Fort Randall Reservoir Archeology, Geology, History

The Inter-Agency salvage investigations within the Fort Randall Reservoir area are part of a cooperative enterprise, concentrating the efforts of federal, state, and local agencies in a scientific program of great national significance. Paleontological remains, geological features, archeological sites, historic places and historic buildings are important natural resources, as important in their own way as our forests and buried minerals. Like other resources, the evidences of our cultural heritage are not limitless. They are unique documents that, once destroyed, are gone for ever — and they are being destroyed at an alarming rate.

The construction of dams, the stabilizing of river banks, and a profusion of other water control and hydroelectric projects are profoundly changing many of our major river valleys. It is precisely in these areas, along our rivers, that much of our archeological and historic record is to be found. Here the Indians lived and here the fur trader made his camps and built his forts. The river valleys were equally attractive to the farmer-frontiersman. The fertile alluvial soils were easily broken by inefficient plows, and wood, water, and game animals were in plentiful supply.

The purpose of the Inter-Agency Archeological Program is to salvage, to preserve, and to interpret the archeological, palentological, and historical remains that are threatened with destruction by water control and hydroelectric projects. The program is administered in the name of and for the benefit of the American public. Federal funds provide the basic support for much of the work but in addition, state, local, and even private contributions are utilized. Funds, however, represent only one aspect of the program. The actual work, the excavation, the analysis and interpretation, is done by the trained staffs of scientific institutions acting in co-operation with the U. S. National Park Service and with the advice of the Smithsonian Institution.

The Inter-Agency Salvage Program ranges over the entire United States. The Fort Randall Dam and Reservoir fall within the Missouri Basin, the largest single geographic unit within the scope of the program. The Missouri Basin includes approximately one-sixth of the United States, exclusive of Alaska. Ten states, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, fall wholly or in part within the boundaries of the Basin. Six major dams have been built or are now in process of construction along the mainstem of the Missouri River and innumerable smaller projects have affected tributary streams.

The Committee for the Recovery of Archeological Remains provided the initial stimulus for the program and has offered continuing guidance. The Committee, an independent organization composed of representatives from the Society for American Archeology, The American Anthropological Association, and The American Council of Learned Societies, was formed in 1945 to cope with the threat to archeological resources created by the growing number of dam and water control projects. The U. S. National Park Service, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution, agreed to administer the program on a national scale. The actual field investigations were carried out by units of the Smithsonian Institution and by a large group of state agencies. From the first, the U. S. Corps of Engineers and the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation have provided active cooperation.

In reality, the program has accomplished much more than just salvage. While archeological sites and places of historic importance have been destroyed by the construction of dams and reservoirs, it has not been a total disaster. Scientific investigation has been vastly accelerated and archeological research, in particular, has received an important stimulus. The construction programs of federal and private agencies have made possible a comprehensive, integrated program of archeological work that would not have been possible under other circumstances. No single institution, foundation or university could bear the burden alone.

It is true that tragic losses have occurred, but this is inevitable since it has not been possible to excavate every archeological site of importance. An effort has been made, however, to secure a sample of the archeological manifestations or cultures in each endangered area. This has resulted in the accumulation of a large amount of information bearing upon the aboriginal peoples of North America. In this sense the program has been an outstandingly successful effort aimed at the reconstruction of an important segment of the American past.