A reconnaissance of Maya ruins in northeastern Petén, Guatemala, reveals a heavy but dispersed type of settlement during the Classic period, with the dispersion conditioned principally by availability of water supply and by suitable terrain for building. The types of archaeological remains described are House Ruins, Minor Ceremonial Centers, and Major Ceremonial Centers. Settlement is seen as having been organized into (1) “clusters” of from five to 12 houses, (2) aggregates of clusters forming township-like zones of from 50 to 100 houses, each of which had a Minor Ceremonial Center as its functional nucleus, and (3) aggregates of zones forming large province-like “districts,” each of which had a Major Ceremonial Center as its functional nucleus. These units are described and discussed. Some consideration is also given to problems of water supply, population, and agriculture. Reference is made to the ruin of Topoxté, a town or small city of the Postclassic period located on a group of islands in Lake Yaxhá.

A slit-sided, tubular “incense burner” with three holes in the top, three solid, curved and tapering cylinders called “chili-mashers,” and a flat, striated dish called a “griddle” or “comal” from sealed Cache B3 at San Jose, British Honduras are presented as separate units of a composite Lowland Maya variety of the three-pronged incense burner known from Highland Maya sites. Only the “comal” shows signs of burning. The cylinders are removable prongs which fit the holes in the top of the tubular “censer,” and the “comal” rests on the prongs as the cover on which the incense was burned. Thus, many so-called censers are probably stands or supports rather than receptacles for burning incense. A classification is offered for the several forms of the composite three-pronged censer which is distributed throughout the Maya Lowlands primarily during the Classic period. Since the San Jose “griddles” shown here to be censer covers are the only “comales” claimed for the Maya Lowlands, this identification establishes the pre-16th century absence of the comal and the tortilla in the lowland area. Doubt is also expressed that the comal forms of Highland Guatemala were used for making tortillas.

The three major forms of Palenque incensarios, the great majority of which appear to be locally made, are pedestal'based vessels, ladles, and elaborately decorated, hollow, flanged cylinders. The first two forms were clearly used for burning incense, but the elaborate cylinders show no definite evidence of burning. They may have served as stands or supports for incense burners, and in any case, are certainly related to the incensario tradition in Mesoamerica. At Palenque, this tradition seems to be oriented toward the hierarchical aspects of Maya civilization. The decoration on the flanged cylinders shows close resemblances to the symbolism and the manner of portrayal in Maya monumental art. While the Palenque incensarios are fundamentally similar to those in other parts of Mesoamerica, they are quite distinctive in both shape and decoration. The main correspondences are with Late Classic incense burners in southern Tabasco and the Alta Verapaz.

Settlement patterns are described for each phase of the sedentary agricultural occupation of the area from Pine Lawn phase (200 B.C.-A.D. 500) through Tularosa phase (A.D. 1100-1250), when the area was abandoned. Through time domestic structures changed from rounded to rectangular, from semi-subterranean to surface, and decreased in size. Earlier villages tended to be on higher, more defensible locations while later ones were lower, closer to water and arable land. Villages were generally random in plan, and great kivas, the only ceremonial structures identified in the area, appear to have served more than one village. From the settlement pattern data it is possible to construct a population curve for the area which may be partially explained in terms of botanical and climatological as well as cultural factors. Pine Lawn Valley Mogollon may have had some multi-village social organization which in later times may have united the entire valley. In this respect the Mogollon may have been intermediate between the well-integrated, segmented Anasazi communities in the plateau and the more politically structured Hohokam communities in the desert.

An archaeological sequence for the Sinaloa coastal strip of western Mexico had previously been developed by Sauer and Brand, Isabel Kelly, and Gordon Ekholm. Investigations carried out by Southern Illinois University and associates from 1952 to 1958 in Durango, across the Sierra Madre Occidental to the east of Sinaloa, have established an independent archaeological sequence. The presence of trade pottery and other artifacts from Sinaloa in the Durango sites makes possible an independent check of the Sinaloa sequence. This cross correlation essentially confirms the basic Sinaloa sequence of (early to late) Chametla, Aztatlan, and Culiacan periods, but indicates that there is some overlap between these major horizons and that the Aztatlan period is actually divisible into three more or less sequent phases: an early Lolandis phase, an intermediate Acaponeta phase, and a terminal Guasave phase. Re-examination of the Sinaloa sequence confirms and expands these conclusions, resulting in this revision of the archaeological sequence for Sinaloa. For consistency, a revised terminology for the various phases is also presented.

The Fremont culture of northeastern Utah is predominately Anasazi in character, but has a few distinctive traits. It exhibits great variability, especially in ceramics and architecture. The total time span of this complex may be the 250-year period from A.D. 950 to 1200. The Fremont culture, and probably the very similar Sevier culture of western Utah, represent a rather sudden northward movement of traits, and perhaps people, from the independently-developed, but Kayenta-influenced Virgin branch of the Anasazi.

There are three prehistoric or protohistoric ceramic traditions in the Northwestern plains. The Shoshone tradition is represented by Great Falls ware, found immediately east of the Rockies in central Montana, and probably made by an eastern Plateau tribe. The Pisamiks tradition includes two wares: Ethridge ware in Alberta and northern Montana, probably made by the Blackfoot; Wascana ware in Saskatchewan, closely similar to Selkirk focus pottery in southeastern Manitoba, and probably made by the Cree. The Mandan tradition includes Hagen ware, found along the Yellowstone River in southern Montana, and probably made by the Crow, as well as the pottery made by the Mandan-Hidatsa along the Missouri River in North Dakota.

Doubts that the Peruvian Indians could smelt copper ores in pre-Columbian times are unjustified, although archaeological evidence for the very effective wind furnaces described by early chroniclers is scanty. Oxide and carbonate ores from shallow deposits are more simply smelted than the sulfide ores, which required roasting of the crushed ore prior to reduction at a higher temperature. New evidence for the smelting of sulfide ore comes from chemical analysis of an ingot from the Province of lea, and suggests the need for restudy of older analyses and a search for new prehistoric metallurgical evidence.

Additional excavation in 1955 confirmed the previously reported stratigraphic sequence at Midland, Texas. Within the gray sand, which had yielded a fragmentary human calvarium, there were found additional flint flakes, burned rocks, and animal bones. Besides several small mammals, a four-horned antelope (probably Capromeryx) was present in the gray sand; horse bones occurred in the gray sand and overlying red sand. These finds make the two radiocarbon dates published in the 1955 Midland report, giving an age of about 7000 years to the gray sand, even less acceptable than previously thought. Experimental dating by the uranium daughter products technique suggests an age of about 20,000 years for the gray sand, somewhat excessive in terms of cultural correlations although supported by a single radiocarbon date and not unreasonable for the faunal assemblage. Ten radiocarbon dates from the Midland, Blackwater Draw, Lubbock Lake, and Plainview sites are discussed in terms of three possible correlations of the geological, climatic, faunal, and cultural events in the Southern High Plains.

Antillean petroglyphic art reached its highest development in the technical excellence and lively artistic expression of the many petroglyphs in Puerto Rico. This report is the beginning of a systematic study of Puerto Rican and Antillean petroglyphs which is intended to trace stylistic developments through the Antilles to South American points of origin. Sixty surface prints were made at 13 sites in three regions of Puerto Rico, but only those from Salto Arriba, Icacos, and Caonillas are discussed in detail. The simple and accurate, though time-consuming method of surface printing is fully explained. There are two distinct local types or styles of petroglyphs in addition to the simple curvilinear and abstract designs. The swaddled infant type appears at least as early as Rouse's Period III and represents the beginning of a local petroglyph style. The later Capá type reaches its final stage during Period IV. This study confirms Rouse's placement of the Puerto Rican petroglyphs in his Periods III and IV (A.D. 350-1584), and demonstrates the development of local petroglyph styles parallel to the development and spread of Taino culture.

The archaeological sequence in the San Juan Islands is known best from two phases: the Marpole phase which occurs within the first millennium B.C., and the San Juan phase which lasts from at least A.D. 1300 to historic times. More difficult to place culturally and chronologically are: (1) the previously excavated bluff areas of Cattle Point which contain components similar to Whalen I and II and would thus occupy the time period between about 500 B.C. and A.D. 400; and (2) the Argyle Lagoon site which, though early, cannot be related definitely to other components because of insufficient excavation. Culture change is shown by increasing maritime adaptation through time and by the gradual replacement of the chipped stone industry by one using abrading and polishing techniques as the result of influence from the Old World.

Three Mixtec human sacrificial knives of the late Postclassic period were found in 1957 at the Cuicatec village of San Andres Papalo in northern Oaxaca, Mexico. They were being used to sacrifice chickens and turkeys as offerings in curing ceremonies at a ruined prehistoric site on top of the mountain which rises above the village. Offerings of food and drink are made to the spirit of thunder who lives on the mountain top and who has power to control longevity and cure the sick. The three knives and a conch trumpet were stored in a ceremonial cave near the village. One wooden handle is plain; the others are carved to represent a human hand and the head of a serpent. The handles lack the elaborate mosaic decoration which distinguishes the few prehistoric sacrificial knives in museum collections. These three knives constitute material evidence for the survival of a prehistoric ritual system which involved the making of blood sacrifice to rain gods on mountain tops. The shift from human to animal sacrificial victims is probably the major change in the prehistoric pattern.

The El'gytkhyn site consists of a cache of stone artifacts and a nearby campsite on the shores of Lake El'gytkhyn on the central Anadyr plateau. The cache contained some 50 artifacts, both knives and points made on large flake-blades and carefully retouched by pressure flaking, and blanks from which they were made. Similar points were found at the campsite along with scrapers and other tools, many retouched chips, prismatic nuclei, and the blades struck from them. Previously, similar artifacts had been found at the Amguema site about 300 km. to the east and the Chirovoe site about 100 km. to the south. The latter is a settlement with pottery as well as stone artifacts. The inland Neolithic culture is compared to the Caribou Eskimo and the Yukaghir, and the El'gytkhyn site is interpreted as the summer hunting camp of people following reindeer to the north from permanent winter villages like the Chirovoe site. The presence of blades removed from prismatic cores, retouched points and other artifacts, tools with graver facets, and pottery in both the Chukchi inland Neolithic and the Paleo-Eskimo cultures suggests movements from the Asiatic to the American Arctic by 4000 years ago.

The long stratigraphic sequence of separate archaeological horizons at the mouth of the gorge of the Pee Dee River in North Carolina necessitates changing earlier reconstructions of Piedmont archaeology. The stratigraphically documented series of projectile points from this site makes it possible to separate in time the varied forms of points originally assigned to the Baden and Guilford foci. Moreover, this evidence contradicts the typological arrangements of points in terms of logical evolutionary development and suggests that Archaic sequences in other parts of the Appalachian region may have to be radically changed when stratigraphic data become available. Stratigraphy at the Duncan's Island site in Pennsylvania, though less precise than that at the Pee Dee site, indicates that the local typological reconstructions for parts of Pennsylvania are in need of revision. Basal levels at Duncan's Island produce quartzite tools of types scattered throughout central Pennsylvania and often considered to represent an extremely early Archaic industry. The concentration of quartzite tools at the DeTurk site, though not dated stratigraphically, provides typological justification for the idea that the quartzite industry may be a survival of an earlier forest-based proto-Archaic tradition.

A notched and elaborately decorated human femur purchased at Culhuacan is identified as an omichicahuaztli, the bone rattle or musical rasp which provided musical accompaniment in Aztec funeral ceremonies for dead warriors. The incised designs consist of symbols of war, sacrifice, blood, and death, arranged in a single composition which is analyzed in terms of seven major parts: solar disc and starry sky, shield beneath the sky, eagle warrior, figure clad in slain victim's skin, earth monster, blood streams, and darts. A detailed comparison with Aztec codices and stone monuments shows that the decoration on the Culhuacan rattle is a typical expression of the religious symbolism relating to the death of warriors in late Aztec times, just preceding the Spanish conquest.