The use of sascab as a substitute for sand in the preparation of ancient (and modern) mortars and plasters in Yucatán has been noted by many writers including Landa (Tozzer 1941: 171, 176), Morris, Chariot, and Morris (1931, Vol. 1: 220-4), E. H. Thompson (1887), and Villa R. (1934). R. H. Thompson (1958) details the use of sascab as temper for making pottery. Sascab is described by Villa R. (1934) as a soft limestone conglomerate; it has also been spoken of as an unconsolidated limestone. Sascab is a white to reddish, compacted powder, frequently containing rounded boulders or stones, and found in pockets in the limestone of Yucatán and possibly other areas with a similar geography.

A consideration of the Siberian data by anyone acquainted, albeit summarily, with the major themes of North American prehistory, cannot fail to lead to the formulation of a number of specific problems relating to prehistoric contacts between the Old World and the New and their effect on culture development on both continents. The limitations of available data, time, space, and competence alike set limits to the degree to which they may be fruitfully explored here. Yet it seems worthwhile at least to list the more obvious ones and to comment on them briefly, thereby suggesting directions for future investigation.

On July 3, 1955, six men in three canoes shoved out into Black Lake, Saskatchewan, and began a long journey northward toward the great Barren Grounds. The party consisted of Peter Franck of Woodside, California; George Grinnell of New York City; J. Edward Lanouette of São Paulo, Brazil; Bruce LeFavour of Amsterdam, New York; Fred Pessl, Jr., of Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan; and the leader and organizer of the expedition, Arthur R. Moffatt of Norwich, Vermont.

Western archaeologists have almost unanimously shunned the term “Archaic” in describing their finds. In the few cases where the word has been used at all, it has generally been qualified by using quotation marks, a question mark, or some statement indicating the author’s belief that this is not a real Archaic culture. As a result, none of the described western cultures is conventionally labeled “Archaic.” Avoidance of the term has stemmed from two conditions: a) a desire to avoid confusing western cultures with those generally called Archaic in the East; and b) the temporal implications of the word “Archaic.”

For some time it has been almost tacitly accepted that most or all of the pre-Columbian copper artifacts found in the eastern United States were manufactured of native copper recovered from the glacial drifts of the western Great Lakes region (Martin, Quimby, and Collier 1947: 40–2). This assumption can be attributed to a number of factors: (1) the abundance of copper artifacts in the Old Copper and Middle Woodland cultures which center in or are immediately adjacent to this region; (2) the quantity and availability of the copper; (3) the notion that other deposits were not accessible to pre-Columbian users, or were at least not numerous; and finally, (4) all the copper artifacts so far analysed show compositional similarities to the Great Lakes copper.

Miller and Johnson's review of Pleistocene Man at San Diego seriously misrepresents the work in question. It is not the principal contention of the book that man lived in the San Diego area in the last interglacial, and that the age of the last interglacial is 100,000 years ago. By focussing on this, a most incomplete view is given of the archaeological section of the book.

Lanceolate points, formerly called “Yuma,” but now designated by specific type names such as Plainview, Milnesand, Eden, Browns Valley, and others, seem to have been various expressions of a common pattern or tradition that has been called "Piano" by Jennings (Griffin 1957: 23). The Piano tradition in the West represents an ancient hunting stage of culture that followed an earlier stage manifested by the paleo-Indians who used fluted points and hunted elephants of types now extinct.

Shortly after an article describing a Peruvian shirt with a horizontal neck slot was published (Gayton 1955), a specimen with a similar aperture was unearthed at La Capilla cemetery on the Hacienda Marques. This specimen is sufficiently different from the other to warrant a brief report. The archaeological data are provided by Stumer, the textile data by Gayton.

La Capilla cemetery is on the Hacienda Marques at the mouth of the Chillón River, some 12 km. north of Lima. La Capilla lies at the extreme northwest corner of the irrigable lands of the Chillón and is the most extensive of the cemetery sites which dot the Hacienda Marques.

A chronology program was launched in December, 1957, by the Missouri Basin Project of the Smithsonian Institution for the purpose of testing culture sequences in the Central and Northern Plains and contiguous regions. The Missouri Basin Chronology Program envisages (a) assembling all relevant chronological data in hand and (b) selecting materials for analysis by the various dating methods. The Missouri Basin Project acts as coordinator of the program; it has received enthusiastic response and is now cooperating with a dozen institutions in the area engaged in archaeological research.

At the present time little is known in the Western world about the archaeology of Hokkaido, Japan. Groot (1951) is of limited value for most of his explorations were in the Tokyo area. This dearth of evidence is extremely regrettable in view of the so-called "Ainu problem" about which so many speculations have been published during the past century. During 1953-54 while stationed in Hokkaido with the United States Army, I explored and visited a number of prehistoric sites and made several collections which are now in the U. S. National Museum. Of the many sites visited, three in the southwestern part of Hokkaido in the Sapporo area were chosen for partial excavation. Radiocarbon dates for these sites were determined by the U. S. Geological Survey Radiocarbon Laboratory through the courtesy of Meyer Rubin.

An elaborately carved fragment of metamorphosed schist was sent to me not long ago. I was told that it was plowed up in a field near Fosters, Alabama, which is approximately 7 miles north of Moundville State Park and thus well within the sphere of influence of that cultural center. The specimen is owned by James Willard Dorroh of Buhl, Alabama.

The object constitutes the major portion of a very beautifully carved monolithic ceremonial ax (Fig. 1) superficially resembling one in the Peabody Museum at Yale University (Cat. No. 3701) which has been described by Saville (1916: 5) and MacCurdy (1916: 301).

As a footnote to Ralph Beals’ most interesting discussion of Father Acosta's views on the peopling of the New World in the October 1957 issue of American Antiquity (Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 182–3), one might note the claim of Thomas Gage, author of the English-American, a new survey of the West Indies, to be the first to develop thoroughly — certainly in English — the “Men out of Asia” via Bering Strait thesis.

Robert C. Suggs (1958: 432-3) mentions having found at the Manakaway site in Greenwich, Connecticut, sherds from a vessel decorated with curvilinear motifs in dentate stamping. At the Pelham Boulder site, Bronx County, New York, similar pottery has been found by the writer in the subsoil, and within the lowest third of the midden, never higher. Suggs implies that I attributed the sherds to "Hopewellian contact" in a short preliminary paper I wrote (1956). Nowhere in my paper have I mentioned a Hopewellian contact. I did say, however, that “such motifs are reminiscent of some Hopewellian patterns.” There is quite a difference in meaning and implication.