River Basin Surveys Research Articles

Foreword

Two years ago, in the April, 1947 issue of American Antiquity, appeared a series of papers concerned with the River Basin Survey archaeological program (Brew and others, 1947). As the published record of a symposium sponsored by the Committee for Recovery of Archaeological Remains, those papers set forth the objectives and plans for a major program of scientific salvage. This undertaking stems from the nation-wide Federal water-control developments, whereby hundreds of dams, reservoirs, irrigation facilities, and other works are contemplated. Inasmuch as these developments will necessarily involve large sections of many of our stream valleys, where also exists a great proportion of our archaeological material, it was pointed out that immediate steps were necessary to forestall complete destruction of many of our basic data on American prehistory.

Archaeological Investigations in Ellsworth and Rice Counties, Kansas

Archaeological investigations were carried on by the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, from June 19 to August 20, 1948, in the Kanopolis Reservoir area on the Smoky Hill River in Ellsworth County and also along the Little Arkansas River in Rice County, Kansas. The River Basin Surveys of the Smithsonian Institution had undertaken the preliminary reconnaissance and had found more than twenty sites in the area of the Reservoir. William O. Leuty of Ellsworth was helpful in guiding the field parties of both institutions to most of the sites; also he gathered surface collections which were turned over to us.The Kanopolis Reservoir is situated in the highly dissected terrain which marks the Plains border along the 98th meridian of longitude in central Kansas. The Smoky Hill River meanders eastward, fed by many tributary streams and canyons. Outcrops of Dakota sandstone are common on the bluffs bordering the valley and trees are limited to the edges of the streams.