Papers relating to the Smithsonian River Basin Surveys
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Lehmer, Donald Jayne, 1918-1975
setName: label: See more items in
content: Donald Jayne Lehmer papers
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1950-1952
label: Date
content: 1964-1968
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.1979-48, Series 5
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Arranged chronologically.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Includes correspondence, personnel papers, official forms, and copies of mimeographed reports of field parties on the River Basin Surveys.

Lehmer held successive temporary appointments from June 1, 1950 through December 31, 1951 as an archeologist with the RBS, detailed to the Lincoln, Nebraska office. During this time he excavated the Dodd site and the Phillips Ranch site in the Oahe Reservoir, South Dakota, and the Cookson site in the Tenkiller Ferry Reservoir in Oklahoma. A report for Lehmer's field activities in the Oahe Reservoir is contained in a memo dated July 5, 1951, filed with "Correspondence Relating to Paul L. Cooper." A summary of the Tenkiller Ferry Reservoir project prepared for the "Notes and News" section of American Antiquity, dated June 23, 1951, is located in the official correspondence with Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr. Lehmer prepared bi-weekly narrative reports for Roberts, but only copies of the covering letters, not the actual reports, were retained. The correspondence with Roberts about Tenkiller is almost exclusively administrative in nature. The day to day correspondence Robert E. Bell of the University of Oklahoma, Norman (Lehmer's advisor on the project) and others is located in the folder marked "Tenkiller Ferry Reservoir, Oklahoma correspondence."

Lehmer's appointment with the River Basin Survey was not renewed at the end of 1951 largely because of his attempt to have Paul L. Cooper removed as Field Director of the Missouri River Basin Survey. In a letter to Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., dated June 9, 1951, Lehmer, Franklin Fenega, and Richard P. Wheeler ask for an investigation by Roberts into Cooper's effectiveness as Field Director of the Lincoln Office. The ensuing investigation is documented in the folder marked, "Correspondence Relating to Paul L. Cooper."

Between 1964 and 1967 Lehmer was under contract to the Smithsonian Institution to prepare reports for the Buffalo Pasture site and the Leavitte site in the Oahe Reservoir, South Dakota; for the Nightwalker's Butte site and Rock Village site in the Garrison Reservoir in North Dakota; and for the Fire Heart Creek site, also in North Dakota. This material is located in the folder marked, "Papers relating to S.I. Contracts."