Solid core drilling was used to provide guidelines for future excavation of Monks Mound at the Cahokia site. The objective was to study, within reasonable limits of time and finances, the internal structure of the largest earthen mound in North America. The process is described along with a discussion of its problems and limitations as applied to similar archaeological situations. Radiocarbon dates indicate construction over approximately 250 years, from A.D. 900 to 1150. Evidence of construction stages is described and used to arrive at an estimate of labor figures and the necessary sustaining population of the Cahokia settlement. It is suggested that most of the mounds at the site were built after the completion of Monks Mound.

A Late Prehistoric period buffalo kill and butchering site in northern Wyoming (Site 48 JO 312) produced a large number of stone tools. Flakes removed in sharpening stone tools provided much of the interpretation of the activity that occurred at the site and in addition gave a number of ideas concerning tool use and sharpening.

Edge-angle measurements from 1,448 Paleo-Indian stone artifacts are presented. The relationships between edge-angle size and differential functional applications are explored. Differences in angle size distributions are found to characterize distal and lateral edges. General categories of functional effectiveness are suggested for different angle size ranges. The utilized edges of tools with different angle sizes are found to exhibit different types of wear, and these differences are considered to be indicative of different functional operations.

The use of native copper in some prehistoric cultures of North America was both extensive and technically skillful. The remains of pits sunk into every major native copper lode in the Lake Superior region (Griffin 1961; Drier and DuTemple 1961: 16; Quimby 1960: 52-63; West 1929) show that the material was mined in quantity. Float copper, found on the surface, was also used. The Indians appreciated some of the properties of copper and made use of these in shaping tools, weapons, and ornaments of high-quality workmanship. Figure 1 shows typical examples of the thousands of beautifully shaped native copper artifacts which have been found in mid-North America. The development of metallurgical techniques is usually supposed to follow a progression of hammering, annealing, melting the native metal, smelting ores, casting, and alloying. Curiously enough, the techniques of copper working in North America evolve only through the hammering and annealing stages, and apparently they remained at this level for centuries. In this paper the authors examine some of the metallurgical properties of the artifacts and the native copper from which they were made.

Vista Shelter, on the northwestern margin of the Ozark Highlands in southwestern Missouri, is identified as a hunting station of the prehistoric Mississippian Steed-Kisker focus. This shelter, suitably located for the exploitation of water-dwelling, forest, and prairie-dwelling species, was used by small groups engaged in deer and bison hunts in prairie areas far removed from their riverine settlements near present-day Kansas City. The bone frequencies at the site suggest that animals were killed nearby, cuts of meat were taken to the shelter and processed, and dried meat was returned home. This hunting station helps explain the rarity of refuse bone in the permanent villages, since many animals were butchered and processed far from the home villages. These conclusions are related to prairie and plains hunting and butchering patterns, and the significance of food bone in archaeological sites is thereby emphasized.

The need for a more flexible index for radiocarbon dates with shorter retrieval times has led to a suggestion for the development of an electronic or punch-card data retrieval system. A suggested format for coding radiocarbon data on punch cards and two techniques for the rapid retrieval of desired information are discussed.

Recent excavation by the Museum of Northern Arizona has provided a basis for a review of the prehistory of the poorly known region of the central Little Colorado basin of northeastern Arizona. A regional sequence of considerable complexity is established beginning with a Clovis-Folsom horizon and culminating in Pueblo IV (see Table 1). An amalgam of Anasazi and Mogollon traditions with a dominant Kayenta base is apparent as early as Basketmaker III. The introduction of Little Colorado White ware, beginning about A.D. 1075, signals the beginning of the Winslow branch, a distinguishable regional Anasazi variant, lasting until the abandonment of much of this desert region in the mid-13th century. The archaeological distinctiveness of the region is apparently due to its location between the Anasazi and Mogollon area and the necessary adaptations to the arid, basin environment.

Using data from a 100-room 13th-century Pueblo ruin in east-central Arizona, it is tentatively demonstrated that pollen evidence can be useful in dating areas within “single-component” sites and in determining the within-site locations of prehistoric activities or functions.

Very few stone fishing sinkers are reported in the archaeological literature pertaining to the western Great Basin. It has been apparent for quite some time, however, that stone fishing sinkers are frequently found by amateurs surface collecting in the Lahontan Basin. This paper describes 17 such specimens from a private collection of nearly 300. All 17, of which there are five major types, were collected on the shores of Pyramid Lake, a living remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan, located about 30 mi. northeast of Reno, Nevada. Pending further study of excavated types, it is suggested that the five types reported in this paper are referable to either the Lovelock (ca. 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1400) or to Paiute (post-A.D. 1400) horizons in western Nevada.

Excavations in four sites on the central part of the Gulf of Chiriqui, in Panama, have yielded a series of ceramic types and ceramic modes which serve to establish a sequence of phases covering the period between A.D. 300 and the “Classic” Chiriqui culture. An attempt is made in this article to relate this sequence to previous occupations in Chiriqui and to other sequences in the Central Panamanian provinces and in Costa Rica.

The well-known archaeological site at Ancon, Peru, represents the timespan from preceramic through the end of the Formative period. Recent investigations have permitted definition of five ceramic phases, of which Ancon C is of particular interest here because it marks the appearance of zoned and unzoned painted decoration. These techniques were added to the preexisting ceramic complex, characterized by limited frequency of decoration by incision. A burial equating with Ancon C contained a variety of grave goods, including a complete olla with zoned red decoration, covered with a basket and containing among other objects a wooden figurine with articulated arms. The estimated date is around 1200 B.C. These associations expand the definition of the cultural complex on the central Peruvian coast in the pre-Chavin period and raise questions about the origin and diffusion of the traits, which have also been reported from Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Mesoamerica.

Interest in the use of microscopes for the analysis of lithic technology and functional interpretations has increased in recent years. Some minerals and rocks are more suitable than others for these studies. In order to communicate the observations made through the microscope, the archaeologist can use the microscope to take photomicrographs using relatively simple and inexpensive equipment.

The possibility of mistaking natural fractured flint stones for artifacts has always been problematic to researchers in the Old World and the New World. This problem increases ten-fold when artifact-like assemblages are collected from heaps of nonindigenous stone which was brought to the New World as ballast. Such a ballast station consisting of flint from the Thames in England and deposited in New Rochelle, New York, is described, and its ramifications are discussed.

Recent opinions as to the size and character of ancient Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, vary greatly. On the basis of published information, it is impossible to assess these important aspects of the site. A two-day survey during November, 1966, strongly suggests a true urban character for Middle horizon Tiahuanaco. At that time the urban core covered approximately 2.4 km2. A range of population between 5,200 and 10,500, and possibly up to 20,000 people, is suggested. Tiahuanaco’s strategic location with respect to three major environmental zones is regarded as a crucial factor in the site’s economic and political importance.

The Peters-Albrecht site in the upper Delaware Valley in Pennsylvania has yielded a radiocarbon date of 1720 B.C. ± 100 (Y-1826) for the Lehigh complex of the Transitional period. This is the earliest date for this complex, and it poses some problems of correlation with respect to the Late Archaic sequence in New York. Regional manifestations of the Transitional period are discussed.

Graphemes T-757 and T-788 (Thompson 1962) are identified as a single sign representing a rodent. Intermediate forms are cited, the use of the sign in glyph T-1.60:757 is discussed, and its substitution for T-501 is noted. It is suggested that before Thompson’s catalog can be successfully used for statistical comparisons it needs to be converted to a catalog of signs by investigations of the use of the individual graphemes in context.

Five objects from Mexico and Guatemala, thought to be replicas of ball-game paraphernalia, are described and illustrated. They seem to fit into a pattern of other small-sized reproductions from the region and were perhaps intended for ritual use.

The SI-RBS trinomial system of site designation which indicated the state by a number taken from its position in the alphabetical list of states should be amended due to admission of Alaska and Hawaii. Since a change must be made, it is proposed that the state reference not be its numerical-alphabetical list position, but the official U.S. Post Office two-letter state abbreviation.

Ford"s conclusions that a substantial reevaluation of New World prehistory is required are not fully justified. In the first place, the Valdivia complex has not clearly been shown to be the source for all New World ceramics. Second, the comparisons of Valdivia and Jomon potsherds are not so tightly controlled as Ford indicates. Given the great variety of ceramic decoration in Japan, it is not surprising that many similarities should exist. In addition, the question of ceramic origins is confused with the origins of Neolithic and the question of long-range culture contact.