The Willamette Valley represents an area that has been relatively untouched by any well-organized archaeological and ethnological research. In 1877, Gatschet did some anthropological work which was mostly linguistic. Mr. J. L. Hill did some work in 1883 in the Calapuya mounds, and Dr. J. B. Horner of Oregon State College has removed many skeletons and artifacts from some of the mounds since the turn of the century. Other than this, most of the work has been done by local collectors. Information of any kind concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of the valley is extremely scarce and disconnected. This is owing to the early shifting of the tribes, their rapid extermination by disease, and the scanty references in the records of the early colonizers and explorers.