New Contributions to the Archeology of Oahe Reservoir

This conference paper addresses the Oahe Reservoir area and its many archeological potentialities demonstrated through excavation in the early to mid-1900s. In 1947 the Oahe Reservoir Project of the Army Corps of Engineers was announced. This meant that within the next ten or twelve years a large and important archeological area would be obliterated. Action was imperative. The Missouri Basin Project of the Smithsonian Institution has conducted field surveys in the Oahe are during part of each season since 1948. Virtually all of the area involved in the reservoir, dam, and outlet works has now been reconnoitered by car, boat, and on foot. Some 328 sites of archeological interest have been located by the Missouri Basin Project and by earlier survey parties.