This paper re-examines the thesis, which still persists in some quarters, that limited surface-water supplies, scarcity of through-flowing streams, a generally harsh environment, and shortage of wood for tipi poles, stakes, and fuel, because they precluded year-round occupation of the High Plains, would also have made regular seasonal residence and through-travel by pedestrians extremely difficult or impossible. A review of historic Indian occupation and natural resources, notably distribution and nature of the water supplies, suggests that seasonal residence patterns were entirely feasible for prehorse Indians, and that travel in and through the region, except in times of severe drought or winter storms, would have been practicable for experienced plainsmen, even on foot. The potential significance to archaeology of the larger perennial springs in and around the shortgrass country is noted.

Check-stamped potsherds have been found at 50 sites on the Plains, and a check-stamped paddle of bone is reported from one site. These sites are found in a large area that extends from central Kansas northward into Saskatchewan and from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to eastern North Dakota. The sites have been attributed by various writers to the Blackfoot, Crow, Hidatsa, Cree, Mandan, Pawnee, Ponca, Wichita, and Kansa. In most of these sites the check-stamped potsherds have a low frequency, and only at a few Hidatsa and Mandan sites do they predominate. As all check-stamped pottery from this area is assignable to the period of A.D. 1500 to 1845, check-stamped specimens may be used as diagnostic artifacts for the late prehistoric and early historic period.

Collections from an unusual cave site in the Peruvian Montaña near Tingo María are placed on record along with the circumstances under which they were obtained. The ceramic materials seem to represent two components. The more common of these, designated Cave of the Owls Fine Ware, would appear to have been contemporary with Kotosh II in the Huánuco Basin and with Late Tutishcainyo of the long ceramic sequence established for Yarinacocha near Pucallpa. A date of around 200 or 300 B.C. is suggested. The other ceramics, designated Monzón Coarse Ware, show strong similarities to the later part of the Yarinacocha sequence and probably date after A.D. 1000.

A human skull found in a peat deposit in Oakland County, Michigan, is dated at approximately 5000 B.C. by pollen analysis. The skull is morphologically similar to other early skeletal finds, and it is suggested that it may be classed with Neumann's Otamid variety.

Technological analysis of ceramic materials from the early phases of the Lower Mississippi area indicates that Tchula pottery is untempered, and this throws doubt upon the concept of a fiber-tempered horizon in the Southeast. Certain recommendations are made for technological studies which include the use of close-up photography during the study and in the final report.

Several currents of anthropological research specialization are historically important for the development of a modern approach to the study of ancient, complex societies. These currents are: (a) Taylor's conjunctive approach; (b) developmentalism; (c) settlement-pattern studies; (d) human ecology; and (e) urbanization studies. A case study of the writer's “dirt archaeology” approach in the Valley of Mexico indicates the nature of sampling, as well as typological and basic theory problems encountered in studying complex societies. This sort of field work and interpretation implies need for a new kind of basic field-observational work oriented to a theory of ancient social structure and utilizing techniques of intradisciplinary team research.

This question, which was answered affirmatively as early as 1716 by the missionary Velarde and more recently by some archaeologists, is reviewed in terms of trend and tradition through the archaeological and ethnographic sequence, ceramic, architectural, and other comparisons, the acculturational history of Pimas and Yumans, the broader context of the postcontact period, and the complete lack of archaeological evidence for the prehistoric Pima. The concept of a Hohokam-Pima continuum is accepted, although aboriginal Pima culture is seen as a product of multiple cultural influences.

Under the classic Bryan-Antevs model the climatic history of the Southwest has been divided into (1) pluvial, (2) early postpluvial or Anathermal, (3) mid-postpluvial or Altithermal, (4) late postpluvial or Medithermal. Pollen analysis of radiocarbon-dated pluvial deposits shows that the desert grassland of southern Arizona and the short grassland of the Texas High Plains were invaded by a pine forest or pine savanna during the last pluvial period. Sulphur Spring-age alluvial deposits at Double Adobe, dated as pluvial in age by Sayles and Antevs, do not contain the pine-pollen record associated with pluvial conditions elsewhere; six radiocarbon dates from deep alluvial deposits at Double Adobe range from 7756 to 9350 years B.P. On the basis of pollen content and radiocarbon-age estimates, the beds are of early postpluvial rather than pluvial age, and thus the Sulphur Spring-stage artifacts found there are also early postpluvial in age.

Under the Bryan-Antevs model the Altithermal, 7500-4000 B.P., is considered an especially hot, dry period. Sediments associated with three radiocarbon dates within this interval contain slightly more pollen of mesic and hygric indicators than do sediments postdating the Altithermal. Interpreting the results literally, the Altithermal was wetter, not hotter and drier, than at present. The limitations of pollen analysis are not fully understood. But the traditional view of a hot, dry Altithermal in southern Arizona cannot be verified from fossil pollen evidence available to date.

Samples were collected from four excavations and three muskegs for palynological examination in connection with a study of human prehistory in the Naknek drainage area, upper Alaska Peninsula. The purpose was to reconstruct the sequence of environments dating back to the earliest recognizable cultural phase, close to 4000 B.P. Pollen diagrams for muskeg show birch and alder as the principal arboreal types. Increasing percentages of alder occur during a late interval of hypsithermal time dating about 5500 B.P. Birch thereafter gained in proportion and between approximately 5000 and 2500 B.P. achieved maxima. Subsequently percentages of birch declined. Pollen spectra disclose that migration of spruce from the interior into this area took place within recent centuries. A climate cooler and drier than at present is interpreted from the diagrams to have been in effect during the earliest cultural phase and probably lasted until about 2500 B.P. Later, climate became slowly warmer and increasingly more humid. Temperature, however, was at first lower than at present and, coupled with greater precipitation, presumably caused heavy snow accumulation in the Aleutian Range which resulted in glacial advances during recent centuries.

Thirty-one percussion-shaped tools from the San Dieguito complex of the southern California middens have been examined. On 30 of these tools facets apparently corresponding to several regions of the thumb and the first two fingers of the right hand have been identified, as well as clearance and rake angles at the cutting edges corresponding closely to those on modern cutting tools. One of the tools seems to have been intended for left-handed usage. The evidence indicates that these tools were shaped with great precision to fit the hand and to have efficient cutting edges. Statistics on the length of the facets and the mass and height of the tools, as well as on the angles of the working edges, are given.

The conch shell figured on the Temple of Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacán, is Turbinella angulata, the West Indian Chank. This species is closely related to the “Sacred Chank” of India, a shell which figures prominently in Hindu mythology, religion, and art. This finding may be interpreted as one more bit of evidence for transpacific influences on prehistoric Mesoamerican culture.

The largest sculptured monument in Mexico is the unfinished Idolo de Coatlichán, which weighs 197 metric tons and lies in the bottom of a barranco near Texcoco, where it was abandoned by its makers. The Idolo is made of a huge boulder of andesite, which is the same material from which the Diosa de Agua (also stylistically related), found at Teotihuacán, was carved. A tentative attempt is made to compute the number of workers required to transport the finished monument.

A small ruin of presumed ancient Maya origin is described. This ruin is the only certain prehistoric structure discovered on the Mountain Pine Ridge of British Honduras, and it is associated with a natural granite outcrop of monumental appearance in such a way as to suggest that the two formed a shrine of a type not previously reported in Lowland Maya archaeology.

Starting with a similarity between an Olmec design and a specimen from Kotosh, Coe concludes that all New World civilizations derive from Olmec. This study, like others which would derive Peruvian civilization from Mesoamerican origins, is methodologically weak because it treats traits out of their archaeological context and because it assumes diffusion without considering alternative explanations of similarities.

The maize design on a bottle from Kotosh is unusual for its time and place in its choice of subject matter and mode of depiction, and a previous statement that the motif might be of Olmec origin is defended. Lanning's attack on past arguments for early diffusion from Mesoamerica to Peru is countered by questioning (a) the role of the Intermediate area and lowland South America as alternative sources for the observed similarities, (b) the nature of unpublished data, (c) the age of the architectural complex at Las Haldas, (d) the likelihood of establishing final “proofs” or full chronological contexts, and (e) the reasoning of the “wait-until-all-the-facts-are-in” school. It is proposed that hypotheses are not assumptions but concepts subject to change which are ever attempting to explain large bodies of data. Such a hypothesis is that which originates New World civilization on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, and a revision of this hypothesis is made which accounts for the Chavin civilization as the result of a fusion of intrusive Olmec art and religion with an older, native-Peruvian tradition based on fabric construction and the worship of the condor and serpent.

In the Nathan Cummings collection, Chicago, is a copper knife from Peru with an incised design depicting the Mochica-style cat headdress often shown in vase paintings and on modeled figure jars. The knife is similar in form to weapons carried by warriors shown in vase paintings; these weapons are probably knives rather than axes.

A statistical examination of Paleo-Indian projectile points and bases from the Holcombe (Michigan) and Scharbauer (Texas) sites shows that basal modification, thinning to fluting, is distributed throughout the range of thickness. It is possible that fluted points were considerably thicker before fluting, but this is untestable and, since the present populations have a normal distribution, seems unlikely.

The Torrington skeletal material owes its suspected antiquity to its osteologic similarity to Minnesota Man. A recent study of the Torrington remains, based on laboratory analysis and grave artifacts, indicates that these burials are of late prehistoric age. These results reveal the danger of using morphological comparison, without supporting evidence, to establish chronological relationships.