River Basin Surveys Papers, No. 24: The Sheep Island Site and the Mid-Columbia Valley

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 report continues the description of the Sheep Island burial complex, and offers a collation of Garth's and River Basin Surveys' data. Further, a. brief examination of Garth's methods and conclusions (for which see Garth, 1952) is made; neither fits with the thinking of many ethnologists or archeologists as they presently perceive the problems of the Plateau.