Since the Publication of Steward's interpretations of Great Basin prehistory, which were based upon field research ending about 1935, no attempt has been made in published form to collate and analyze currently available data on the full range of the prehistory of the area. Steward's conclusions are thoughtful and represent conservative, sound reasoning upon the basis of the data available and the theories current at the time. As might reasonably be expected, however, subsequent findings have cast doubt upon some of his interpretations and have made others unacceptable. This paper is a brief attempt, deliberately kept at a general level, to review both old and new data, with special reference to the cultural relationships between the Great Basin and San Juan Anasazi, and to call attention to current developments and problems.

Gross parallels in patterns of development of early civilizations have long invited closer inspection. Attempts to formulate these processes of growth into a single general statement of cause and effect have been out of fashion in anthropology for many years now, but interest has remained high in the general problem of comparison. Leaving aside studies concerned particularly with progressive changes in styles or technologies, the greatest promise seems to attach currently to studies focused on the growing network of formal, supra-kin institutions which characterized each of the early civilizations for which archaeological or historic documentation exists.

The approach taken here has much in common with that of V. Gordon Childe (1942, 1952), and certainly leans heavily on the rich store of archaeological insight he has made available for the Old World.

Two generations of intensive archaeological work conducted in great part by the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the Southern Maya area have resulted in a wealth of factual information and the establishment of a fairly comprehensive and continuous cultural sequence. In spite of the many facts, few attempts have been made by Middle American archaeologists to synthesize this data and present it within a coherent conceptual framework. The reluctance of Middle Americanists to extract from the factual data theories regarding the recurring regularities of human behavior may be due in part to the feeling that such “theorizing” is purely speculative and unscientific. The picture is further complicated by the fact that in the Maya area the great bulk of the archaeological material collected and studied consists of artifacts from the excavations of mounds and tombs in the large ceremonial and urban centers. This material understandably does not represent the totality of the culture concerned.

Both Historical and archaeological sources on the West Indies provide evidence that these islands were once occupied by peoples with a culture markedly different from that of the agricultural, pottery-making Arawak. The archaeological remains of this Archaic mode of life are found on several of the islands in contexts which indicate their separateness from the pottery horizons and imply their greater antiquity. The ethnohistorical sources also attest to the survival of this Archaic tradition into early historic times (Martyr 1912 Vol. 1: 100, 380; Las Casas 1867: 35; 1951 Vol. 2: 240; Velásquez 1869: 424-5; Oviedo 1852 Vol. 1: 90).

The characteristics of this West Indian Archaic tradition, as revealed by archaeology and supplemented by the ethnohistoric accounts, are: absence of agriculture and pottery; seminomadic living in small bands; frequent use of caves for shelter and burial; crude artifacts made of conch shells, flint, and other classes of stone; use of hematite or red ocher; and the absence of cranial deformation as practiced by the agricultural peoples of the Antilles.

For many years a Chalchihuites type of culture has been designated for a number of archaeological sites in the western parts of the states of Durango and Zacatecas, Mexico (Hrdlička 1903; Gamio 1910; Noguera 1930; Mason 1937; Brand 1939). The culture takes its name from the early-studied and partiallytested site of the same name located in northwestern Zacatecas.

Chalchihuites culture has been noted by Mason to extend as far south as the great site of La Quemada, or Chicomostoc as it is also called, some 35 miles southwest of Zacatecas, Zacatecas (Mason 1937). It is prevalent in southern Durango in the vicinity of the city of Durango, and Mason and Brand believe that at Zape, Durango, 150 miles to the north, it had reached its northern limit. At Zape it had become peripheral and attenuated, having lost much of its fine quality. As more information is obtained, it is possible that the culture may be extended to a group of sites in northern Jalisco.

Large accumulations of shells can be found in flat coastal regions and along the lower course of big rivers all over the world. Many of these shellmounds have been investigated by archaeologists and have been found to contain, besides shells, considerable quantities of ash, numerous artifacts of stone and bone, occasionally potsherds, and often a relatively large number of human skeletons. Their contents and stratification reveal these mounds to be deposits of kitchen refuse, accumulated on prehistoric dwellings sites by tribes whose main source of food was fish and mollusks.

In Brazil such shellmounds can be found not only all along the Atlantic coast and up the Amazon, but even in Mato Grosso, along the banks of the Paraguay River. No systematic survey of Brazilian shellmounds has yet been made.

In view of the considerable interest currently manifest in the role played by the northern Pacific area in the peopling of and spread of cultural traits to the New World, recent finds in the north of Japan should prove of interest to American archaeologists and students. While several excellent summaries of Japan's prehistory are available (Munro 1908; Groot 1951; Kraus 1947, 1953) it is felt that many students would appreciate an opportunity to read site reports in the original in order to draw their own conclusions. The scarcity of such reports outside the Japanese language is, to most Americans, an insurmountable obstacle. It is hoped that the present series of articles will, in a small way, help to ameliorate this condition. The explorations described in this series were made during the writer's stay in Japan during 1948 to 1950. Cultural materials collected are deposited in the U.S. National Museum, where additional notes, maps, sketches, and unpublished photographs are available.

Two distinctive types of wooden drinking vessels, known as keros and pacchas, were manufactured in Peru both before and after the Spanish conquest. Thus they exemplify the transition from archaeology to history and ethnology. Each has counterparts in pottery, metal, or stone, but the majority are of wood, usually decorated with colored motifs produced by paint with a lacquer base. This also was used on a few unique vessels of eccentric shapes (Fig. 64 b). Keros are fairly common; pacchas exceedingly rare. Little has been written about either group.

Alaskan Pottery has received for the most part somewhat cursory treatment in archaeological reports, and consequently it is often difficult to obtain from published studies data on such basic characteristics as temper, paste, and in some cases, design. Outstanding exceptions to this general tendency are the works of Collins (1937) and de Laguna (1939, 1940, 1947). De Laguna, especially, not only has thoroughly reported upon excavated material but has published information on pottery from many museum collections. Since the publication of de Laguna's penetrating analyses, there have been numerous site reports in which new pottery types were added and old ones partially clarified (Larsen and Rainey 1948; Heizer 1949; Giddings 1949,1952; Oswalt 1952a, 1953a, b, c; Griffin 1953). A systematic approach to Alaskan pottery is needed now to arrange the chronological and geographical positions of various styles and facilitate reference to specific types.

It seems appropriate, particularly in the light of the recent radiocarbon dates for an Old Copper site, that the accumulated information about the Old Copper complex be summarized for the use of those interested in the prehistory of the Northeast. While some of the data presented here have been previously published in greater descriptive detail, they are briefly reviewed because they represent the factual basis for the definition of the complex as a local cultural variant in the Archaic period. The radiocarbon dates and certain new data add materially to the basis for the interpretation of the remains of these early inhabitants of Wisconsin. We use the term “Archaic” to refer to a time period rather than a cultural assemblage, although we shall discuss the cultural traits that appear to fit into this time period in the locale under discussion.

The course of Maya archaeology has been characterized for the most part by an intensive interest in large ceremonial centers, and justifiably so in view of their clearly rich and rewarding content. Yet the nature of these excavations has necessarily restricted knowledge of preconquest developments in this region to a highly hierarchic level, as witnessed by work in such sites as Kaminaljuyu, Copan, Uaxactun, and Piedras Negras. Remarkably little is known of conditions on a less spectacular level, but a recent trend in this direction is evident in the house-mound and population studies by Carnegie at Mayapan and by Gordon Willey in British Honduras. And we hope that Nohoch Ek, about as insignificant as Maya sites of this type come, may help to illustrate the evolution and workings of an obviously minor ceremonial center.

In the first classification of the prehistoric cultures of Minnesota (Wilford 1941), no attempt was made to present a chronological sequence, though some temporal relationships were indicated. Since that time the efforts of archaeologists in all parts of the eastern United States in excavating sites and in reporting the results, in pooling their knowledge at regional conferences, and in constructing and publishing cultural sequences for regions and for the entire area, have crystallized in a framework in which the 3 major cultural groupings, the patterns, have been fitted into a chronological sequence of 4 periods. It is now possible to place the Minnesota cultures in this framework with a fair degree of confidence. Table 6 presents this placement in terms of the categories of the Midwestern Taxonomic System.

The Churchill area of Manitoba is a meeting place of Eskimos and Chipewyans. It is also the boundary of the northern forest and the barren grounds. My field trip in the summer of 1953 to this part of the western margin of Hudson Bay had to do with both of these facts, for I intended to collect samples of timberline spruce for treering dating, and I hoped to find flint sites comparable to those of northern Alaska. The archaeological site that did turn up on the North Knife River was gratifying beyond expectations, because its flints fall into a very precise relationship with artifacts of early Alaskan and early Greenland sites.

Upon first reaching Churchill by rail on the ninth of July, I inquired of several people as to their knowledge of arrowheads or other flints. Two or three reports of flint finds pointed either to remote places in the interior or to Dorset-culture sites in the northern part of Hudson Bay.

The present article is an attempt by zoologists to draw conclusions from the vertebrate and other remains found in certain midden sites. Some of the remains have been discussed in papers presented at meetings of the Florida Anthropological Society (Brodkorb 1953; Gut 1952).

Two of the authors have been interested in local archaeological problems, as such. In addition, helpful advice was had from Ripley P. Bullen, Curator of Social Sciences at the Florida State Museum; from John M. Goggin, of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Florida; and from John W. Griffin, of the St. Augustine Historical Society (Florida). Thanks are due to these archaeologists; also to Barney R. Beck, owner of the Lemon Bluff site; to Bernard S. Good, owner of Good's Shellpit; to J. E. Price, owner of the Bluffton site; to Jerry Allen, manager of Silver Glen Springs at the time excavations were made there; to James B. Gut and Marjorie A. Briggs for assistance in collecting; and to E.

Excavations, not yet reported in detail, at sites adequately documented as having been occupied during the 18th century make it possible to outline Creek and Cherokee cultures of this period. A comparison of the outlines indicates similarities and differences which may be of some importance in the archaeology of the area in which the Cherokee and various “Creek” groups were the dominant cultures in the contact and early historic periods, namely, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina.

Costa Rican jade ornaments have been known chiefly through collections made by Padre José Maria Valasco in the Nicoya peninsula, which forms the northwestern corner of the country, and through the subsequent publication of these specimens by C. V. Hartman (1907). The Velasco jade is now in the Museo Nacional at San José and the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh.

The term jade is loosely used by archaeologists. Hartman employed it to describe 3 minerals: a blue-green jadeite, saussurite, which in Costa Rica usually is blue-green with white spots, and a dark green bowenite. These shades are characteristic of Nicoya specimens but not of the jades of northern Central America and Mexico. More recently, W. F. Foshag has identified the principal minerals used for ornaments in Costa Rica as diopside-jadeite and chalcedony (Anonymous 1947, Specimens 1-7, 15-18).

The Department of Anthropology of the University of Alaska has for many years solicited information concerning archaeological sites in Athabaskan as well as Eskimo territory from trappers, prospectors, casual travelers, and residents. One of the more likely reports, received from B. A. Stone of Medfra, Alaska, concerned the Lake Telida region. Lake Telida is located about 1/2 mile from the McKinley Fork, called the Tatlathno River in early accounts (Herron 1901), of the Upper Kuskokwim drainage. It is about 100 miles southwest of Lake Minchumina and is northwest of Mt. McKinley National Park (see Fig. 82).

During the summer of 1949 2 students of the University of Alaska, Leona Neubarth Lowery and George Schumann, and the author conducted a field trip into this area. This trip was made possible by the author's appointment to the Margaret Snell Graduate Fellowship of the American Association of University Women, to which I should like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude.

Mrn 20, the site described in this report, is one of the 5 located on Strawberry Point, a peninsula which juts out into Richardson's Bay, an arm of San Francisco Bay, in southern Marin County (Fig. 22). Situated on a southwestern slope, Mrn 20 overlooks the bay and town of Marin City. It is of interest to note that most of the shellmounds on Strawberry Point are on the western side, even though this is buffeted by cold winds and rain during the fall and winter, while the less inhabited eastern side is more sheltered. The hills surrounding Mrn 20 are rather gentle and are covered with pasture grasses, with an occasional clump of scrubby, wind-blasted oaks and a few spotty buckeyes. The western face of the site is overgrown with poison oak; the remainder is clothed with a thick matting of grass. The surrounding soil is a yellow clay, which takes on a reddish appearance in some sterile areas beneath the midden.

Examination of aerial photographs of the Teotihuacan region for indications of abandoned irrigation canals revealed the traces of a small system just to the northwest of the modern road connecting the town of Atlatongo with the ceremonial center of Teotihuacan. The system lies along a stream flowing southeastwards in the tributary valley formed by Cerros Maravillas to the west, Tenextlacotla to the north, and Malinalco to the east (Fig. 123). The aerial photograph used had a scale of 1:10,000. It was taken by the Compañia Mexicana de Aerofoto and is identifiable as Sheet 50 of the aerial survey “Cuautitlan to Estacion de Irolo” (Fig. 124). Although the photograph was not taken for archaeological purposes, its utility in locating remains on the ground demonstrates once again that the systematic use of aerial photographs in settlement archaeology — used to such advantage elsewhere — could also yield promising results in Mesoamerica.

This is the second in a series of 3 articles describing recent finds by the writer in northern Honshu, Japan. The first article (AMERICAN ANTIQUITY, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 12- 31) was devoted to an introduction to the series and to the description of sites and materials of the Jomon (Neolithic) period. This article is a description of the protohistoric (Haji period) sites found and explored in Kamikita Gun, Aomori Prefecture, Honshu. These sites are primarily those of small villages, in 3 instances fortified by a ditch or an earthen wall. The outstanding characteristic of all these sites is that the old house pits can still be located by the circular, saucer-like depressions showing on the present surface. In addition to the concentrations of house pits which represent villages, many individual house pits may be found scattered about the region.