A study of floor construction in the Maya area leads to the conclusion that a definite technique or pattern seems to have been used from the Preclassic to the Postclassic periods and that this consisted of using a foundation under a base which was covered by a plaster. It appeared further that the same technique was applied regardless of the raw materials at hand. It was also found that the use of burned earth or clay as an element of a floor was rather widespread and appeared to be deliberate rather than the result of the burning of flammable superstructures. No attempt was made at this time to determine the fine structures of the separate floor elements based upon their chemical or physical properties.

In 1944, the present writer, in collaboration with Philip Phillips, published a short analytical article upon a newly discovered (or recognized) style of negative-painted pottery from Crystal River, Florida. The ceramics in question, numbering three vessels in all, were excavated many years before by Clarence B. Moore and illustrated by him. They were taken from a sand burial mound in association with a number of other artifacts and with human burials. In our 1944 analysis it was pointed out that these Crystal River specimens exhibited the same technical processes of decoration— a negative or resist-dye application of a dark design background over a lighter-colored surface—as that seen on numerous Middle Mississippian pottery bottles; nevertheless, it was also made clear that the style of the painting, the forms of the vessels, and the quality of the ware were distinctly non-Mississippian.

Accelerator radiocarbon dates on shell, charcoal, and human bone samples are an indication that human activity at the Del Mar site dates to 5000 B.P. and possibly from 7000 B.P. The shell and charcoal fragments were dislocated stratigraphically by extensive bioturbation and provide evidence that accelerator dates on extremely small samples should be used with caution. Certain depositional environments will require multiple dating within a site because single-sample dating will not yield definitive ages. Dating of individual amino acids from the Del Mar sphenoid yielded an average age of 4900 ± 40 B.P. and conclusively establishes the age for the Del Mar skull. The previously dated tibia was found to be contaminated with exogenous amino acids, thereby making its age uncertain.

The San Augustin Plains of south central New Mexico contain several pluvial lake basins, on the terraces of which are numerous blowout sites with remains of Early Man. The major portion of the Plains lies to the south of U.S. Highway 60, between Magdalena and Datil, New Mexico. This is the area of the basin of extinct Lake San Augustin. The small portion of the Plains to the north of the highway contains the basins of White Lake and North Lake. The Plains consist of a large basin some 60 miles long from northeast to southwest, varying in width from 20 miles at the northeast end to about 6 miles at the southwest. On three sides of the Plains are a series of mountain ranges, while on the west are the ranges that form the continental divide (Fig. 41).

Arakawa and colleagues (2011) use temporal changes in obsidian source patterns to link the late thirteenth-century abandonment of the Mesa Verde region to Ortman's (2010, 2012) model of Tewa migration to the northern Rio Grande. They employ Anthony's (1990) concept of reverse migration, inferring that an increase in Mesa Verde–region obsidian from a specific Jemez Mountain source reflects the scouting of an eventual migration path. Weaknesses of this inference are that only obsidian data from the Mesa Verde region were used in its development and that the model does not consider the complexities of previously documented patterns of settlement and stone raw material use in the northern Rio Grande. By examining source data from parts of northwestern and north-central New Mexico, we find that the patterning seen in the Mesa Verde obsidian data is widespread both geographically and temporally. The patterns are more indicative of a change in acquisition within a down-the-line exchange system than a reverse migration stream. Population trends on the southern Pajarito Plateau, the probable source of the acquisition change, suggest ancestral Keres rather than Tewa involvement in thirteenth-century obsidian distribution.

An engraved human bone whistle, from a burial mound near Bourneville, Ross County, Ohio, described for the first time as part of the Hopewellian complex, was probably used in elaborate burial ceremonies.

The subject of this report is a group of 70 gravers collected in 1954 and 1955 from the surface of a village site about 12 miles southeast of Madison, Wisconsin. The finding of this number of gravers at a single site is unusual and is also of special interest since gravers have usually been associated with Archaic and earlier horizons. A separate report (Nero 1955) has been published on the total assemblage of artifacts from the site, material which represents a conglomeration of several cultures, though an Archaic-like complex predominates.

An algebraic explanation is offered for the graphical method of sedation proposed by Meighan. A suggested simplification of the graphing technique makes it possible to plot the seriation on ordinary graph paper rather than on three-pole graph paper.

Saitta's (1983) comments on a model of the evolution of tribal social networks (Braun and Plog 1982) are discussed. Aspects of the model are clarified and problems with Saitta's interpretations are noted. In particular, we focus on questions concerning the relationship between stylistic variation and social networks and several issues concerning tribal social organization. We also address weaknesses in the alternative approach that Saitta describes.

Birdshead Cave lies in a fault scarp on the south side of the Owl Creek Mountains about 5 miles west of the entrance to Wind River Canyon, 23 miles north and west of Shoshoni, Wyoming, and 1 mile northwest of the old Burgess ranch buildings. It contained stratified deposits representing seven, perhaps even eight or nine, periods of occupation in six occupation levels covering a wide temporal range. The cave is approached by steep talus slopes broken by limestone rock ledges. It lies about 200 feet above the source of a spring of fresh, potable water emerging near the base of the scarp. The name, Birdshead, is that of an Arapaho Indian who was living at the old Burgess ranch, now part of the Arapaho Indian Reservation.

A monarch who suffered many hours of discouragement, urged his courtiers to devise a motto short enough to be engraved on a ring, which should be suitable alike in prosperity and adversity. After many suggestions had been rejected, his daughter offered an emerald bearing in inscription in Arabic “This, too, will pass” [Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Little, Brown and Company 1937:509].

The role played by irrigation in the development of civilization in Mesoamerica has never been satisfactorily determined. Steward (1949: 12-13, 17) has assumed that it played a role in Mesoamerica similar to that which it played in the development of the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, north China, and coastal Peru. In each of these other areas the first urban civilizations to develop were in regions requiring the control of water for the cultivation of crops, and the necessity for this control is generally accepted as having provided the basis for the development of these urban class societies. Yet in Mesoamerica the matter has actually never been established one way or the other. Armillas (1948: 109) states that rainfall is sufficient today during the rainy season in the highlands of central Mexico in general, and the Valley of Mexico in particular, to produce a crop of maize without irrigation, but that irrigation is necessary for the production of an additional crop in any year.

Has the time arrived when we can set up another horizon marker in the archaeology of western United States? An examination of the literature reveals that a projectile point which we will call the Stemmed, Indented Base Point may be so considered. This short note contains a compilation of but some of the references to this type of point in western United States and is written in hopes of stimulating comments and additional information. No attempt has been made to present an exhaustive distributional study of this artifact, but the accompanying chart lists some of its reported occurrences in order to point out its wide geographical spread as well as its estimated age and various terms by which it is known.

Using data from a single site along the central California coast (CA-SLO-2), Jones et al. (2008) critique our use of human behavioral ecology to explain changing hunting and fishing adaptations in prehistoric California and the Great Basin. Instead, they argue that human adaptations tend to stay relatively stable over time until they are influenced by historical contingencies. We question the utility of using data from a single site, and expand the sample with information from several deposits along the south-central coast. This expanded sample documents a dynamic evolutionary sequence characterized by increasing residential stability accompanied by hunting and fishing in more distant resource patches. Access to these patches, both terrestrial and marine, was made possible by changes in social organization and technology. Many of these behaviors appear to have incurred high costs, and are potentially explained with reference to costly signaling theory.

We previously suggested that the abandonment of large housepit villages along the Mid-Fraser River ca. 1200 B.P. was due to landslides that decimated salmon stocks and the main subsistence staples of the villages. Kuijt has questioned the plausibility of such a scenario. However, he confuses the two landslide episodes we discuss and raises unrealistic expectations about lake formation, migration behavior, and residual populations. He also confuses the lacustrine vs. fluvial effects of landslide blockages. While he attributes to us specific interpretations to which we are not tied and which are not critical for our basic argument, he offers no real alternative explanation for why the large Mid-Fraser villages were abandoned.

Smith et al. (2013) provided important new information concerning the ages of a variety of projectile point types found in the Great Basin. Two of their interpretations, however, deserve further discussion. Smith et al. (2013) concluded that the Nicholarsen (or Nicolarsen) Cache contains both dart and arrow points. However, our application of methods developed by Hildebrandt and King (2012) to distinguish dart and arrow points, indicates that the Nicholarsen Cache contains arrow points exclusively. In addition, we suggest that the two ca. 6,800-year-old “Elko-Eared” points identified by Smith et al. (2013) are Large Side-notched points.

Interrelations among three roughly contemporaneous late prehistoric Mississippian societies in Middle and East Tennessee are reexamined in terms of currently available biological, archaeological, and ethnohistoric data. Previous researchers have suggested a close relation between two of those cultures—Mouse Creek and Middle Cumberland—to the exclusion of the third, Dallas. However, multivariate analyses of craniofacial and mandibular dimensions of individuals from the three groups suggest a greater biological relation between Dallas and Mouse Creek than between Mouse Creek and Middle Cumberland. In addition, a comparison of intrasite settlement patterning, ceramic and mortuary variability, and ethnohistoric data across the three groups support the skeletal analysis. Relations between Dallas and Mouse Creek may mirror similar processes of sociopolitical reorganization occurring throughout the Southeast in the late prehistoric period.

We report here the first domesticated amaranth (Amaranthus spp.) seeds to be identified at a Chacoan great house, from the northern New Mexico site known as Aztec North, where they were found in a context that dates to the mid to late twelfth century AD. Amaranth has long been recognized as an important prehispanic resource in this region, evidenced by the archaeological record of both wild and domesticated forms and by the traditional knowledge and practices of Indigenous communities. Wild amaranth and similar-appearing chenopod/goosefoot (Chenopodium spp.) seeds are routinely found in Ancestral Puebloan contexts. Recent archaeological testing at the Aztec North great house, a Chaco Canyon outlier associated with a post-Chacoan political center, has revealed the presence of uncharred domesticated amaranth seeds in a thin layer of ashy trash in a room at the rear of the great house. These seeds expand our understanding of domesticated amaranth in the American Southwest and suggest centuries of continuity of traditional amaranth cultivation within Puebloan communities.