Although archaeologists have experimented with computers since the early 1960s, with a few exceptions, the concept of an archaeological data bank has not been readily accepted. The authors believe that data banks can be usable tools, but that they will be used only if they are designed to satisfy realistic and precisely defined needs, and only if adequate consideration is given to data structures, human problems, and theoretical issues. Just finding the right computer system is not enough.

This group is characterized by low, domed shaped mounds located on the higher ridges and bluffs, and by village sites located on the second terraces in the bottoms adjacent to all weather springs and the larger creeks.

The outline submitted is based upon mound excavations and surface work in the village sites done on vacations and week-ends over a period of eleven years. No village site excavations have been made because they are all located in fields that are in crops during the time of year that excavation is possible. Thirty-four mounds have been opened and the thirty-fifth is about one-half completed at this time. Fourteen elevations that proved not to be burial mounds have been worked. It is of interest to note that none of these contained any limestone slabs or unworked mussel shells, while all mounds containing burials did contain these two items.

M-shaped eccentrics at Teotihuacan and Tula are interpreted as being the trilobal element, a symbol for water and blood. This element, represented in chipped stone, mural art, and low relief carving at both sites, argues for considerable cultural continuity between Teotihuacan and Tula. Not only the symbol, but to some degree its socio-ideological context, must have persisted from Teotihuacan times into the late Toltec period.

About eight years ago there was discovered in the valley of the Little Colorado River between Hoi brook and Cameron in northern Arizona, evidence of an ancient alluvial terrace. Sand and waterworn pebbles largely derived from the Triassic Shinarump Conglomerate that once covered the area, form the deposit. The terrace which was formed by the gravels is now much dissected and remains only as the isolated flat tops of hills and ridges, the surfaces of which are covered with a desert pavement of waterworn pebbles. There are remnants also of later and lower alluvial deposits containing angular fragments of rock, of which a large proportion is made up of basaltic rocks from the San Francisco Peaks (Fig. 22).

This paper presents a major portion of the existing data concerning the Weeden Island complex of the Florida Gulf Coast. The most important sources of these data are the writings of the late Clarence B. Moore which deal with the results of several years of investigation of northwest and west Florida and adjacent regions. In the course of these investigations, Moore surveyed and excavated well over one hundred sites along this coast. Sources of secondary importance are various smaller exploration reports of S. T. Walker, F. H. Cushing, J. W. Fewkes, M. W. Stirling, and the present writer. In addition, available but unpublished notes and collections on Florida and reports dealing with geographically and culturally related areas of the Southeast were consulted.

The discovery and development of metal as a tool medium is a topic of global interest. A fundamental research goal involves establishing the timing of human experimentation with naturally occurring copper ore, which is commonly associated with sedentary, agrarian-based societies. However, in North America, there is well-documented millennia-scale exploitation of copper as tool media by small, seasonally mobile hunter-gatherer groups in the western Great Lakes. Archaeologists have suggested that Late Paleoindian groups may have begun using copper as a tool medium almost immediately after they entered the Lake Superior basin. However, only a few radiocarbon dates support such early use of copper. Here, we use optimal linear estimation modeling to infer the origin date for copper tool production in North America. Our results show that the invention of copper as a tool media likely occurred shortly after the first pioneering populations encountered copper ore during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. The origin dates modeled here (ca. 8100 RCYBP) reveal several important features about the behavior of pioneering hunter-gatherer populations. Moreover, our results suggest that this phenomenon represents the earliest known use of metal for utilitarian copper tool production.

A compound is described which has been used in the field for consolidation of bone, shell, stone, pottery, fabric, and so forth. It has also been used in the laboratory with satisfactory results. This preparation can be applied to damp materials in the ground and allows for the preservation of otherwise nonrecoverable items. The ease of preparation and application makes it useful without requiring special training. The compound is water soluble and, importantly, the treatment is reversible, so that if different treatment is desired in the future the compound can be removed.

Radiocarbon dating of charcoal samples and a re-examination of the artifacts from the Volcanic Debris layer in Ventana Cave were conducted in 1992-1994. The goal of this research was to better understand the chronological position and cultural affinities of the Ventana Complex, the name applied to the assemblage recovered from the Volcanic Debris. Ten new Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) 14C ages suggest that the Volcanic Debris accumulated between approximately 8800 B.P. and 10,500 B.P., and the lack of stratigraphic ordering of the dates indicates that the Volcanic Debris was subjected to considerable turbation as it accumulated. This turbation may have led to the incorporation of bones of extinct fauna from an underlying conglomerate deposit rich in horse remains, creating the impression of their association with artifacts. The artifacts are probably the product of episodic, special-purpose occupations spanning centuries or millennia. Technological and morphological studies of the stone tools indicate few similarities with classic Paleoindian industries, and greater similarities to early Holocene Archaic occupations in the Great Basin and Southwest. Correlations of the Ventana Cave stratigraphy with that of southeastern Arizona and with the late Pleistocene and Holocene record of Northern Hemisphere climate are explored.

Radiocarbon dates on artifacts from a Puebloan shrine in New Mexico reveal a persistence in ritual practice for some 3,800 years. The dates indicate that the shrine had become an important location for ceremonial observances related to warfare by almost 2000 cal. B.C., coinciding with the time when food production was first practiced in the Southwest. The shrine exhibits continuity of ritual behavior, something that Puebloans may find unsurprising, but also changes in the artifacts deposited that indicate new technology, transformations of belief, and perhaps shifting cultural boundaries. After briefly describing this shrine, we discuss some of the artifacts that were deposited there, in particular atlatl darts and flat curved sticks with longitudinal facial grooves. We argue that both were used in ritual fights and then deposited in the shrine as offerings, establishing a behavioral tradition that set the precedent for ethnographic recognition of the site as an important war shrine. Atlatl darts are analogous with prayer sticks, the latter representing a derived form of this offering with arrows as an intermediary form. Flat curved sticks were used for defense against atlatl darts in duels that enhanced warrior status.

The 168 metal artifacts collected at Machu Picchu in 1912 by Hiram Bingham have been examined for evidence that metallurgical artificers worked at this site in pre-Columbian times. Fifteen artifacts have been identified as metal stock, work in progress, or waste materials from metallurgical processes. Bronze was made by alloying metallic tin and copper and was cast into both finished objects and stock for subsequent forging. Hammering was done with stone tools, but bronze chisels were also in use. Silver-copper alloys were worked, but this material was not held to compositional limits as close as those for bronze. No alloys containing arsenic and relatively little evidence of the use of sheet metal were found.

Valshni Village is a surface ruin fourteen miles southwest of Sells, Arizona, in the Sells District of the Papago Indian Reservation. The site is located on the adobe flats of the Baboquivari Valley near the confluence of the Valshni and Fresnal Washes. It is approximately ten miles north of the International Boundary and one-half mile east of the Papago village of Burro Pond. Its distinguishing features are five trash mounds above the desert level and many sherd concentrations.

Prior to 1938 no archaeological investigations had been carried on within the Papago Reservation other than surveys conducted by Gila Pueblo2 and the Arizona State Museum. During the winter of 1938-39, the first excavation in the area was completed at the Jackrabbit ruin under the supervision of Frederick H. Scantling. This work served to define what was called the Sells phase, which has been placed at 1250- 1400 A.D. and thus occupies a relatively late position in the local chronology.

This study involves the high-resolution spatial analysis of a 9,500-year-old Early Neolithic site in an effort to reconstruct the social and economic organization of the settlement at household and community scales. We introduce an approach to distinguishing stratified occupational surfaces (floors) from intervening deposits (fills), to tracing the different formation processes associated with floors and fills, and to critically examining various factors (curation behaviors, palimpsests, and the Clarke Effect) that may have shaped house floor assemblages. The spatial analyses of behavioral residuals, features, and structures are then presented at intramural and intrasite scales, and the results are discussed as they relate to certain aspects of the social and economic organization of the community. These include family structure, control of resources, social differentiation, ritual participation, craft specialization, and gender-linked activities.

Interpretation of the Nogahabara I assemblage as a Late Pleistocene abandoned toolkit rests primarily on the premise of a single brief occupation at the site. The limited contextual data presented do not discount a palimpsest of noncontemporaneous assemblages in secondary contexts associated with a lag deposit. Spatial patterning, lithic assemblage patterning, artifact surface alteration, and disparate radiocarbon dates at the site, as well as geological data from the Nogahabara and nearby Kobuk dunes, indicate that the cultural material was subjected to post-depositional disturbance. Alternate hypotheses of site formation and avenues for testing these hypotheses are considered.

Under the direction of J. Charles Kelley of Southern Illinois University, an anthropological field school carried out investigations in the State of Durango, Mexico, from June 22 to August 8, 1952, with the permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.

Their camp was established on the rancho “Santa Barbara,” property of Fred Weicker, about 50 kms. west of Durango city, in the Sierra Madre Occidental. The camp was on the side of an arroyo, a branch of the Rio Mimbres, which after joining the Rio Chico, flows into the Rio Tunal. This becomes the Mesquital-San Pedro and flows into the Pacific through the State of Nayarit. The camp was approximately 2280 m. above sea level, near archaeological remains consisting of house-mounds, ceramics, and obsidian artifacts.

A recent study of a combination open and closed sascab mine in Coba, Quintana Roo, Mexico revealed the techniques used to exploit its deposits of calcareous sand. Tool types used were determined by scars on the face of the deposit and the mine roof. Post production activities involving open sascaberas suggest their use as sunken gardens for both intensive horti-and arboriculture activities.

The chronological sequence for figurine types along the west coast of Mexico has been worked out from stratigraphic excavations at Amapa, Nayarit. Twenty-seven types of figurines are defined and placed in chronological position. There is an early group correlating with the Classic period of Central Mexico, and a late group correlating with the Postclassic.

Interest in the prehistory of America is hardly more than two centuries old, but it is within the last half-century that our concern for preservation and salvage has bloomed. Prior to that time there were individual voices urging study and protection of archaeological sites, but no grass-roots sentiment for protection. This may be largely because most of our antecedents came from the Old World; New World archaeology concerned our past not at all.

Although many large mound groups, are found in northeastern Iowa, little information concerning the prehistory of this region has been published. Results of limited early investigations, presented by Cyrus Thomas in the 12th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, are indicative of a fertile field. Records of the pre-1900 Hill-Lewis survey, preserved in the files of the Minnesota Historical Society, include descriptive notes and maps locating many Iowa mounds which have since been destroyed. Field reports by the late Ellison Orr, assistant supervisor of a statewide archaeological survey, made in the 1930's by the Iowa State Historical Society, may be found in the collections of the Society at Iowa City. Articles by the late Charles R. Keyes (1934, 1951), field supervisor of this latter project, describe the wealth of the state's prehistoric resources. Nevertheless, the data concerning the contents of the mounds in northeastern Iowa is meager.

Detailed medical surveys recently concluded have shown Guatemala, and particularly the Guatemalan highlands, to have one of the highest incidence rates for endemic goiter in the world (Muñoz, Pérez, and Scrimshaw 1955a: 36–43; 1955b: 963–9). At the present time only the tropical and sparsely populated northern Department of Peten is without goiter as a serious public health problem. The incidence in the other departments varies from 21% to 68%.

Bones of two cranes, the sandhill crane [Grus canadensis] and the whooping crane [Grus americana], can occur in archaeological sites in North America. Fragments of these bones are frequently and easily confused with similar bone fragments of the common turkey [Meleagris gallopavo]. To preclude these errors, identification techniques are provided for major elements of the sandhill crane and turkey.