In delayed response to a certain demand for a published statement covering the archaeological taxonomic method introduced in the northern Mississippi Valley area a few years ago and now tentatively employed in this, the northern Plains, and the Northeastern areas, it seems advisable to briefly set forth in this journal the essential framework for this method, and to include a revision of previously outlined but unpublished discussions relating thereto, in addition to a brief definition of certain problems involved in its application.

The architecture and burials of the prehistoric pueblo of Kinishba have been presented in a previous issue of American Antiquity. The present article is a preliminary report of the lesser objects of material culture as represented by the pottery, stone and bone implements, ornaments, a few charred fragments of basketry and textiles, food, and ceremonial objects. The majority of these specimens are made from imperishable material. Clothing, sandals, baskets, various types of textiles, wooden implements, and other perishable materials have but a very short existence in open sites such as Kinishba. Hence the following description of the artifacts presents only a limited picture of the arts and crafts of these prehistoric people.

Explorations on the Ocmulgee River, near Macon, Georgia, carried out over a period of four years under the sponsorship of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Park Service, and under the auspices of the successive relief agencies of CWA, FERA, WPA, and CCC, have uncovered many remarkable finds and discoveries, many of which will be permanently restored or exhibited in the development of Ocmulgee National Monument, established by Act of Congress in 1934.

In February, 1938, the Washington State Museum at the University of Washington, Seattle, acquired on loan a remarkable pottery vessel from Kodiak Island, southwestern Alaska. It is with the kind permission of the Director, Dr. Erna Gunther, that I publish the following pictures and description (Plates 19-20).

The pot is owned by Mr. James Spears of Seattle, and was found by local Eskimo on or near Three Saints Bay, on the southeastern shore of the island. It had apparently fallen out of a dirt bank in a recent landslide. Mr. Spears did not notice any trace of shells or other midden material in the bank, nor any indication of old house sites in the vicinity. No other objects were found with the pot.

In October, 1937, Mr. Frank M. Harvin, Jr., of Columbia, South Carolina, presented me with sixty-three stone artifacts that he had collected on various visits to a plowed field overlooking the Congaree River near West Columbia, South Carolina. In Mr. Harvin's collection were two fluted points of the type known as “Folsom.” Later I looked through the Babcock Collection of Indian artifacts from Chester, South Carolina (now in the University of South Carolina Library), and found another fluted Folsom point among the hundreds of chipped implements in that exhibit. Inspection of my own collection and the Simpson Collection in Rock Hill, South Carolina, failed to reveal any other examples of this type, which has a wide distribution in the East and South, although I do not remember having seen any reported from South Carolina.

Of interest to archaeologists is a recent paper by J. D. Laudermilk and T. G. Kennard on the little known subject of lightning as an agent of weathering of exposed rocks. As a locality for field study of this natural phenomenon, they chose an area in the Mohave Desert near Yermo, California, which is known as a place of a great deal of electrical display. Here they found rocks of various sizes and materials, such as jasper, silicified lava, chalcedony, rhyolite, and quartzite. Many of these had apparently been split by some force other than great fluctuations of temperature, or by man in the production of stone artifacts. A great abundance of flakes and spalls was found on the ridges, usually in more or less circular or oval areas from one foot to five feet in radius. From the arrangement of these fragments it appeared that they had been spread from a common center in each of the areas.

During the past few years, two attempts at usable methods of classification of archaeological cultures have been made. One is by Harold S. Gladwin, of Gila Pueblo, Globe, Arizona; the other was worked out by a group of students at the instigation of W. C. McKern, Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The present paper does not propose a different form of classification, but is a suggestion for applying the McKern system to local (Oklahoma) conditions.