Salamonie and Mississinewa Reservoirs 1961-1963

This collection is referred to as “Salamonie and Mississinewa Reservoirs 1961-1963.” This name is consistent throughout the finding aid, the file folders, and the box labels. The extent of this collection is half of a linear inch.

The final report was assigned the report of investigation number ROI #63-1 by the contract company. The copies of these four reports that were processed by the VCP staff are photocopied versions of the original reports. Prior to the final report, three preliminary reports were written by James Kellar. These reports were originally stapled together. The staples were removed and the documents were processed separately; however, the initial, second, and third reports were housed in the same archival folder due to their original housing. The initial report for the archaeological salvage in the Salamonie and Mississinewa reservoir areas reports that the sites were generally small and surface materials encountered were scattered. Recommendations were made to undertake limited work at several sites. Kellar produced a second report, which was generated during the summer of 1963. The second report continues reporting on the archaeological test excavations being done in the Salamonie and Mississinewa reservoirs. While writing this report, Kellar was not certain of the cultural affiliation of the artifacts at this juncture and he hoped that laboratory analysis would be more revealing than his field inspections. The third and final report conducted by James H. Kellar records information from the archaeological salvage planned for the Mississinewa and Salamonie reservoirs. The sites and the resulting artifact collections were small.

A box of archival materials was discovered several months after the initial processing of the Salamonie and Mississinewa Reservoir Area Prehistory 1961-1963. The box, which contained a two items related to the Salamonie and Mississinewa archaeological investigations, was rehoused in the same box as the rest of the Salamonie and Mississinewa Reservoir Area Prehistory 1961-1963. The first item was a folder containing documents related to the search for background information before the excavations began. The second item was a field notebook with notes from the archaeological investigation in the Salamonie and Mississinewa areas. These documents were combined and processed by Andrea Adams, the VCP Archives Supervisor.

The documents associated with Salamonie and Mississinewa Reservoir Area Prehistory 1961-1963 were stored in one acidic folder and in one acidic cardboard box with several other document collections. The archivist did not find it difficult to assign documents to one phase of the project or the other because most of the materials were dated. No deliberate original order was discerned for the materials. There was no removal of photographs or oversized materials from this collection.

An additional record series, Catalog Records, was created to house the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology artifact catalog for this investigation. These two files were sent to the VCP electronically, printed on acid free paper, and housed with the associated documentation. Scanned asset numbers were not assigned, because the files were uploaded into the digital imaging database directly from the file sent by GBL.

The digital materials in this collection were processed by the Veterans Curation Program (VCP), and include the artifact database, artifact report, finding aid, initial report, prehistory report, scanned asset key, second report and a third report. Additional digital materials held by the VCP include a box inventory, card stock inserts, correspondence documents, document folder listing, an initial data collection, and notes. For additional information on these materials, refer to the Finding Aid.