Sequences of preceramic cultures or well-defined artifact assemblages are now known for the Ecuadorian highlands, the central and southern highlands of Peru, the entire coast of Peru, western and southwestern Bolivia, northern Chile, highland Argentina, Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego. The known lithic industries of the area can be organized into a scheme of five periods, based on the long sequence at Lauricocha in the central Peruvian highlands and defined by the occurrence of widely diffused artifact types. Periods I and II, estimated at 10,000-8000 B.C. and 8000-6000 B.C., are known only from scattered finds of hunting camps. The earliest evidence of seed-grinding tools and field-stone house foundations is found in central Argentina and north Chile during Period III, 6000-3000 B.C. While nomadic hunters continued to occupy the southern part of the continent until historic times, agriculture was well established in Peru during Period IV (3000-1200 B.C.). Period V, from 1200 B.C. until the extinction of the stone-using Indians of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in the 20th century, saw the introduction of ceramics to Peru and the southward spread of agriculture, pottery-making, and related activities to Chile and Argentina.

Although the archaeology of the “Eskimo” area need not be that of Eskimos, groups of people, by whatever name they are called, have lived continuously for at least 4000 years in Greenland, around the northern rim of Hudson Bay, on the American side of Bering Strait, and probably around the Pacific shores of Southwest Alaska. Shorter sequences of continuous occupation are known in many parts of the range, including St. Lawrence Island. Meaningful cross-analyses may be made from the coastal or near-coastal sites in which are preserved house, tent, burial, and cache remains, and sometimes whole villages. Sites of the interior are usually accumulations of projectile points and cutting-tools at game crossings, though some, for example, Firth River, Anaktuvuk Pass, and Dismal Lake, afford limited stratigraphy or means of seriation.

A sequence of cultural phases, perhaps those of two regional traditions, is emerging in the Bering Strait region. With this region as a focus, nine horizons are considered, beginning with the earliest: (1) Palisades I and British Mountain; (2) Palisades II, Tuktu, and Denali Highway; (3) Denbigh Flint complex and other microblade sites; (4) Old Whaling culture; (5) Choris, Early Aleut, Kachemak Bay I, and Sarqaq; (6) Norton and Dorset; (7) Okvik, Ipiutak, and Kachemak Bay II; (8) Old Bering Sea and Birnirk; (9) Punuk, Western Thule, and Thule. The two traditions are: (1) Palisades I, Palisades II, to Old Whaling culture, based on a distinctive flint-working technique, and later, the hafting of notched flints to wooden shafts; (2) Denbigh Flint complex, Battle Rock, Ipiutak, to Birnirk, based on side blading and engraving styles. The second of these American traditions parallels in its later period at least the Okvik to Birnirk tradition of the Asian side of the Bering Strait.

The earliest evidence consists of crude chopper-tools and percussion bifacing, followed much later by notched points, then successively by the combination of micro-blades, side-blades, and burins; whaling and deep-house building; pottery and the first midden mounds; elaboration of engraved art and ceremony; and finally by a specialized but utilitarian “Eskimo” form of culture. Minor climatic changes and related shifts in the food supply account for some of the shifts of cultural emphasis through time.

This prehistoric Pueblo III community consists of 14 sites with evidence of efforts to control water and soil on or near the delta formed by Beaver Creek, an intermittent tributary of the San Juan which flows through Cha Canyon draining a watershed of about 16 square miles on the northern slopes of Navajo Mountain. The small house units, kivas, terraces, linear and grid borders, ditches, windscreens, and possible cisterns or walled-in springs were built by Anasazi people of Kayenta affiliation from the adjacent Rainbow Plateau who occupied the canyon lands probably seasonally during the 12th century. The terraces and linear and grid borders are comparable to those found at Point of Pines in east-central Arizona. The stone-lined ditches span sandy surfaces between the steep gravel slopes and the arable alluvial sediments transporting water to areas which could not be farmed without irrigation. Notched stones set at right angles to the ditches served to keep the water in the ditches at grade so that it could be diverted through tapered-stone turn-out gates to terraced and stone-bordered fields. Rows of rock built on high ground and counter to prevailing winds deflected the wind, stopped blowing sand, protected soil moisture, and reduced sand-blasting of plants. This apparently successful use of the canyon lands which was based on careful exploitation of local ecological conditions lasted about 100 years. It was terminated by increasingly dry conditions which lowered the level of the San Juan and caused tributaries such as Beaver Creek to cut the alluvial sediments used for farming. About 1900 Paiute and Navajo groups moved into the area, using it for some farming during the 1930's, but currently only for forage and water.

This early Pueblo III site in the Little Rincon of the Colorado River, about 17 river miles downstream from Hite, Utah, is the first site with an irrigation system of any kind to be noted in the upper Glen Canyon. It is most closely linked to the Kayenta branch of the Anasazi culture. It is unusual because of its distance from any center of cultural development and because of the complexity of the irrigation system. This system consists of a large masonry reservoir filled by an internal spring and drained by a metering gate and a slab-lined tunnel into a canal or ditch which was traced for 30 feet. Two possible gates were noted on the downslope side of the canal. Many notched slabs, which were possibly used as canal gates, were located in the reservoir area, but were not definitely associated with other features. Only two dwellings were located. Post-occupational erosion has changed surface contours and erased the possible connection between the reservoir and canal and the fields. The water supply is probably more limited now than at the time of occupation.

Caves in the western foothills of the Altai Mountains have long been known, and collections of Pleistocene fauna were made a century ago in caves in the middle reaches of the Charysh River which rises in the snow-covered Kargon range on the central Altai. The cave near the village of Ust'-Kan in the upper reaches of the Charysh River, which was discovered and excavated in 1954, is the first Siberian cave site of Paleolithic age to be investigated. The deposits contained a rich and varied fauna including 17 species of mammals and 12 of birds. Of special interest are the extinct spiral-horned antelope and cave hyena. This is the first Paleolithic site at which the yak has been found. This faunal assemblage is typical of a steppe region such as the dry, unforested Central Asiatic tablelands, and is quite distinct from the postglacial fauna from the known open sites of the Siberian Paleolithic in the Yenisei, Angara, and Trans-Baikal regions. The occupation of the site is dated by the fauna to the warm phase just preceding the last Altai glaciation. The artifacts exhibit the massive and archaic characteristics typical of the Siberian Paleolithic in general, but differ completely from artifacts at previously known Late Paleolithic sites considered to be contemporaneous with the European Magdalenian and later. The Ust'-Kanskaia tool assemblage is in the Mousterian tradition and may be related to the Levalloiso-Mousterian developments in neighboring Central Asia. Comparative artifact and faunal studies also suggest correlations with the Upper Paleolithic of the Ordos and the ancient cultures of Southeast Asia.

The excavation of two structures in 1959 showed that the end of the Classic came suddenly at the end of Benque Viejo IIIb. One building, probably a palace, had completely collapsed and buried Benque Viejo IIIb pottery; the other, probably residential, was badly damaged at the end of Benque Viejo IIIb and its ruins were reoccupied in Benque Viejo IV, probably by local peasants. No attempt to reconstruct either building was made and this, with the nature of the post-destruction occupation of one of them, suggests that the whole of Period IV was Postclassic. The severe damage to both structures seems to imply that an earthquake hit this center at the end of Period IIIb and the geology of the area supports this idea. The fact that the Classic had disappeared after this event suggests that an earth tremor could actually have caused the collapse of the authority of the hierarchy at this site. At Uaxactún and San José the Classic continued well into the final phase at each site, equivalent to Benque Viejo IV, so it seems that the old order at Benque Viejo declined some time before that at the other two sites. It is therefore possible that the abrupt and unusual fashion of the decline at Benque Viejo, whatever its cause, played a significant part in the end of the Classic culture at some neighboring centers.

The question is frequently asked: How would a change in the half-life of C14 affect the Maya calendar correlations? The optimum “effective” half-life value for this era, as determined by the Pennsylvania measurements of contemporaneous samples of known age, and, as pointed out by Satterthwaite and Ralph (1960), is, by coincidence, very close to the Libby half-life (5568±30 years). Nevertheless, a change in the value of the half-life of C14 would not necessarily change the “effective” half-life, and, on the basis of present data, no change should be made in the University of Pennsylvania dating of the Maya calendar correlation samples.

Archaeological excavations in certain New World areas, such as Mesoamerica, yield great volumes of potsherd refuse. When the purpose of excavation is primarily chronological or sequential, there is reason to save, classify, and tabulate total excavated collections of sherds from stratigraphic cuts; but when the principal use of pottery debris is for gross dating of architectural or settlement features, it is debatable if the same detailed counting procedures are necessary. Examples from the Maya Lowlands are cited and reference is also made to procedures in handling large quantities of ceramic material in Middle Eastern archaeology. The question is left open for comment.

Most keys that are designed for use in identifying mammal skulls discuss and figure the skulls and dentitions of mature adults only. In some groups, particularly carnivores, there is considerable variation from the deciduous teeth of the young to the worn dentitions of the old adult. A series covering this age group, of the North American Raccoon, Procyon lotor is figured and discussed.

The presence of a fluted point on an island in Chesapeake Bay is explained in terms of a lowered sea level during the time of the Early Man occupation of the area. This study is offered as an example of the value of the use of eustatic oscillations in the study of early prehistoric remains in maritime regions.

An unreported group of petroglyphs, all versions of a single "horseshoe" symbol carved in high relief, occur on an isolated volcanic peak. The more realistic ones appear to represent female genitalia and the rest seem to be more abstract versions of the same motif. Archaeological investigation has disclosed similar motifs in Southern California and ethnological research has turned up clues in the literature suggesting that the same "horseshoe" symbol survived until recently as a magical element in the Diegueño girls’ initiation ceremony.

The inked-roller technique used to obtain “surface prints” of Chavín carvings, many of which have been discovered only recently, is described, and twelve prints or rubbings of these carvings and one of the Raimondi stela are illustrated.