Sixty Artifacts and Other Specimens denoting or suggesting human activity were found in and near the Olsen-Chubbuck fossil arroyo and in the bone bed which it contained (Table 20). Forty-seven specimens came either from within the bone bed itself or form the surface among the bones exposed by weathering. One specimen came from the upper, later fill of the arroyo where it had been partly exposed by weathering, and the remaining 12 specimens came from the surface of the site near the arroyo. Along the ridges to the north and west of the arroyo a number of artifacts deriving from later occupation of the area were found.

Twenty-seven of the 47 specimens from the bone bed and the bone-bed surface are projectile points, of which 21 are whole or nearly so, and 6 are tips, midsections, or bases of projectile points.

Those specimens found by Chubbuck and Olsen are designated F-l, F-2, etc. for whole projectile points, and PF-1, PF-2, and so on, for point fragments. All specimens found by the University of Colorado Museum party bear University of Colorado Museum catalog numbers.

Observations having some bearing on the archaeology of the Lower Mississippi Valley are to be found in the writings of the early travelers. As the country became settled, accounts of local and regional historical interest often included remarks or occasional papers devoted to the local antiquities. My purpose here is to sketch the conceptualization of prehistory as it was developed through the most significant writings.

A plausible argument may be submitted in support of the contention that Thomas Jefferson was the first scientific archaeologist in the United States. Curiously enough, his archaeological influence extended to the Lower Mississippi Valley. This was through H. M. Brackenridge, who went into the Louisiana Territory soon after it was purchased and wrote a number of descriptive accounts of the country.

While I have become less, rather than more, certain of the possibility of correlating traditional dynasty lists with archaeological periods since American Antiquity published my paper on the subject, the possibility is still worth exploring in an area where we have so few absolute dates to go on. In this connection, I would like to call the attention of the meeting to a document on Chimu history which, to my shame, I ran across only recently, though it was first published in 1936.

The document in question is a fragment of the first chapter of an anonymous history of Trujillo, written in that city in 1604. The manuscript was found in Lima by Father Vargas Ugarte and published in the Revista Histórica. A translation is submitted which should be of considerable interest.

Before the stable population can be fully characterized, the age-specific fertility rates needed to satisfy equation (1-4a) must be determined. For most anthropological data (and certainly for archaeological data) this information is not available. A method must be devised to estimate the rates of B(X), based on the assumption of a growth rate r and the mortality information.

The relative amount of fertility in females at each age during the childbearing period follows a generally similar pattern for most human populations: fertility begins at a relatively low rate at the age of menarche—in fact, there is generally a period of adolescent sterility (Montagu 1957), then it rises rapidly to a maximum from age 20 to age 30, after which it falls gradually to a minimum just before menopause. This general pattern is virtually universal among human females. We can use this degree of similarity to model our anthropological fertility rates.

This paper presents the gist of informal remarks made at the Conference on Peruvian Prehistory, with some added comment pertaining to Bennett's views on the revision of the south Titicaca basin sequence. Full documentation, and the illustrative material indispensable for such comparative studies will be presented in the final report on excavations at Pucara.

Since Pucara is the only site in the northern Titicaca basin at which excavation on even a moderate scale has been attempted, its relationship to Tiahuanaco and other sites in Bolivia and southern Puno are of obvious interest, especially since the bulk of the Pucara materials represents a culture obviously sharing many of the ideas expressed in Tiahuanaco art. This being the case, the question then arises as to whether the “Classic” phase of Pucara precedes the Tiahuanaco periods, is contemporaneous with one or all of them as a regional manifestation in the northern basin, or is a later development in the southern basin tradition.

In order to discover the typological similarities of the Wendover collections to artifacts from other sites, and the cultural and chronological inferences such similarities give rise to, a series of collections will be reviewed for comparable data. It is again pointed out that the archeologist's universal assumption — that typological identity between specimens implies either direct or indirect cultural contact or chronological equivalence — is only an assumption. Although much archeological reconstruction of history is rooted in this concept, there are no fixed points of certainty which guide the reconstruction. How much of the values of a culture cling to an artifact? Will a new artifact style or a new class of artifacts have marked influence on the total configuration of a lifeway when the object or complex of objects is introduced into a new culture? If so, how long does the process take? Or do new artifacts reflect some culture change already achieved?

Further, the form and stylistic detail of stone and textile objects, for example, appear to be very stable and to change slowly. Hence, artifacts other than pottery must be regarded as not particularly sensitive to change (in contrast to pottery); inferences based on similarities between textiles or stone work, for example, are likely less apt to carry sharp cultural and chronological implications than are those based on pottery styles.

One of the most archaeologically significant characteristics of highland Andean cultures is the stone-sculpturing tradition. Most of the reports that have been published to date deal with the more spectacular sites of Tiahuanaco in the south highlands and Chavín de Huántar in the north highlands, but little has appeared to indicate the widespread existence of stone sculpture throughout the Peruvian highlands and the centers where the tradition is particularly strong. It is the purpose of this paper to summarize the stone sculpture in the Callejón de Huaylas area and to indicate its relationship to the accepted archaeological horizons in the north highlands.

Inland Alaska is undoubtedly one of the most discouraging areas for archaeological research in North America. But the fascinating theory of human migrations via Bering Strait has led several of us to search this critical territory of boreal forest and tundra for material evidence of the theory. Sites and collections of implements discovered so far are ridiculously small and scattered considering the size of the territory, yet as a while they may be significant.” I shall present here my own conclusions on the present significance of these materials—conclusions which reflect discussions with Giddings and Larsen but which do not convict them.

Reviewing what has been done in this field during the post-war years I cannot escape the conclusion that there is as yet no evidence whatever for the hypothetic migrations of men from Asia via the Bering Strait region during the Neolithic period, that is in the European sense of the term.

The postulates set forth in preceding chapters lead to a view of hunting-gathering society which, if correct, means that the mating system of paleolithic man varied little in different regions of the world. With the aid of some additional elaboration on this model, to be given in this chapter, we should be able to specify the effects of this mating system on cultural and genetic processes. Further, some consideration will be given to the expected results of relaxing some of the conditions underlying the model presented.

Implicit in Postulates Five and Six is the idea that marriages will not be contracted over such distances that the bands brouglit into connubial relation cannot visit one another occasionally even if rarely. It was assumed, therefore, that these usually involved the bordering band territories. Among these bordering bands, the size of each as visualized in the model is such that each must contract marriages with most, if not all, neighboring bands to provide wives for the band males. But this is true only if they are all of equal size. As they will not often all be of equal size or exactly equal in offspring production in any given age period, there must be provisions to insure that alliances, once established, are not subject to random loss.

Radiocarbon dates on charcoal samples from New York State have added significant new data to our knowledge of previously little known factors of chronology and continuity in the area. The dates have provided the lower portions of an apparently valid time scale upon which may be reared a more realistic three-dimensional picture of the prehistoric events of this portion of the United States.

Sample 191 was excavated by the writer from a hearth situated in the deepest refuse level in trench 4, section 4, of the Frontenac Island site, Cayuga County (Ritchie, 1945, pp. 6, 115, Plate 115). At Frontenac Island, an occupational component referable to the Lamoka focus appeared to precede the coming of Laurentian brachycephals with their specific cultural complex. The subsequent interaction of the two discrete peoples and cultures was evident in the physical remains, burial modes, and character of grave goods. The hearth, found on the lower level of the site, is presumed to pertain to the initial Lamoka- Laurentian contact. The radiocarbon dating yielded an antiquity of 4930 ± 260 years of elapsed time.

The view camera, with negative format of 4x5 or larger, is a versatile tool for accurately recording a site area and materials taken from an excavation. The camera can correct distortions and present a more natural perspective than either the 35 mm. or 2¼ × 2¼ camera. Examples show the need for using correct lenses when photographing artifacts. The large format negative does not require as much enlargement as does the 35 mm. or 2¼ × 2¼ negative, an important consideration when preparing prints for publication, thus minimizing slight defects in the negative. Filing the larger negatives is easier, and in subsequent handling (for making additional prints) there is less possibility that they will be damaged.

Analysis of bean seeds taken from various Wetherill Mesa prehistoric Indian sites shows that all belong to the Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean) species. Of the five varieties of this species, one seems to have predominated — an “all-purpose” bean used as a string bean and as a dry, mature bean. This variety is also the most commonly occurring bean in the pre-Columbian Southwest.