bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Early Horizons in the Southeast
Authors: Haag William G.
Published: April 2006

The Southeastern archaeological area has never been clearly defined but has tacitly been considered that part of North America south of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi. By some archaeologists it has been thought a rather homogeneous culture area, but no other portion of the continent presents a more varied content. With several types of topography represented, it is logical that many kinds of aboriginal sites are to be found within its scope; the number of seemingly unrelated tribes that claimed this area as their home connotes a varied past. In early historic times it was one of the first sections of the continent to be explored by Europeans. In recent years intensive archaeological investigations have thrown new light on the history of the region and its inhabitants. Tremendous shell midden deposits along river and creek courses and on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, rock shelters and caves showing occupation, and a few inland sites of demonstrable antiquity all indicate an earlier population entirely different from that encountered by the first visitors from Europe.
The Geographical Distribution of Aboriginal Pottery in Canada
Authors: Wintemberg W. J.
Published: April 2006

Practically all of the aboriginal inhabitants of Canada, including the Eskimo, made and used pottery. The only people who do not seem to have used it are the Indians of the coast and interior of British Columbia; in fact, according to Wissler, “practically the whole Pacific belt … is without pottery.“

As can be seen from the map (Fig. 7), pottery is fairly well distributed over the southern part of Canada, but even here our knowledge of its occurrence is far from complete, owing to the lack of archaeological exploration. There are vast areas elsewhere in Canada from which no pottery has been reported, including southern Ungava, northern Ontario, northern Manitoba, northern and western Alberta, and the Northwest Territories.
An Unusual Side-Bladed Knife from a Protohistoric Mandan Site
Authors: Duncan Strong Wm.
Published: April 2006

In 1938, a seemingly unusual type of side-bladed knife with its stone blade in place was excavated at the Old Fort Abraham Lincoln Mandan village, across the Missouri River from Bismarck, North Dakota. This specimen, now in the collections of the North Dakota Historical Society, was found in an ash-filled storage pit at a depth of 90 cm. The same pit also contained two other side-bladed knife handles of bone and three ovoid stone knife blades, as well as other artifacts, some indicating European contact. The Old Fort Abraham Lincoln village is of protohistoric age and was occupied by the Mandan prior to 1800. The general characteristics of the site and the excavations in question have been outlined elsewhere. The present specimen (Fig. 6, left) is distinctive in that the lanceolate blade of Knife River flint is so inserted that one corner of the butt serves as the cutting corner or point of the knife.
An Archaeological Survey along the Alaska Highway, 1944
Authors: Johnson Frederick
Published: April 2006

This is a brief, preliminary account of some of the discoveries made during the summer of 1944 when the author, in collaboration with botanists and a geologist conducted an archaeological survey of the region traversed by the Alaska Highway. The investigations were carried on in but a small section of an area, many thousands of square miles in extent, about which practically nothing was known. A similar survey had been made, in 1942, by Froelich Rainey, but unfortunately this was unsuccessful. However his previous excavations in the Yukon and Tanana River valleys in Alaska did give some indication of what might be discovered. Oscar Lewis had had better luck for he had found a few very interesting artifacts at a site on the Highway near Trutch.
Additional Data on Crania from the Warren Mounds, Utah
Authors: Blair William C.
Published: April 2006

Since publication of the manuscript “Crania of the Warren Mounds and their Possible Significance to Northern Periphery Archaeology,” it has become necessary to call to the reader's attention important data overlooked in the original report by both Mr. Enger and myself.

As was stated in the general summary of the Warren crania, “The Warren crania have the following characteristics: cephalic index, brachycephalic; height-length index, chamaecephalic fo orthocephalic; height-breadth index, tapeinocephalic; facial index, mesene; high orbits; a fairly well-developed occipital region; and no occipital deformation.” It is this last descriptive statement which, in view of recent studies, is in need of elaboration.
Burial Traits of the Headwaters Lakes Aspect in Manitoba
Authors: Vickers Chris
Published: April 2006

Lloyd A. Wilford, in an excellent paper on the Headwaters Lakes aspect, points out that two of its important traits are primary burials, “often in a sitting position,” and “small mortuary vessels … .” Wilford's work in Minnesota has provided certain clues as to the source of the mounds in Manitoba, the traits above mentioned being among the most important.

Archaeological work in Manitoba has been exceedingly sketchy and often extremely careless. Very little if any effort has been made to correlate the various cultural horizons with known aspects south of the international boundary. Documentation is scant and unsatisfactory. Many of the mounds have been badly disturbed without regard for their scientific and historic value; and valuable material has been lost without hope of recovery. Nevertheless, examination of the early documentation, plus the work of the writer during the past few years, indicates a northwesterly movement of some of the important traits of Wilford's various Minnesota aspects.
Crania from the Warren Mounds and their Possible Significance to Northern Periphery Archaeology
Authors: Enger Walter D. , Blair William
Published: April 2006

Archaeological investigation in the Northern Periphery, in its present status, has revealed and formulated many perplexing problems. Not the least of these is the problem of the ethnic prehistory of its Puebloid peoples.

Apparently, because of the striking resemblances between the Northern Periphery cultures -and the San Juan Puebloan cultures, Judd, in his expeditions of 1915-1920, tacitly assumed Northern Periphery peoples to be Puebloan in physical characteristics. The crania found by him in the southern part of this area exhibit both occipital deformation and normality. This phenomenon was interpreted by Judd as the most significant observation to be made. He felt that it indicated the use of the Puebloan cradleboard when the trait was either in an incipient form or in a period of decline.1 Equally plausible, of course, is the possibility of two distinct periods, a pre-cradleboard period and a period after the introduction of the cradleboard.
Early Man in California and the Tranquillity Site
Authors: Hewes Gordon W.
Published: April 2006

A Brief note in Science in the spring of 1943 reported the find of an association of human burials and artifacts with the remains of Camelops, Equus, and Bison, near Tranquillity, Fresno County, California. The present paper is a more detailed description of the cultural remains and a fuller report of the writer's findings at the site prior to 1944. Excavations in that year by the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, are mentioned below. They will be described in a forthcoming paper by Lloyd and Satterthwaite, to include a critical examination of the evidence for and against the contemporaneity of the human and extinct mammal remains.
A Preliminary Report on Coastal Tamaulipas, Mexico
Authors: MacNeish Richard S.
Published: April 2006

This article represents a preliminary statement of the results of the archaeological survey of the Sierra de Tamaulipas, coastal Tamaulipas north of the Soto la Marina River and the adjacent portion of Texas, which was conducted from November, 1945 through June, 1946 under the auspices of the University of Chicago. Since a long interval of time will probably elapse between the analysis of the archaeological materials and the final publication, it seems advisable to put this summary into print.

Basic to the purpose of the survey and to the problems with which it was concerned was the assumption that there were cultural relations between the people of the Southeast and the more complex cultures of Mexico.
Shells from Maya Excavations in British Honduras
Authors: Richards Horace G. , Boekelman H. J.
Published: April 2006

Two small collections of shells obtained from Maya ruins in British Honduras have recently come to hand, and it has been thought worth while to record the species found, both from a conchological and archaeological viewpoint. When shells are found in archaeological sites, their classification and correlation of original habitats often permit interesting deductions to be made concerning trade routes or relations.

The first set was collected by Dr. Thomas Gann from a crystal burial mound near Rio Hok Skum. The locality is near Corozal in the northern part of British Honduras and about thirty miles from the boundary of Quintana Roo, Mexico.
The Petroglyphs of Southeastern Alaska
Authors: Keithahn E. L.
Published: April 2006

The Tlingit Indians occupy all of Southeastern Alaska from Dixon's Entrance to Cape St. Elias except the southern half of Prince of Wales Island, which is Haida, and Annette Island, which is a Tsimshian reservation. Formerly all of this region was Tlingit.

Throughout this entire district and extending into the southern half of the Northwest Coast culture area, petroglyphs abound. These inscriptions in their simpler forms have much in common with those of widely separated regions of the earth. There are simple cups, rings, spirals, concentric circles, etc. But the typical petroglyphs of this area are as original as the well-known decorative art of the Northwest Coast and apparently closely affiliated with it in both form and meaning.

It is the goal of this article to present tangible evidence that these petroglyphs originated from (a) natural effects and (b) depressions worn in rock in the process of tool-making.
A Barbed Bone Projectile Point from Utah
Authors: Gillin John
Published: April 2006

In view of the fact that barbed bone “projectile” points are extremely rare in the Southwestern archaeological area and because such artifacts have a generally northern and arctic distribution in North America, the present specimen from Utah is offered in the hope that other material of a similar nature from the Southwest may be published and that, perhaps, someone may be attracted to the elucidation of the problems implied. The present writer is unaware of other published specimens of bone projectile points from this area, although, of course, bone artifacts of several other types are fairly numerous.

The present specimen was recovered in the summer of 1937 by the Peabody Museum-University of Utah joint expedition, of which the writer was field director. The point was found at a site, near Ephraim, Utah, locally known as Witch's Knoll.
New World Man
Authors: Roberts Frank H. H.
Published: April 2006

In the Summer of 1935, the finding of Folsom Man was heralded throughout the country by the daily press and several Sunday supplement articles on the subject appeared in various papers. The articles were based on a publication, New World Man, by J. D. Figgins, then director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History, now with the Bernheim Foundation, Louisville, Kentucky. The identification of the remains as those of Folsom Man seemingly was made by some reporter who noted that they were found eight miles east of Folsom, New Mexico. Beyond the fact that the bones were in a bank of the Cimarron River, fourteen miles east of the quarry where the original Folsom points and extinct bison were uncovered ten years ago, there was nothing to warrant the conclusion that they represented Folsom Man.
A Pottery Vessel from Kodiak Island, Alaska
Authors: de Laguna Frederica
Published: April 2006

In February, 1938, the Washington State Museum at the University of Washington, Seattle, acquired on loan a remarkable pottery vessel from Kodiak Island, southwestern Alaska. It is with the kind permission of the Director, Dr. Erna Gunther, that I publish the following pictures and description (Plates 19-20).

The pot is owned by Mr. James Spears of Seattle, and was found by local Eskimo on or near Three Saints Bay, on the southeastern shore of the island. It had apparently fallen out of a dirt bank in a recent landslide. Mr. Spears did not notice any trace of shells or other midden material in the bank, nor any indication of old house sites in the vicinity. No other objects were found with the pot.
Fluted Points from South Carolina
Authors: Wauchope Robert
Published: April 2006

In October, 1937, Mr. Frank M. Harvin, Jr., of Columbia, South Carolina, presented me with sixty-three stone artifacts that he had collected on various visits to a plowed field overlooking the Congaree River near West Columbia, South Carolina. In Mr. Harvin's collection were two fluted points of the type known as “Folsom.” Later I looked through the Babcock Collection of Indian artifacts from Chester, South Carolina (now in the University of South Carolina Library), and found another fluted Folsom point among the hundreds of chipped implements in that exhibit. Inspection of my own collection and the Simpson Collection in Rock Hill, South Carolina, failed to reveal any other examples of this type, which has a wide distribution in the East and South, although I do not remember having seen any reported from South Carolina.
Contributions to the Archaeology of Northern Honshu: Part I, Jomon Sites in Aomori Prefecture
Authors: MacCord Howard A.
Published: April 2006

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.
A Burial Cache from the Spokane Region
Authors: Caldwell Warren , Conn Richard
Published: April 2006

Burial practices are currently of considerable interest in terms of the developing patterns of Plateau culture sequences. Material documentation of prehistoric and historic burial procedure is now extensive though admittedly controversial in sequential interpretation. Suggestions as to covert behavioral responses accompanying the disposition of physical remains and attendant paraphernalia are much less satisfactory.

The authors recently had called to their attention a cache of aboriginal artifacts which suggested a funeral practice, perhaps widespread in the Plateau, but occurring supplementary to the archaeo-ethnically recognized forms of burial.
Reply to MacNeish
Authors: Taylor Walter W.
Published: April 2006

In a rejoinder to Taylor's review of his Tamaulipas monograph, MacNeish restated his method of analysis and reviewed the system he used to establish his phase sequence. Taylor claims that MacNeish has defended his position by introducing new data and by presenting a point of view not expressed in the original monograph. Taylor insists that MacNeish's reply only confirms his original criticism that the Tamaulipas sequence is built on the premise that one excavation unit equals one phase.
Archaeological Investigations in Ellsworth and Rice Counties, Kansas
Authors: Smith Carlyle S.
Published: April 2006

Archaeological investigations were carried on by the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas, from June 19 to August 20, 1948, in the Kanopolis Reservoir area on the Smoky Hill River in Ellsworth County and also along the Little Arkansas River in Rice County, Kansas. The River Basin Surveys of the Smithsonian Institution had undertaken the preliminary reconnaissance and had found more than twenty sites in the area of the Reservoir. William O. Leuty of Ellsworth was helpful in guiding the field parties of both institutions to most of the sites; also he gathered surface collections which were turned over to us.

The Kanopolis Reservoir is situated in the highly dissected terrain which marks the Plains border along the 98th meridian of longitude in central Kansas. The Smoky Hill River meanders eastward, fed by many tributary streams and canyons. Outcrops of Dakota sandstone are common on the bluffs bordering the valley and trees are limited to the edges of the streams.
Archaeology of Cotua Island, Amazonas Territory, Venezuela
Authors: Ceuxent José M.
Published: April 2006

Cotua Island is situated among the Yavariven Rapids of the Orinoco River northwest of the island of María Auxiliadora in Latitude 5°35'N and Longitude 67°35'W (Fig. 4). It measures some 2000 meters long and 500 meters wide.

About four years ago, when the waters of the Orinoco were unusually high, they completely covered the island. Nevertheless, a Creole is now living there, as the fertility of the soil is great enough to overcome his fear that the river will again rise over the island. Directly west of his house, the water has eroded pebbles and Indian potsherds from the ground (Fig. 4, 4). To the southeast, on Maria Auxiliadora Island, there are petroglyphs (Fig. 4, 1), and in addition both islands bear workshops, where the Indians appear to have ground stone artifacts on outcrops of rock (Fig. 4, 2, 3, 5).
A Fluted Point from Central Baja California
Authors: Aschmann Homer
Published: April 2006

In November, 1949, a fluted point was found in possession of a family at San Joaquin in Baja California. It was not possible to procure the point or photograph it, but a drawing was made. The drawing is accurate as to scale, form, and extent of fluting. The individual flake scars are illustrative rather than an attempt at exact representation. The point seemed to be made of very fine grained, almost glassy, basalt and the flake scars are considerably worn (Fig. 86).
Archaeological Sites on Opposite Shores of the Gulf of California
Authors: Schenck W. Egbert , Gifford E. W.
Published: April 2006

In 1946 Gifford published a brief account entitled “Archaeology in the Punta Penasco Region, Sonora” (American Antiquity, Vol. 11, pp. 215-21). Subsequently we both spent considerable time examining sites in the region, upon which we purpose to publish once we have a Carbon 14 date for the prepottery horizon.

In January, 1951, we examined sites in the vicinity of San Felipe, Northern Territory, Baja California, across the Gulf from Punta Peñasco. There we found numerous sites similar in type to those of Sonora. They were situated on dunes and terraces of the desert coast. All were marked by the presence of shells and potsherds. The former were largely of .the species found in Sonora, the latter of undecorated “Yuman” type, both of Mountain and Desert styles as described by A. E. Treganza in his paper entitled “An Archaeological Reconnaissance of Northeastern Baja California and Southeastern California” (American Antiquity, Vol. 8, p. 158, 1942).
About Slate Figurines
Authors: Keithahn E. L.
Published: April 2006

In American Antiquity (Vol. 17, No. 3), Heizer reports “Incised Slate Figurines from Kodiak Island, Alaska.“ This Comment was concerned With a number of unusual incised slate fragments portraying human faces. Doctor Heizer was of the opinion that they were quite late, having come from the upper levels of stratified sites or from known recent sites.

Comparing the features of these stylized portraits with Plate 17 “A Man of Kodiak” from Billings, London 1802 (reproduced here as Fig. 28 a with Heizer's Fig. 28, b), one cannot doubt that they are recent. The elements besides the stylized faces are easily recognized as beaded ear and chin ornaments, and the typical squared collar of the Koniag of 150 years ago.
Archaeological Investigations in the Chief Joseph Reservoir
Authors: Osborne Douglas , Crabtree Robert , Bryan Alan
Published: April 2006

Chief Joseph Reservoir is located along the Columbia River in southern Okanogan County,Washington (Fig. 108). The general area is a rugged highland, underlain chiefly by pre-Tertiary resistant rocks, and marked by welldefined north-south mountain ranges separated by broad troughs, now well dissected, into which the present main tributary streams, such as the Okanogan and the Sanpoil, have cut deep narrow trenches to the Columbia. The highland, whose summits reach 7000 and even 8000 feet at the international boundary, slopes rather uniformly south and passes beneath the broad expanse of the Columbia Plateau, where flat-lying mid-Tertiary basalt flows conceal the older rocks (Flint, 1935, p. 171). Along the river the country is rather barren of flora and fauna, except for sagebrush and an occasional clump of pine trees (Fig. 109, a). Several miles north of the river the pine forests begin and extend north into Canada.
Ecological Interpretation in Archaeology: Part I
Authors: Meighan C. W. , Pendergast D. M. , Swartz B. K. , Wissler M. D.
Published: April 2006

Interpretations of man's relationship to his environment are basic to the understanding of archaeological data. Such interpretations are made by almost all archaeologists in the course of presenting their findings, and there is a growing trend toward more precise delineation of human ecology in prehistoric times. Yet much archaeological writing of this sort tends to be sketchy and fragmentary, and techniques of value are often overlooked or ignored. More or less standardized procedures for interpreting prehistoric ecology are still in the process of being worked out, and even the physical techniques of collecting and sorting samples are experimental at present.
An Andean Ceramic Tradition in Historical Perspective
Authors: Tschopik Harry
Published: April 2006

The potter's art of pre–Columbian Peru has long received high acclaim, and the antiquity and technical perfection of the several Andean ceramic styles is generally acknowledged. Scarcely a year passes but what new pottery types are recognized by archaeologists, and the descriptions of these fill many volumes. It is altogether incredible, therefore, that for the entire 400–year period that has elapsed since the coming of the Spaniards, there exists no detailed and systematic account of the techniques of pottery manufacture employed by any group in the Andean area. With reference to the Conquest period, Rowe states that “the chroniclers say little about Inca pottery,” while Linné, who combed the literature for data concerning Andean ceramic technology, concluded that “ … from the time of the discovery of Peru no descriptions exist as to pottery–making.“
Stephenson's “Culture Chronology in Texas”
Authors: Krieger Alex D.
Published: April 2006

When a synthesis such as Stephenson's appears, those concerned with it had better speak up, lest silence be mistaken for approval. Synthesis can only be helpful to the rest of the profession if done as accurately as available information permits. “Culture Chronology in Texas” is not entirely accurate. A line-for-line criticism of this article would require a good deal of explanation and documentation; hence I will confine my remarks to what seem to me the principal faults – those which may mislead those not well acquainted with Texas archaeology.
An Oblique Parallel Flaked Point from Missouri
Authors: Shippee J. M.
Published: April 2006

A point with oblique parallel flaking was found in an eroded field on high ground, 2½ miles north of the Missouri River near Kansas City, Mo. Chert flakes scattered over the site indicate occupation over several acres but no other artifacts from the site are now available for study. The location and the eroded condition of this site are similar to those of the Nebo Hill Complex (J. M. Shippee, Nebo Hill, A Lithic Complex In Western Missouri, American Antiquity, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 29-32, 1948), but nothing else links them except the presence of the light colored chert flakes.
Comments on South American-Archaic Relations
Authors: Baerreis David A.
Published: April 2006

The recent publication (Griffin, J. W., Ed., 1949) of a series of papers delivered at a conference held at Rollins College in 1949 demonstrates the increasing potentiality of synthesizing the data of American archaeology. It is undoubtedly to be expected that the preliminary stages of synthesis will lead to some conflict of opinion, but this should be regarded as a healthy sign of growing interest.
A Note on Some Large Pits in Certain Sites Near Dallas, Texas
Authors: Stephenson Robert L.
Published: April 2006

During August and September, 1948, the writer made an archaeological survey of the Lavon Reservoir area in Collin County, Texas. This was a project of the River Basin Surveys program of archaeological salvage, undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution, with the cooperation of the Corps of Engineers and the National Park Service. This reservoir is being built on the East Fork of the Trinity River near Wylie, Texas and approximately 25 miles northeast of Dallas.

Twenty-five sites were located in or near the proposed reservoir area during the course of this survey. Nineteen of these appear to be small, temporary campsites, some producing a few potsherds; others are apparently non-pottery sites. However, six of the sites appear to be permanent village locations occupied by relatively large groups of pottery-using people over a long period of time. The material from these sites is in the process of laboratory analysis at the present time and a statement of the cultural affiliations involved cannot yet be made.
Starved Rock Archaic, a Prepottery Horizon from Northern Illinois
Authors: Mayer-Oakes William J.
Published: April 2006

During the summer seasons of 1947, 1948, and 1949 the University of Chicago and the Illinois State Museum co-sponsored archaeological excavations in LaSalle county, northern Illinois. In 1947 the site on top of Starved Rock (known as LS 12) was sampled by means of several test pits. In 1948 intensive excavation was carried out at LS 12. In 1949 LS 12 was again intensively excavated by a small crew of students under the writer's direction. As of January, 1950 approximately one-quarter of the total surface of the Rock has been excavated, including excavation carried out in 1949 by Richard S. Hagen for the state of Illinois.
Early Man in the Maya Area
Authors: Coe, II William R.
Published: April 2006

The Maya area has yielded little in the way of Early Man, although certain discoveries, like that at Santa Isabel Iztapan (Aveleyra and Maldonado 1953), have unquestionably established hunters of now extinct fauna in the Valley of Mexico. In Guatemala only a peculiarly cut sloth bone suggests human co-existence with Upper Pleistocene fauna (Shook 1951: 93, 96). But, apart from these, one can only note two other finds, both made some years ago, one at Concepcion, Campeche, Mexico, the other in the Peten, Guatemala. These latter ‘discoveries have been treated in a few important studies as containing either sure or probable remnants of a fundamental, early Mesoamerican horizon. I strongly feel that before these particular finds achieve widespread acceptance, in print or otherwise, as except tionally ancient, they should be re-examined especially from the comparative standpoint.

The Concepción artifacts and those from the Peten were, for the most part, percussion-flaked flint implements, bifaced, usually with one end rounded, the other relatively pointed, and with unretouched edges, not unlike the Acheulian hand ax of Europe.
Kolomoki Burial Mounds and the Weeden Island Mortuary Complex
Authors: Sears William H.
Published: April 2006

Kolomoki is about six miles from the Chattahoochee River, in extreme southwestern Georgia. One of the larger southeastern sites, it covers approximately three hundred acres, including a rectangular truncated pyramidal temple mound 56 feet high, a plaza about 40 acres in extent, and 7 dome shaped mounds ranging in height from 4 to 20 feet. Three of the latter mounds have been excavated, two of which, D and E, were burial mounds and supplied parts of the data for this study (Sears, 1951b). The third excavated mound probably covered the site of a ceremonial structure and crematory area (Larsen, n.d.).
Microblades at Poverty Point Sites
Authors: Haag William G. , Webb Clarence H.
Published: April 2006

Until the past few years the Poverty Point horizon was known solely through its manifestation at the type site, Poverty Point Plantation, on Bayou Macon, West Carroll Parish, Louisiana. Webb (1944), in connection with the description of a cache of stone vessel fragments found near the large Poverty Point mound, pointed out the apparent cultural content of the site, which had previously been mentioned in archaeological literature by Moore (1913), Fowke (1928) and Ford (1936). In 1948, in a description of nonpottery cultures in the state, a further attempt was made (Webb, 1948) to clarify the Poverty Point cultural period as expressed at this site.
A Probable Paleo-Indian Site in Vermont
Authors: Ritchie William A.
Published: April 2006

Since the scientific recognition of a paleo-Indian occupation of the Southwest and high Plains, beginning with the Folsom discoveries in 1927 (Roberts, 1940), the presence of man in the eastern United States prior to the earliest demonstrated cultures of the Archaic period has been suspected on the evidence of random surface finds of fluted points. Some of these artifacts have typologically been equated with the Clovis Fluted form (Krieger, 1947, pp. 10-13), while the greater number, showing considerable stylistic variability, have provisionally been designated “Ohio Fluted points” (Shetrone, 1936, pp. 240-256; Wormington, 1949, pp. 33-35).
Burins from Central Alaska
Authors: Irving William
Published: April 2006

True burins that are directly comparable with a number of Old World types have recently appeared as prominent elements of a number of colleotions from the American arctic. Their areal distribution from Alaska (Giddings 1951) to Greenland (Knuth 1952; Meldgaard 1952) and possibly Labrador (Harp 1951: 215; 1953: 41), in a variety of coastal and inland sites, shows that the trait was not a novelty nor a figment of chance, but an integral part of several North American flint complexes. In certain instances, and particularly at the Alaskan sites, they are accompanied by other implements typologically similar to Old World Paleolithic and Mesolithic forms (Giddings 1951); elsewhere, they are found in complexes that may be more distinctively American (Knuth 1952; Meldgaard 1952; Harp 1951). Oddly enough, basal grinding, parallel flaking, fluted points, and other early American traits such as Oblique and Eden Yuma points, are more conspicuous in the “Mesolithic” Denbigh Flint complex than they are in stages found farther east, for which there is less evidence for close connections with the Old World. However, Harp reports a fluted point in a Newfoundland assemblage (1951: 209).
The Beginnings of Teotihuacán
Authors: Millon René
Published: April 2006

The problem of the age of the pyramids of the Sun and Moon at Teotihuacán is considered in the light of evidence from an extensive and hitherto unreported Tzacualli or Teotihuacán I occupation to the northwest of the Pyramid of the Moon. Material from a small excavation in this new zone is commented upon briefly. Previous analyses of the age of the pyramids are discussed in the context of the new evidence, the conclusion being that the Pyramid of the Sun and probably also the Pyramid of the Moon were built in the earliest phase of the occupation of Teotihuacán rather than later as commonly assumed. The relationships of the Tzacualli phase to other sites in the Valley of Mexico are discussed and it is concluded that the pyramids were probably built in about the last century before Christ or earlier. Since the building of these enormous pyramids implies a relatively complex level of social integration, this new level must have come into being some several hundred years or more before the building of the pyramids unless a large-scale migration was involved. For this it is contended there is no good evidence. Linné's new chronological placement of Tlamimilolpa before Xolalpan rather than after is discussed. Comments are made on the significance of this reversal of chronology for the growth of the city and for the expansion of its “influence” to other parts of Mesoamerica.
Nelson's Stratigraphy
Authors: Woodbury Richard B.
Published: April 2006

The immediate stimulus for N. C. Nelson's stratigraphic technique in the Galisteo Basin, New Mexico, was his participation in 1913 in Obermeier and Breuil's excavations in Castillo Cave, one of the most famous of the Spanish paleolithic sites.
Manuel Gamio and Stratigraphic Excavation
Authors: Adams Richard E.
Published: April 2006

Use of the stratigraphic technique in American archaeology would seem to have been initiated by Manuel Gamio in 1911 at Atzcapotzalco, Mexico.
Pueblo Social Organization and Southwestern Archaeology
Authors: Ellis Florence Hawley
Published: April 2006

One of the most encouraging signs that progress is actually being made in Southwestern archaeology is the appearance of several papers in which approximately the same answers have been reached by workers approaching the problem from different angles. The specific relationships of the modern Pueblo peoples to the various groups of the prehistoric past constitute one of the oldest queries for this region. It is now indeed satisfying to find that the theory of Pueblo origins with which Fred Eggan concludes his ethnological study, Social Organisation of the Western Pueblos (1950), largely aligns itself with Erik K. Reed's hypothesis, based on a broad summary of material traits (Reed, 1946, 1948, 1949a, 1949b, 1950), and my own suggestions, which parallel Reed's in the main, based on correlations of prehistoric and modern Pueblo kiva types and uses, related social organisations and pottery (Hawley, 1937, 1950a, 1950b,, 1951). Anthropologists are learning to work both ends against the middle!
The Oldest Sites of Northeast Siberia
Authors: Chard Chester S.
Published: April 2006

The following survey is intended to cover that portion of Asia lying nearest to the New World and hence presumably most closely related thereto historically and culturally — that is, the lower Lena basin and the region lying east of it, forming the northeastern extension of the continent. For the sake of precision we will set as limits the 110th meridian on the west and latitude 62°, roughly that of Yakutsk, on the south.

As in comparable regions of our own continent, vast portions of this area still remain archaeologically unknown. However, significant work has been done in recent years which merits the attention of Americanists, in particular that by A. P. Okladnikov along the Lena River.
Stratigraphic and Area Tests at the Emerald and Anna Mound Sites
Authors: Cotter John L.
Published: April 2006

The tests made at the Emerald mound site (MAd-5; also known as the Selzertown site) located on the proposed right-of-way of Natchez Trace Parkway twelve miles north of Natchez, Mississippi, were performed in order to salvage archaeological information and cultural materials along the route of roadway construction. The work was confined to two stratigraphic tests and one area test, the former on the primary mound and the latter in the area to the south of the primary mound assumed to have been a village site. By the area test it was hoped to demonstrate or disprove the existence of a village site associated with the great mound and to salvage data in the path of Parkway construction which was projected immediately south of the base of the primary mound. By the stratigraphic tests it was hoped that the cultural identity of the builders of the primary mound and the adjoining village site could be established.
Elaboration and Invention in Ceramic Traditions
Authors: Rands Robert L.
Published: April 2006

A significant working difference between the mode and type is seen to lie in the greater tendency of the former to reappear on different time levels. In part, this is because more opportunity exists for the chance reduplication of an isolated feature than for a group of integrated attributes. Consideration of the flange-and-ridge and the everted-rim traditions in Maya ceramics focuses attention on additional factors which may help to account for the reappearance of modes. The possibility is recognized of refuge zones where traits continued, later to diffuse back to the centers of the investigation. Primary theoretical consideration is given to the modification of traits through the elaboration of traditions and the possibility that this process sometimes led to the reinvention or resurgence of once popular forms. Such a process is based on the potter's wish to create something slightly different while working within the technico-stylistic bounds of a tradition. This may occasionally lead to a recombination of elements that approximate older forms (low level reinvention) or to a twist that imparts fresh interest to a dying form — hence renewed recognition of the mode by the investigator following its complete disappearance in his archaeological samples.
Changing Patterns of Territorial Organization in the Central Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico
Authors: Adams Robert M.
Published: April 2006

The results of seven months of archaeological reconnaissance in the Tzeltal-Tzotzil-speaking area of Chiapas are described. Occupation is found to have consisted only of a few, small, widely dispersed centers during the Preclassic period. During the latter part of the Early Classic period there is evidence of a considerable increase in population, and by Late Classic times nucleated ceremonial-dwelling centers were widely distributed on steep, easily defended headlands. Despite great variation in the size of individual settlements, it is argued that independent communities rather than regional coalitions were the prevailing form of socio-political organization. This pattern was replaced gradually during the Postclassic period by one in which more intensive use was made of the larger, more strategically located valleys. Closely spaced, functionally interdependent groups of communities emerged, and probably were increasingly subject to new and more coercive patterns of political, as well as religious, control. At the time of the Spanish conquest hostilities and trade with other Mesoamerican groups were increasing rapidly, but the region as a whole still remained relatively tarriant and isolated.
Ceramic Profiles in the Western Mound at Awatovi, Northeastern Arizona
Authors: Burgh Robert F.
Published: April 2006

Excavations in the Western Mound at this prehistoric Hopi pueblo provide 13 adjacent columns of refuse in masonry rooms which yielded 21,569 painted sherds. Stratigraphic analysis of these ceramic profiles has resulted in a relative chronology of five color classes of locally made painted pottery which will serve as a control for future ceramic studies at the site. Black-onwhite, black-on-orange, and orange-paste polychrome were made from about A.r>. 1200 to 1300 when they were abruptly replaced by black-on-yellow and yellow-paste polychrome. The differences between trash deposited in rooms and that dumped in the open, the anomalies of sherd and vessel quantities, and the well documented nature of this large sherd collection make possible observations on the problems of stratigraphic interpretation. Numerical comparison of painted sherds with vessels restored from them demonstrates the hazards of interpretation based solely on limited sherd samples. The fact that one of the rooms produced a sequence exactly the reverse of the situation in the other 12 rooms emphasizes the need for more extensive testing in room blocks than in trash dumps. Restoration of vessels from sherds found at different levels in different rooms shows the inadequacy of chronological inference based on stratigraphic position of unassembled sherds.
Ancient Mesoamerican Mortars, Plasters, and Stuccos: Palenque, Chiapas
Authors: Littmann Edwin R.
Published: April 2006

Chemical and microscopic analyses of material from eight structures at Palenque show that mortars, plasters, stuccos, wash coats, and lime-aggregates were used as building units, and extend the distribution of limeaggregate, known also at Comalcalco, Las Flores, and Uxmal.
Comments on Rydén's Review of Heyerdahl and Skjölsvold
Authors: Evans Clifford
Published: April 2006

The purpose of a review of a scientific monograph is twofold: 1) to give a brief summary of the contents, organization, methodology, and main conclusions of the work; and 2) to comment critically on its contribution in the light of the author's aims and techniques. Unfortunately, the recent review by Stig Rydén (1958, American Antiquity, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 88-9) of Heyerdahl and Skjölsvold, Archaeological Evidence of Pre-Spanish Visits to the Galápagos Islands does not serve either of these purposes.
Modern Cuicatec Use of Prehistoric Sacrificial Knives
Authors: Holland William R. , Weitlaner Robert J.
Published: April 2006

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.
Nels C. Nelson and Chronological Archaeology
Authors: Woodbury Richard B.
Published: April 2006

A series of papers at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, in Salt Lake City in 1959, was devoted to Developments in Dating Techniques, and dedicated to Nels C. Nelson in recognition of his pioneering role in establishing the technique of stratigraphic excavation in America. During his work in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico in 1914 he dug a series of ten 1-foot levels, classified all the sherds found in them into seven types, and calculated their frequencies by levels. These resembled sections of normal distribution curves, and demonstrated that statistical analysis of data from arbitrary levels could reveal chronological change just as could data from physically distinct strata. Within a few years this technique was employed by several other archaeologists and it continues to the present to be an indispensable technique of investigation.
Bull Brook — A Fluted Point Site in Ipswich, Massachusetts
Authors: Byers Douglas S.
Published: April 2006

The Bull Brook Site, near Ipswich, Mass., was discovered in the spring of 1951 by William C. Eldridge, of East Lynn, and Joseph Vaccaro, of Beverly, Massachusetts. Both are members of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. A brief notice of the site appeared over their names (Eldridge and Vaccaro, 1952). The site was worked by them, with the assistance of Nicola, Frank, and Tony Vaccaro, Alfred Thibodeau, Tony Orsini, E. E. Tizzer, Howard A. Jones, and Douglas Jordan. The last named is preparing a more extensive account of the site and analysis of the collections obtained from it.

The site lay on the south side of Bull Brook, and was situated on a kame terrace jutting into a salt marsh (Fig. 90, c). Its surface was approximately 40 feet above sea level. This deposit has been worked for sand and gravel, and the site is to all intents and purposes destroyed.
An Unusual Masonry Wall in a Kayenta Anasazi Cliff Site
Authors: Euler Robert C.
Published: April 2006

Located in deep, narrow limestone canyons draining into the Little Colorado River in the vicinity of Wupatki Basin in northern Arizona are numerous small masonrywalled cliff ruins. While these were apparently occupied at the same time as the large pueblos now included within the boundaries of Wupatki National Monument, they are little known and have not previously been reported upon except in the archaeological surveys of the Museum of Northern Arizona.

One of these sites, N.A.3940, situated with a southern exposure some fifty feet above the floor of Antelope Canyon, is of interest in that the masonry courses are laid in beds of grass rather than with the usual adobe mortar. The ruin itself is located in a shallow overhang in the Kaibab limestone cliff and contains but three small rooms. In no place do the walls remain standing over three feet, and along the front they have almost completely deteriorated. On the surface of the fill inside the rooms only a few corn cobs and four sherds were found.
Comment on Dempsey and Baumhoff's “The Statistical Use of Artifact Distributions to Establish Chronological Sequence”
Authors: Lipe William D.
Published: April 2006

Because of its dependence on presence-and-absence counts, the Dempsey-Baumhoff ordering technique may not be as useful as the Robinson technique in two kinds of situations: (1) when artifact mixture has occurred, and (2) when the types used are based on continuously varying attributes and overlap one another to some extent because of normal variation in the attributes.
Implications of Vegetal Remains from an Illinois Hopewell Site
Authors: Struever Stuart
Published: April 2006

Chenopodium seeds from Illinois Hopewell and Eastern Woodland contexts are described and discussed in terms of a hypothesis of a separate center of plant domestication in the East. Evidence for the role of plant foods in northern Hopewell subsistence is reviewed. Use of more refined field procedures for recovery of plant remains is recommended.
An Experimental Approach to the Function of Classic Maya Chultuns
Authors: Puleston Dennis E.
Published: April 2006

Experimental techniques have provided an exciting breakthrough for the functional analysis of Mayachultuns. While deep cistern-likechultuns, common at certain sites in the northern lowlands, have been shown to be functional for water storage, smaller lateral-chamberedchultunscharacteristic 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.