The river Basin Surveys' program, particularly in the Columbia River Basin, has had a peculiar role in American archaeology. Generally speaking, archaeological research programs should be oriented toward a specific problem such as the study of a certain culture sequence or an inquiry into a particular time horizon. In contrast River Basin Surveys' problem has been to examine in detail almost every phase of every culture that is represented over a vast area. True, the field of research has been limited to those portions of river basins that are scheduled to be inundated upon the completion of a number of dams, but because of the aridity of the Columbia Basin a vast majority of the aboriginal population was concentrated along the major streams. Thus the reservoirs planned for those streams will flood a large portion of the cultural material existing in the region.