Discussion on the subsistence base of the ancient Maya has centered mainly around the potentialities and limitations of shifting cultivation. The case for alternative and more intensive food-producing systems warrants serious consideration. Reports and personal observation reveal that techniques of terracing, irrigation, drainage, gardening, and tree culture, plus gathering and intensified shifting cultivation were likely known and used. Like other high cultures in America, the Maya probably employed a number of food-producing systems to exploit the rich variety of environments found in their region.

In recent studies of heavily worn teeth of California Indian skeletal remains, considerable difference was seen in types and degree of wear. This variation in dental attrition was related to factors of sex, age, tooth position, and, in some cases, dental caries. The relative importance of each of these variables was considered.

The sex of the individual was found to be a major factor in tooth wear and a higher degree of attrition was found among females. As would be expected, the older individuals had the most heavily worn teeth but this relationship was not constant and some differences were seen. Tooth position was also an important variable in determining the degree of wear. The upper teeth were worn more heavily than the lower and alveolar abcesses or carious teeth probably were the causes of regional differences in wear.

The identification of these factors and description of their effect on dental attrition patterns is another step towards understanding human tooth wear. Plotting the frequency of the occurrence of degree and type of wear for each tooth by age group and sex aided in the analysis of this skeletal population. Application of this method of analysis to other groups can provide the means for interpreting the relationships between dental attrition and cultural variables.

This is an expanded version of a paper read at the 1969 annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

Arithmetical procedures, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root extraction, are demonstrated using the Maya numerals. All procedures can be carried out efficiently. The Maya system is relatively unique in that it combines properties of both place-value and non-place-value numerical systems. The Babylonian system, discussed briefly, also utilizes a mixture of properties from the two systems. In order to take into account the unique hybrid characteristics of these two systems, as well as the subtractive principle of the Roman numerals, we here define a third category of numerical systems designated as mixed-place-value in type. The three types of numerical systems are compared and the advantages and disadvantages of each are mentioned. The evolutionary development of numerical systems in relation to the mathematical needs of societies is discussed.

Experimental techniques have provided an exciting breakthrough for the functional analysis of Maya chultuns. While deep cistern-like chultuns, common at certain sites in the northern lowlands, have been shown to be functional for water storage, smaller lateral-chambered chultuns characteristic of certain parts of the southern lowlands probably had a very different function. Excavation and examination of the latter features, in light of a whole range of possibilities, suggest that they were constructed to be used for food storage. Experimental studies, however, reveal them to be unsuitable for the storage of most traditional foods, including maize. At least one local food crop, the seed of the ramon (Brosimum alicastrum, Moraceae), appears to be ideally suited for long-term storage under these conditions. Chambers constructed beneath platforms in the northern lowlands may have been used for the storage of maize. A need for more experimental work is indicated.

At the Mohr site, a Shenks Ferry Village on the lower Susquehanna River, 98 burials were excavated. These exhibited various features which are ascribed to cultural demands: location in the village, position of body, grave goods, etc. One of these features was the alignment of the body with the head to the east in such a manner as to suggest that the exact alignment was a function of season of interment. This paper completes the record of the mortuary patterns at this site based upon a description of the total population of the dead. Earlier descriptions, based upon incomplete materials, were presented at the VIIth International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences in Prague in 1966 (Gruber 1970) and at the American Anthropological Association Meeting in 1966. The position of these burials conforms to scant ethnographic data on the basis of which a putative cultural identification with the Shenks Ferry component and the southeastern Siouan groups is strengthened.

Ekholm's (1962) discovery that problematical U-shaped objects served as finger-loops for prehistoric atlatls permits two problematical objects from the La Playa site, Sonora, Mexico, to be properly identified as finger-loops. Similar attributes of the three, known, Sonoran finger-loops may indicate a Sonoran variety of this artifact.

The cruciform object is another problematical object found at La Playa. A search of the literature produced suggestive evidence that this artifact also may have been attached to prehistoric atlatls. The evidence which led to the formation of the hypothesis that cruciform objects were attached to atlatls, and some test implications of the hypothesis are presented.

Cultural change from the prehistoric to the protohistoric period is seen as a subject of anthropological study in which archaeological and ethnohistorical data are complementary sources. It is suggested that an interpretation of the effect of the postconquest economic and political innovations in Tepexi, a Mixteca-Puebla community in Mexico, can be made only after an examination of the condition of the preconquest economic and political systems. Tepexi was economically overburdened in preconquest times as a result of Aztec tribute demands, and the introduction of the silk industry by the Spaniards may have been responsible for sustaining the failing community.

An Archaic Indian cemetery at Port au Choix, Newfoundland, dating from about 2000-1700 yrs B.C. is described. For the first time, excellent bone preservation allows a relatively complete reconstruction of the culture of the Archaic inhabitants of Newfoundland. Comparing the assemblage from Port au Choix with other Archaic assemblages from Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, especially the Moorehead or Maine Cemetery complex sites leads to the description of a "new" whole cultural tradition, the Maritime Archaic tradition, which existed throughout the Atlantic provinces and northern New England during the second millennium B.C. This tradition was based upon the distinctive resources found in that area- caribou, sea mammals, sea birds, and fish-and is very different from the Laurentian and Shield Archaic traditions as regards adaptation to a coastal environment and all the cultural variations concomitant with such an ecological adjustment.

The Ruby site, 48 CA 302, in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, is a buffalo pound dating to late Middle Period with a radiocarbon age of 1670± 135 years: A.D. 280 GX-1157). The site was contained in steadily aggrading alluvial deposits allowing close stratigraphic control. Features included most of a buffalo pound, part of the drive lane, and an associated ceremonial structure.

An attempt to explain the operation of this pound is based on historical accounts for various north-western Plains tribes and on problems of buffalo handling encountered with modern herds, allowing for changes brought about by the introduction of the horse. The ceremonial structure is explained in the context of shamanistic activity occurring with communal hunts in ethnographic and historical accounts. Archaeological data from the same area and time period suggest this pound is a variant of other communal buffalo procurement methods, including buffalo jumps, that occurred yearly to provide food for winter use and that required consolidation of the society into larger groups than could effectively exploit the environment during the remainder of the year.

A large segment of the meat processing area remains intact and will eventually be used in an attempt to test hypotheses concerning butchering methods, tool use, and nature of social groups involved.

Hitherto unrecognized Middle Archaic cultures of southern New England are defined and dated on the basis of a preliminary analysis of an excavated collection from the Neville site in southern New Hampshire. The Neville and Stark complexes show significant relationships to the Stanly and Morrow Mountain complexes of North Carolina, and are shown to be of equivalent ages. Some implications of these new data and of the Late Archaic sequence from the site are suggested.

The present article responds to questions raised by Marshall (1969). Based on European material, the author concludes that engineering principles cannot be universally applied, despite some obviously positive results. Before reconstructing an object, the completeness of its preserved remains should be taken into account and the preserved floor plan should be supplemented with those elements that have vanished. To use only what actually remains of a house floor in making a reconstruction presupposes that the layout is fully preserved, and this is of course not always the case. The English version of this paper was translated from the original Czech manuscript by H. Martin Wobst, University of Michigan.

Discovery of a typical Miccaotli phase offering at Altun Ha, British Honduras (Belize) indicates contact between Teotihuacan and the central Maya lowlands in the second century A.D., 2.5 to 3 centuries earlier than previously recognized.

Quaternary sediments in the Ruby site area are of post-altithermal age. Two past alternating cycles of deposition and erosion are evident. The oldest depositional unit contains an archaeological site which yielded a radiocarbon date of A.D. 280 ± 135 years. This older formation was deposited in post-Kaycee-pre-Lightning time. A stratigraphic unit of this age has not been previously reported in the Powder River Basin and is herein named the South Butte formation. The youngest depositional unit in the area is the Lightning formation. Erosion and downcutting began about 1900 and has continued to the present.

A prehistoric Hopewell copper earspool was analyzed by a number of metallurgical techniques including transmission electron microscopy. While optical photomicrographs and micro-hardness data suggest that the final fabrication process was annealing, transmission electron microscopy indicates that some final cold working was applied. This paper illustrates a new application of physical analytical techniques to archaeology.

Flakes having superimposed positive and negative bulbs of percussion may be produced in two ways: by being struck from a core from which a primary flake has previously been struck, or by being produced simultaneously with the primary flake. Conditions are defined under which those produced in the latter fashion can occur by natural agency, and thus need not be diagnostic of human industry.

A mummy, or rather, a dessicated body, from Salts Cave, Kentucky, has been subjected to a comprehensive analysis. Radiocarbon analysis of internal body tissue placed the individual in the Woodland cultural period. A careful dissection of the body cavity revealed the presence of all internal organs but, due to dehydration, in a collapsed form. The diet of the individual, and indirectly of the population, was determined from the contents of the fecal material in the lower intestine and colon. Examination of the external side of the body revealed the individual to be a male, and radiographic and dental evidence indicated that he was around nine years of age. Blood group studies are still somewhat inconclusive, but tests are being conducted to clarify that problem. This paper was originally presented at the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico, D.F.

Pre-fire incised marks can be observed on many of the plain cooking and storage ceramic vessels of the Moche style, which flourished on the north coast of Peru from approximately 100 B.C. to A.D. 800. A possible explanation of these marks is suggested on the basis of an ethnographic analogy to the present-day practices of potters in the central sierra of Peru. It is suggested that the marks were made to facilitate the identification of the pots of each potter during production and prior to the actual marketing of the pots.

For many years, small, serrated, obsidian artifacts characteristic of late central California cultural manifestations (Late Horizon), have been regarded as projectile points (arrow and dart points). A functional analysis of a number of these tools based on examination with a binocular microscope revealed evidence of wear patterns including striations which makes it quite clear that these artifacts were used for other purposes. This brings the projectile point interpretation up for serious questioning, at least for the area under consideration. It is suggested that further investigation of artifact assemblages, using similar methods, will in all likelihood alter many existing ideas regarding the functional significance of many artifact types. It is further pointed out that many times discrepancies exist between ethnographic accounts and other sources of data relative to the functional significance of artifacts.

A recently discovered stela in Guerrero represents the north-westernmost extension of monolithic sculpture in the Olmec style yet known in Mesoamerica. The stela depicts a standing human figure wearing a cloak and bird mask and holding a staff-like object. It is suggested that the theme is ceremonial or one of rank or rulership. The style of the carving and its association with Olmec style pottery confirms its colonial Olmec identity. The nature of the stela confirms our impression that Olmec presence in Guerrero and the central highlands represents more than a diffused art style. A tentative model for interpreting Olmec diffusion takes into account economic as well as socio-political factors, including possible motives bringing the Olmec into the highlands and the nature and pattern of relationships established with local culture groups. Trade and status borrowing are the basis of this model.