Field trips in 1953-54 and 1958 and the checking of about 150 sites provide the background for these preliminary sequences. El Salvador is divided into three cultural regions. Western El Salvador is strongly linked with Guatemala and Mesoamerica while the eastern region is basically Central American. The central part of the country is heavily influenced by both of the other regions with the Mesoamerican component predominating. In the western sequence the Atiquizaya phase is connected with the Las Charcas or Providencia phases in the Guatemalan Highlands and the Cuyagualo phase with the Full Classic material at Copán. The latest complex in the western region, the Majahual phase, possibly flourished during the conquest period on the western shore. The central sequence begins with the Tovar complex about 700 B.C. and ends with the Cihuatan phase which demonstrates the Pipil domination of this region in later times. In eastern El Salvador, where archaeological knowledge begins with the footprints of La Rama at about 1500 B.C., several complexes with wares made in the Usulutan technique developed. The eastern sequence culminates in the Lower Lempa culture about A.D. 1000.

The X-ray spectrometer method as an archaeological tool is discussed with special reference to its limitations as a chemical analytical instrument. Qualitative results are presented for six North American copper samples, one European trade brass, and nine artifacts from the Great Lakes region. From this pilot study it is concluded that the most fruitful results in the problem of the determination of provenance of copper artifacts will be obtained from semi-quantitative optical spectographic analyses of carefully collected artifacts and raw materials. The largest inherent error in this problem is that of meaningful sampling techniques. The only recourse is to treat such chemical data statistically and determine the probabilities that given specimens came from the various possible sources.

The locations of certain mounds at the Cahokia site indicate that the rate of Mississippi River channel migration in the American Bottoms in the Upper Mississippi Valley has differed from the rate of channel movement in the Lower Mississippi Valley. The American Bottoms was probably the most favorable section of the Mississippi River Valley for long-term prehistoric settlement with regard to location within the present meander belt of the river.

The problem of the origin and distribution of semi-subterranean structures is an intriguing one. It is generally accepted that the semi-subterranean structure, earth lodge, or pit house, was one of a number of relatively unmodified traits of Old World origin found in North America. This paper reviews some of the literature on the pit house, and summarizes its development and distribution in the Eurasian and North American continents.

Laymen, believing that early man habitually lived in caves, commonly use the stereotyped term “cave man” in referring to our early progenitors in the Old World. This assumption was an inevitable development since occupational sites in western Europe are predominantly caves or cave shelters. However, some European archaeologists have suggested such sites were seasonally occupied–that they were the winter habitations of man during the upper Paleolithic. There is reason to believe different types of shelters were used during warm seasons since engravings of tents or more substantial structures (tectiforms) have been found on the walls of caves and cave shelters. A number of European archaeologists including Breuil (1910), Clark (1939), Childe (1950), and others have accepted tectiforms as evidence of the existence of artificial structures in western Europe during the last glacial advance. Breuil has gone further and compared some of the tectiforms in the Font-de-Gaume, the Dordogne Valley of France, to the summer huts of Navahos described by Mendeleff in 1896.

A settlement pattern study is made of 160 prehistoric habitation sites along the Klamath river in northwest California to determine what environmental factors regulate site placement and population density. Topographic variables, especially gradient, were found to serve as negative criteria in limiting the possibilities of site location. Differential access to anadromous fish was found to function positively in favoring site placement and high population density. This finding supports Baumhoffs hypothesis that Karok population levels could be accounted for by available fish resources alone (Baumhoff 1963).

The 32 specimens from Waterfall Cave include apocynum-fiber textiles, cane and palm-frond matting and braids, a yucca-fiber leader on a fishhook, and a girdle or string apron. The matting is twilled; the textiles are plain weave and generally warp face. Technical aspects of these specimens are similar to those of textiles from Chihuahua published by Lila O'Neale in 1948. Pattern weaving is the only major new element found at Waterfall Cave.

The recently discovered Tomb 12 at Rio Azul contains some evidence in support of my "zenith" reading for one of the collocations Closs reads as xaman, "north." A positionally literal reading of the astronomical glyphs associated with the directional collocations on the walls of that tomb is consistent with a directional system based on zenith and nadir, but not one based on north and south. Furthermore, Closs's reading does not account for the demonstrable na reading for the prefix in that collocation. On the other hand, his evidence for reading the second collocation as xaman is compelling, and the polyvalency of T566 seems well established.

That cultural units are contemporary merely means that they are assigned to the same arbitrary division of time, or period. The degree of contemporaneity which is implied when units are assigned to the same period depends upon the duration of the units and the length of the period. Correlation is the alignment of sequences of units or the placement of units with respect to sequences. Synchronic correlation, or cross-dating, involves assigning units to the same period because they are contemporary. When correlations are based on contemporaneity, detailed interpretations of the archaeological evidence are possible. Precise cross-dating permits more detailed statements about cultural process and relationship. Precise cross-dating is possible when units are assigned to periods which have brief spans in time or when reference is made to a chronological framework which is not defined in terms of the archaeological materials. Cross-dating is most credible when both the sequences of units in the different localities and the patterning of each cultural unit are known and understood.

Aerial techniques have been proven effective for archaeological reconnaissance in several parts of the world.

This paper describes photoarchaeological techniques which were used in a survey of a section of the Potomac River, near Washington, D.C. Thirty-six stone structures and one major Indian village site were discovered. The stone structures were primarily stone fish traps and fish weirs. One of the structures was found to be a navigation weir, constructed by the Potowmack Company, founded by George Washington in his efforts to open up the American "Western Frontier," regions in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Physical descriptions and locations of the structures are listed on the following pages, together with a comparative analysis of the structures. A recommendation is made for a site designation system which strengthens the standard Smithsonian system by adding Universal Transverse Mercator coordinates to them, thus simplifying location designation.

Dietary, paleoclimatic, and ethnohistoric evidence indicates that alterations in regional systems of exploitation and selective pressures were associated with the diffusion of farming in unrelated periods of Southwestern and Great Basin cultural development. Artifacts and coprolite/macrofloral remains from the Clydes Cavern and Hogup Cave Fremont sites suggest that the spread of maize farming coincided with: (a) the development of grass collecting; (bj the expansion of a grassland environment; (c) outside cultural contacts; and (dj genetic modifications in corn. Ethnohistoric evidence indicates that the diffusion ofNuma horticulture in the early historic period also occurred in a context of environmental change. However, unlike the Fremont example in which natural environmental modifications were present, the spread of Numa farming occurred as a result of disruptions to the native plant communities and the seed gathering cycle caused by external cultural pressures. Both examples demonstrate that while the specific reasons for the adoption and growth of farming differed depending upon the regional situation, the overall pattern of horticultural diffusion in the Southwest and Great Basin may have been favored by selective pressures involving environmental alteration, population expansion and contact influences.

This paper presents data on the age and origin of the dugout canoe in Ontario derived from Indian informants and Euro-Americans, from the literature, and from information in the files of the Department of Ethnology, Royal Ontario Museum, University of Toronto. Accounts of two dugouts from Ontario have been published, but the problems of the age and origin have not been investigated. Indians and Euro-Americans both made and used dugouts during the last century and the first part of this one. It is suggested that the Euro-Americans brought the idea with them from Europe. The Indians, it is believed, adopted the dugout either from the Euro-Americans or from Indian immigrants from the south, where the dugout is known to have existed since the time of contact. The Indians were now leading a more sedentary life, negating the necessity for an easily portable craft, such as the birchbark canoe. Another factor was the increasing difficulty of getting adequate supplies of birchbark for canoe-making because of the destruction of the forests by lumber companies. Furthermore, the recently acquired iron tools facilitated their manufacture.

In a previous paper (Meighan and others 1958), we considered techniques whereby the archaeologist can derive conclusions concerning prehistoric man's relationship to his environment. We limited our study to hunting and gathering societies since we felt that these were most directly and intimately affected by environment. In the present discussion, we have attempted to expand our study to include archaeological communities marked by the presence of agriculture, domestic animals, or both. Our inquiry can be phrased thus: what physical remains associated with agricultural communities can be used as evidence for ecological inferences? The answers to this question are neither as numerous nor as obvious as we first supposed, yet such answers are basic to an understanding of culture history.

Recently, two fluted points from Wisconsin were brought to the writer's attention by W. F. Spengler, a student at Phillips Academy. They are the property of his father, Mr. S. L. Spengler of Menasha, Wisconsin, who very kindly sent them to Andover for the writer's inspection. Both finds were surface finds, but in spite of this fact it seems worth recording them, since both are known to have come from the vicinity of Madison. The smaller of the two (PI. XXXVII, Fig. 2, a-a′.) is from the farm of TomHalverson and was found on a field close to the inlet of the Yahara River on the west shore of Lake Kegonsa. Its base, as is shown by the photographs, has the slight prominence characteristic of the type illustrated in Roberts' Fig. 3a and Plates 5b and 6b. Fine retouching has been used to finish the base. The channel flake., which is an extremely shallow one, runs to the tip without hinge fracture.

Many surface sites represent three different early complexes that generally occur in this area at separate locations and are not mixed with each other. The earliest occupation, perhaps late Pleistocene, is characterized by Folsom points and a type of Pinto Basin point. A second occupation, probably younger and occurring in a different area, is represented by Gypsum Cave points and a second, different type of Pinto Basin point. The third occupation, representing the Uncompaghre complex, and evidently the youngest of the three occupations, can be correlated with the Recent but prepottery alluvium of the region.

In early publications on the archaeology of central and western New York, references may be found to “dolls” and “effigies carved to represent the human figure.” The presence of these small, human effigies carved from bone and antler, in the graves of infants from early contact Cayuga and Seneca interments, excited the curiosity of early writers. It is not surprising, therefore, to find almost as many diverse and sundry opinions concerning their probable use and significance as there were figurines or writers. Unfortunately, but few figurines were excavated in a scientific manner, and only scattered records are left with which to work. Several amateur archaeologists, however, did keep accurate notes, and combining these with notes recorded on museum excavations, a small amount of data has been compiled from which conclusions may be drawn. In all, nearly a hundred figurines were located by my search in museums and private collections, and possibly many more exist.

Pictographs in southern California, while spectacular, are of little interpretive value to the archaeologist unless they can be assigned a date and a cultural affiliation. The nature of most pictograph sites has precluded any normal archaeological dating, such as through portable art found in stratified cave fill. A sandstone slab recovered from a historic Chumash site in 1961 bears recognizable pictographs which make it possible to assign at least some of the cave pictographs to the Chumash during the late 18th century. Although it is still not possible to determine the function of pictographic art in Chumash culture, its presence in villages suggests a somewhat different distribution of these paintings than was formerly suspected.

Horned Owl Cave in the northern Laramie Mountains of Wyoming has provided a wide array of normally perishable artifacts in association with pictographs. Material objects recovered from the cave include fragments of atlatls, darts, shaft feathers, arrowshafts, blunt arrows, bark, weaving, bone tools, pottery, and lithic objects. The disturbed condition of the fill of the cave prevented a controlled stratigraphy, but typologically the material falls within the Late Middle culture and the Late Prehistoric culture phases of the northern Great Plains. The pictographs have been divided into three styles: an early red-figure style, a shield-figure style, and a final and probably late series of black-figure drawings. It is suggested that the red-figure drawings were a product of the last phases of the Late Middle culture, or perhaps the early phase of the Late Prehistoric culture. The shield style and the black-figure style would seem to belong to the Late Prehistoric period.

At the lowland Maya site of Altar de Sacrificios, two burials have been interpreted in such a way as to suggest: (1) that matrilineal principles of social organization may have been operative in some segments of Classic Maya society; and (2) that Maya political units may have been tied together by marriage alliances. These two hypotheses are examined here in the light of anthropological kinship theory. It is concluded that such marriage alliances are in the realm of possibility, but that matrilineality is unlikely.