A newly discovered worked mammoth bone is described. It exhibits butchering marks and demonstrates man's contemporaneity in Florida with a late Pleistocene fauna.

The concept of a continent-wide Archaic cultural horizon in North America has been developing for over a decade. Recently, this concept has received considerable reinforcement in publications and in discussions at conferences. It now appears to have fairly general acceptance among American archaeologists who have concerned themselves with the problem. Basic to this concept is the identification of the southwestern Desert cultures as the cultural and temporal equivalent of the eastern Archaic, and the recognition of the Balcones phase of Texas as a cultural keystone uniting these western and eastern cultures into one continuous culture area on the same temporal level, forming the Archaic horizon in American prehistory.

One of the most stimulating problems in present day Southwestern archaeology is that of relationships to the south — to the high cultures of Mexico. Evidence of such relationships is strongest in the Hohokam remains of southern Arizona. The broad outlines of Hohokam development have been fairly well established. The same is true for the cultures of central Mexico. The next step in solving the problem of Mexican-Southwest relationships would appear to be that of obtaining an understanding of culture history in the area between central Mexico and southern Arizona.

In the course of an archaeological survey of the Point of Pines area, San Carlos Apache Reservation in east-central Arizona, E. W. Haury and E. B. Sayles, of the University of Arizona, noted the presence of a number of depressions which held surface water for a considerable period of time beyond the normal time for runoff. Furthermore, these depressions, or basins, appeared to be associated to some extent with specific archaeological ruins. The possibility that these depressions were made by the aboriginal inhabitants for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a water supply, led the writer in 1948 to excavate several of the depressions to determine their nature and date of construction, length of usage, time of abandonment, and other cultural information. The work was carried on during the 1948 season of the University of Arizona archaeological field school.

Four years of intensive archaeological survey, supplemented by excavations in the Teotihuacán Valley, Mexico, have greatly clarified our picture of the transition from Preclassic to Classic. The definition of two new phases of culture history, Tezoyuca and Patlachique, that belong to the Terminal Preclassic (post Late Ticoman) strongly suggests a local development of the great Classic city of Teotihuacán. This runs counter to the hypothesis that a great migration, possibly from the Gulf Coast region, was responsible for the fully developed Classic Teotihuacán culture. Present evidence indicates that the Patlachique phase is intrusive and appears in the Teotihuacán Valley possibly as the result of migrations from the southern Valley of Mexico, perhaps precipitated by the eruption of the volcano Xitli. When peoples carrying this culture entered the Teotihuacán Valley, they encountered the Tezoyuca culture and gradually absorbed it. The fusion of these two groups eventually produced Tzacualli, which is the first recognizable phase of the Teotihuacán culture.

Although the eastern lowlands of Costa Rica have seen little scientific archaeology, recent stratigraphic test excavations have outlined a ceramic sequence of almost 1,500 years in the region. The earliest ceramic complex in this sequence, El Bosque, has been radiocarbon dated to the first few centuries after Christ. Stylistically, the El Bosque complex resembles material from contemporary periods in adjacent regions (Zoned Bichrome, Aguas Buenas), but also shares many ceramic modes with the Colombian site of Momil. A carbonized maize cob from an El Bosque midden is eight-rowed Pollo, an ancient race of South American maize. Evidence is presented supporting the hypothesis that aboriginal cultural traditions in eastern Costa Rica were basically part of a northern South American tropical forest pattern.

The Eskimo culture is divided ecologically, Froelich Rainey says in a review of published accounts, into “the Arctic coastal zone in the area of sea ice” and “the sub-Arctic zone south of the maximum extension of heavy sea ice, in Southern Alaska and Greenland… . A third ecologic zone is that region occupied by Eskimo people with an inland form of culture which has been most clearly defined by Kaj Birket-Smith in his description of the Caribou Eskimo of the Barren Grounds northwest of Hudson Bay; but a similar type of inland Arctic culture occurs also in north Alaska. The prehistory of the inland zone is unknown, since no archaeological research has been carried on in that region.”

The italicized lines point to a vast gap in knowledge of the Eskimo past. The inland zone remains largely unknown because of two handicaps to archaeological exploration: the nomadic nature of any far-inland hunting culture about the Arctic Circle precludes the possibility of large and permanent villages, and.organic materials disintegrate rapidly under the climatic contrasts of the interior.

Documentary data of the sixteenth century indicate the manufacture of ceramic vessels for salt-making and trade. Texcoco Fabric-marked pottery is the archaeological manifestation of these vessels. Use of a special ware is related to increased salt-making in the Aztec period. Implications of this for the economic integration of Central Mexico are mentioned.

Weaver draws conclusions that need to be supported by more experimentation before they can be taken seriously by archaeologists. Thin-section analysis of ceramics from the St. Louis area has yielded certain facts that are briefly presented in order to show that grog-tempering is common in the Mississippi valley. Crushed-sherd tempering is a cultural reality and does not represent inclusions in potter's clay as Weaver suggests.

Recent excavations of fireplace hearths at the Revolutionary campsites of General Washington's army at the National Historical Park at Morristown, New Jersey, and at the State Park at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, have been responsible for the recovery of a quantity of bones of food animals (Bos taurus). These remains are discussed and compared with the dietary reports made by soldiers of the time. A crudely made strap-iron grill, used by the men at Morristown in 1778, is figured.

The problem of distinguishing between varieties of red pipestone from diverse sources is a complex one. The distinction between catlinite and non-catlinite can be made rather quickly, in the field, using only a streak plate and a standard color chart.

The widely differing interpretations of the function of certain artifactual materials associated with the shaft-tomb complex of western Mexico are utilized to illustrate certain problems in the analysis of nonhistoric archaeological materials thought to be of religious significance. It is suggested that in the absence of some new model specifically designed to deal with the religious sub-system of nonhistoric societies and in the absence of interpretative data derived from relatively secure historical contexts, the only approach which seems justified, in light of our present level of knowledge, is to operate on the level of broad generalized statements of probability.

A long-range experiment aimed at shedding light on what happens within archaeological sites during their natural history phase was begun in the spring, 1968, with the planning and building of a pie-shaped structure that houses several kinds of materials. By the winter, 1968, gross changes in the structure were already in evidence.

U-shaped objects of shell or stone that occur commonly in northern and western Mexico have usually been identified as nose or ear ornaments. It has been found, however, that shell objects of this type appear as lashed-on finger-loops on two Mexican atlatls preserved in European museums, and this serves to identify the whole class of objects. A brief survey of the distribution of such finger-loops is given.

Archaeological, geological, and biological observations, including a quantitative midden analysis, of a shell midden on the Connecticut shore support the inference that a Woodland manifestation, probably of the East River aspect, was preceded by an Archaic, possibly Transitional, horizon. The deposit was formed during a lower sea stand; both global and regional sea-level data are cited in support of chronological placement.

Archaeologists recently have been focusing increased attention on Native American concerns and archaeology. However, some serious issues of Native American attitudes toward the activities of archaeology have so far been overlooked. For example, in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico, archaeological activities that have been spurred by energy development violate certain tenets of the Navajo Way of living, with possible adverse effects. Suggestions for the mitigation of these effects are presented as a way of expanding the dialogue between archaeologists and Native American communities, in order to identify and resolve such ethical dilemmas.

In the upper Ohio Valley, Adena mounds and their burials are less complex than, but essentially similar to, those of the major Adena centers of Ohio and Kentucky. Chronologically, they belong in the middle and late Adena periods. Two Adena sites much farther east have been found on Chesapeake Bay; they are closer in trait inventories and in radiocarbon dates to upper Ohio Valley sites than to Adena sites farther west. A reappraisal of evidence from the Northeast, particularly the Middlesex focus of New York, strongly suggests the movement of Adena people as far as the St. Lawrence River, although the proportion of Adena traits diminishes as distance from the Ohio Valley increases. Still another Adena dispersal, probably contemporaneous with this one, has previously been postulated to account for the Copena complex of Tennessee and Alabama. The cause of these rapid and far-reaching movements was probably the arrival or growth of Hopewell people in Illinois and Indiana and soon after in Ohio.

This paper is intended as an aid for those conscientious amateur archaeologists who are interested in preserving their specimens and the data which goes with them. In answer to many questions, and in the hope that this paper may be of some help to those desiring to systematize their field methods, there are here set down some of the practices that have been applied to shell heap excavation with fair success.