this area. The work has been conducted as a part of the Inter-Agency Archeological and Paleontological Salvage Program under the direction of Dr. Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., Bureau of American Ethnology,...

DOCUMENT Full-Text C. F. Miller.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the archeology of the multiple components of Site 39LM57 in South Dakota, for which Mr. Mattes has provided the historical background in River Basin Surveys Paper No. 15. Starting in the uppermost level were the remains of Fort Lookout II, probably established in 1831 by the French Fur Trading Co. and subsequently occupied, 1840-51, by the trader La Barge. Below them were traces of two prehistoric aboriginal horizons. The excavations were carried on in...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Hubert G. Smith.

From time to time since the establishment of the Missouri Basin Project of the River Basin Surveys, as funds and personnel were available, in addition to studies of native sites the Project has given attention to sites of White origin in areas to be flooded. Less numerous than native sites (both prehistoric and historic) in these areas, the White sites-fur-trade posts, military posts, and the like have also been carefully studied, with actual excavation in certain instances, inasmuch as they...

DOCUMENT Full-Text G. H. Smith.

The Garrison Dam and Reservoir, a Corps of Engineers project, on the Missouri River in west-central North Dakota, has inundated the immediate valley of that river from just below the city of Garrison nearly to the Montana State line. Within the now flooded area were formerly located a large part of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, as well as the Fort Berthold Agency town of Elbowoods; the town of Spanish; and the communities of Nishu, Independence, and Shell Creek. There also were the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text A. R. Woolworth. W. R. Wood.

The purpose of this study is to describe the archeological remains recovered from the excavation of 32MN1, the site of a Columbia Fur Company trading post---Kipp's Post--which was apparently built at the mouth of the White Earth River in the fall and winter of 1826-27. Kipp's Post was built before the construction of Fort Clark in 1831, and is the predecessor of the famed Fort Union, built by the American Fur Company near the mouth of the Yellowstone River in 1828. This site was only briefly...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Merrill J. Mattes. John E. Mills. Carl F. Miller. G. Hubert Smith. Robert L. Stephenson. Carlyle S. Smith. Alan R. Woolworth. W. Raymond Wood.

In the present volume of River Basin Surveys papers there are six reports pertaining to a phase of the Inter-Agency Archaeological Salvage Program which thus far has not been given as much publicity as some of the other activities. The articles deal with a series of historic sites investigations which were carried. on in the Fort Randall and Garrison Reservoir areas and in the spillway area below the Oshe Dam. The field investigations were based on extensive documentary studies which were made...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Edward B. Jelks.

During the period April 28 to June 25, 1952, limited archeological excavations were carried on at three sites now inundated by the Texarkana Reservoir-the Knight's Bluff, Snipes, and Sherwin sites in Cass County, Tex. This project was part of the nationwide archeological salvage program of the River Basin Surveys, administered by the Smithsonian Institution in cooperation with the National Park Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Reclamation. The excavations at Texarkana were...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Warren W. Caldwell.

During the winter of 1949, a preliminary reconnaissance of the south-central portion of the Iowa River valley was carried out by the River Basin Surveys, Smithsonian Institution, in an effort to determine the archeological potential of the area to be submerged by the waters of the then projected Coralville Reservoir. Temporal considerations prevented an intensive investigation of the region; however, the recovered data (Wheeler, 1949) made it obvious that further, more thorough work, was...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Joel L. Shiner.

.Anthropological research in the Plateau Area of northwestern North America has failed to produce a clear picture of Indian culture. From both the ethnological and archeological viewpoint there have been insufficient research and little synthesis. While ethnographic investigation has permitted certain generalities about Plateau culture, archeological research has not produced any sort of chronology, not even a local sequence. Since Wissler's classification in 1922, which set up a culture area...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Douglas Osborne. Alan Bryan. Robert H. Crabtree.

The Sheep Island (45-BN-55) excavations were completed in 1950 by a River Basin Surveys crew under the direction and part-time supervision of Douglas Osborne. Thomas A. Garth (1952) had worked there previously. During his period of excavations he found and removed, except small perimeter sections, two cremation pits. He found, beneath the pits, uncremated burials (the first burial stratigraphy in that immediate area), some of which he removed and some of which he dug out and reburied. This...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Edward B. Jelks. Warren W. Caldwell. Joel L. Shiner. Douglas Osborne. Alan Bryan. Robert H. Crabtree.

The four papers comprising the present volume report the results of four excavations in three reservoir areas. One, the Texarkana, is located in northeastern Texas on the Sulphur River; the second, the Coralville, in east-central Iowa on the Iowa River; the third, the McNary Reservoir, on the Columbia River between the States of Washington and Oregon; and, the fourth, the Sheep Island site and mid-Columbia River valley. All four projects were carried on by the River Basin Surveys of the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Carl F. Miller.

During the period from February 14 to May 1, 1947, a preliminary archaeological reconnaissance was made of the John H. Kerr (formerly Buggs Island) Reservoir area in Mecklenburg, Halifax, and Charlotte Counties, in Virginia, and Varren, Vance, and Granville Counties, in North Carolina, by the River Basin Surveys of the Smithsonian Institution (Miller, 1947). The work was done at the request of the National Park Service, which, in turn, cooperated with the United States Corps of Engineers in...

DOCUMENT Full-Text G. Metcalf.

The Inter-Agency Salvage Program was set up in 1945 as a means by which the salvage of information from archeological sites threatened with destruction by the initiation of federal reservoir construction could be most effectively conducted. It was based on a memorandum of understanding between the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service and on agreements between the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Corps of Engineers. With funds made available by the Bureau...

DOCUMENT Full-Text G. Metcalf.

As a part of the River Basin Surveys program a field party of the Missouri Basin Project, Smithsonian Institution, conducted excavations at two sites in Mercer County, North Dakota, during the summer of 1951. Funds for the work were provided by the National Park Service. Excavation at the first of these sites, Rock Village (32ME15), had been started in 1950 by a similar unit under the leadership of G. Ellis Burcaw. Excavation at the second site, Star Village (32ME16), was carried on during the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text D. D. Hartle.

A unique structure remaining on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation is an old dance hall, a ceremonial building which in some respects appears to have been an outgrowth of the old Mandan and Hidatsa earthlodges (pl. 18, a). The dance hall (32MIA1) is located in sec. 30, T. 149 N., R. 90 W., McLean County, North Dakota. Prior to cultivation, the bottom land surrounding the dance hall was covered with the typical flora of the area, mainly cottonwood and willow. In the summer of 1954, however, the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text C. Malouf.

Crow-Flies-High was a late 19th century Hidatsa Indian village located on the Missouri River near Newtown, North Dakota. In terms of archeology it was very recent in origin, almost modern. Yet by 1952 it was almost reduced to a legend. In that year there remained two cabin depressions and three cache pits. It had almost been obliterated after many years of plowing and cultivation during the present century. One small depression about 8 feet in diameter marked the location of a single earthlodge...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Richard P. Wheeler.

In this paper I propose to detail the returns from two partially excavated and eight unexcavated aboriginal occupation sites in the James River Valley, North Dakota; to combine the findings into a new culture complex, which I am calling the Stutsman Focus; and to suggest the cultural affinities and temporal placement of the Stutsman Focus, following the broad historical approach. The investigations which produced the field data reported herein were part of the archeological salvage work...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Carl F. Miller.

The Tiber Dam, sometimes known as the Lower Marias Unit, had its inception some 50 years ago when William T. Cowan, State Senator from Hill County, Mont., stumped for the construction of a dam across the Marias River, the waters of the subsequent reservoir to be used for irrigation purposes. His was a far-sighted vision, one which was not fully appreciated until many years after his death. On September 30, 1952, President Harry S. Truman, before a crowd of 10,000 people, set off a blast marking...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Robert W. Neuman.

Lovewell Reservoir is located on White Rock Creek in Jewell County, north-central Kansas. An earthfill dam is situated on the creek about 15 miles west of its confluence with the Republican River (legal designation E1/2 sec. 7, T. 2 S., R. 6 W.). The dam, constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation, will create a lake about 9 miles long east to west and a little over a mile wide (see Lovewell Reservoir map, fig. 41). The maximum pool will cover 4,960 acres, while the normal pool level will flood...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Uploaded by: system user

The seven reports which comprise the present volume of River Basin Surveys Papers pertain to work which was done in four reservoir areas in the Missouri Basin. Two of the reservoirs are located in North Dakota, one in Montana, and one in Kansas. The North Dakota reservoirs are the Garrison on the main stem of the Missouri River, located some distance above Bismarck, and the Jamestown on the James River above the town of Jamestown in the eastern part of the State. The Montana reservoir is the...

DOCUMENT Full-Text W. R. Wood. A. R. Woolworth.

In 1947 an archeological field party, sponsored by the University of North Dakota and the State Historical Society of North Dakota, carried out excavations in the upper limits of the Oahe Reservoir, in North Dakota. Test excavations were made at the Paul Brave site (32SI4). also known as the Fort Yates site. The elevation of this prehistoric village is between 1,600 and 1,610 feet. The site will be flooded by the Oahe Reservoir when backwater reaches the maximum pool level of 1,620 feet. The...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Alan R. Woolworth. W. Raymond Wood.

In the summer of 1956 an archeological field party from the State Historical Society of North Dakota carried out excavations at the Demery site, in the upper part of the Oahe Reservoir, in Corson County, South Dakota. Funds for the project were provided under a cooperative agreement with the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, and through appropriations by the North Dakota State Legislature. The excavations were conducted between June 18 and August 31, 1956, under the supervision...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Carl F. Miller.

The Hosterman site, named for John B. Hosterman, owner of the property, is located in sec. 36, T. 119 N., R. 79 W., Potter County, S. Dak., on a high bluff on the east bank overlooking the Missouri River about 21;2 miles north of Whitlocks Crossing. It is on the western margins of the Coteau du Missouri, "that part of the Missouri Plateau section of the Great Plains province which lies east of the Missouri River." The name of the Coteau dates back to the days of the French fur traders. The...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Warren W. Caldwell. Lee G. Madison. Bernard Golden.

The Hickey Brothers site (39LM4) was excavated during the summer of 1958 as part of the investigations of the Missouri Basin Project, Smithsonian Institution, within the projected Big Bend Reservoir of central South Dakota. The site was approached with every expectation of adding materially to the corpus of data bearing upon the "middle period" of village occupation along the Missouri main stem. The Hickey Brothers site appeared to be particularly important because it was fortified in a...

DOCUMENT Full-Text Robert W. Neuman.

In July of 1958 a field party of the Missouri Basin Project, Smithsonian Institution, spent 14 days conducting archeological excavations at the Good Soldier site (39LM238), a prehistoric Indian camp site in the Big Bend Reservoir area, South Dakota. The site was first recorded and tested in 1956 by a survey team of the Missouri Basin Project under the direction of Harold A. Huscher (Huscher and McNutt, 1958). The 1958 investigations were supervised by the writer; James J. Stanek acted as field...

DOCUMENT Full-Text James H. Howard.

The Toronto Dam and Reservoir, a flood-control and conservation project of the U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Tulsa District, is located on the Verdigris River in Greenwood and Woodson Counties, southeastern Kansas (see fig. 59) . The dam is a rolled, earthfill structure, 4,712 feet in length and 90 feet in height, above the river channel. It is 3% miles south of the town of Toronto in Woodson County, Kans., 55 miles north of the Oklahoma border, and 75 miles west of the Missouri border. It...

DOCUMENT Full-Text W. Raymond Wood. Alan R. Woolworth. Carl F. Miller. Warren W. Caldwell. Lee G. Madison. Bernard Golden. James H. Howard. Robert W. Neuman.

These papers include reports on archaeological sites surveyed and excavated as part of the Smithsonian Institute's River Basin Survey. Numbers 33-38 include sites from salvage archaeology projects from the construction of the Oahe Reservoir and Big Bend Reservoir in South Dakota and the Toronto Reservoir in Kansas.

DOCUMENT Full-Text W. Raymond Wood.

This study presents the results of a field excavation and subsequent research project which investigated the major hypothesis that Mandan Indian culture emerged about A.D. 1500 under the impact of trade and contact with semisedentary village peoples from the Central Plains, and with adjacent pedestrian nomads. The research began with an intensive analysis of the material from the Huff Site (32M011) in the upper Middle Missouri area. Huff is a prehistoric Indian site enclosed by a rectangular...