Stamped or impressed designs on pottery from a group of relatively early sites in northern Georgia provide new data on the origin of several well known motifs of later times, and add to the evidence for a considerable cultural continuity between the archaeological phases of this area.

In a previous article for american antiquity (Vol. XIV, pp. 201-9), I summarized the general ceramic sequence in the Etowah Drainage. Fabric impressed pottery seems to be the first majority ware in this area. It gradually decreased in popularity as Mossy Oak Simple Stamped increased and Deptford Bold and Linear Check Stamped appeared. The last named, together with Deptford Simple Stamped, became majority types during Late Archaic or Early Woodland times. In the meantime Woodstock Stamped and Woodstock Incised pottery appeared, but did not reach their frequency peak until Early Swift Creek had presumably degenerated into its later form near the end of the Middle Woodland period. Napier Stamped appeared at this time. Napier and Woodstock pottery strongly influenced the Early Mississippi "Etowah" wares, both stamped and incised. In the latter part of this period, Savannah Stamped intruded briefly, but the Etowah types persisted and finally deteriorated in carefulness of execution, thus evolving into the Lamar pottery of Late Mississippi time.

With a focus on the archaeology of the early historic Choctaw, field investigations in east-central Mississippi resulted in the discovery of 73 sites and the confirmation of two previously known sites. Fifty-nine of the 75 sites had either definite or probable Choctaw components. The assemblages on the historic Choctaw sites typically consisted of a complex of four decorated and four undecorated Native American ceramic types along with Euro-American trade goods that suggest site occupation dates during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The better preserved Choctaw phase sites typically were small artifact clusters, probably the remains of individual households, located on low ridges. In several places these sites were grouped in clusters suggestive of the dispersed communities described in historical accounts of the Choctaw. None of the sites has yielded evidence suggestive of sociopolitical centrality.

Although the site of Palenque, Chiapas, has long been one of the most famous of Maya ruins, its pottery has until recently remained virtually unknown. Aided by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and with the cooperation of the Institute of Andean Research, the writers conducted ceramic excavations at Palenque in the summer of 1951. With the assistance of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the senior author in 1956 made additional stratigraphic excavations at Palenque, as well as conducting a brief ceramic survey at nearby sites in Chiapas and Tabasco.

In recent reports on work done in the area in southern Arizona occupied by the Salado people during the Classic period, a term new to the literature has been introduced, and a feature described which has hitherto not been mentioned by workers in the field. The term “plaster mixing bowls” or “caliche mixing bowls” is self-explanatory, but a description of the feature may be of interest to other workers in archaeology.

The Salado people, successors to the Hohokam in the Salt and Gila River Valleys, introduced the use of caliche, a limy material native to the region, in building, and erected many great structures of it, quarrying the caliche, pulverizing, mixing and puddling it in courses to form massive walls. Basins lined with caliche are very plentiful about these sites, in all levels, and associated with all wall construction.

Comments by Dunnell and Yorston (this issue) on our article concerning the effects of tillage on archaeological distributions are, in general, useful contributions toward an understanding of a topic with which most archaeologists must ultimately come to grips. A few of these comments have stimulated a reconsideration of our position on a couple of points, and we hope that this exchange of ideas will clarify the situation for anyone who desires to pursue this research trajectory further.

Recently renewed interest has been focused upon the occurrence in the Plains area of the archaeological complex often termed the “Southern cult.” This complex is found over a wide geographic area and in association with varied cultures. It occurs throughout the southeastern United States, and extends north and west along the Mississippi and Missouri River valleys. It has been found in eastern South Dakota, eastern North Dakota, and in the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada. The complex is characterized by specific art motifs and ceremonial objects, including masklike whelk shell gorgets, and the cross, forkedeye, and hand-and-eye motifs. The complex was apparently fundamentally dependent upon a horticultural base, and is associated in nearly every case with platform mounds. Sites often thought of in connection with the Southern cult are Etowah (Georgia), Moundville (Alabama), and Spiro (Oklahoma). The author has recently examined materials in the collections of the North Dakota State Historical Museum for artifacts related to the complex.

As a means of celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the great Spanish expedition through our southern states led by Hernando de Soto and Luis de Moscoso in the years 1539-1543 a Commission was created in 1935 by act of Congress. The members of that Commission were appointed by President Roosevelt and included the writer who was made chairman by vote of the others. This Commission was authorized “to make a thorough study of the subject of De Soto's expedition” and report back to Congress “its recommendations for a suitable and appropriate celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of said expedition.” The latter part of the instructions being entirely outside of my experience or training, I devoted myself, along with certain of my fellow members, to a study of the career of De Soto, and particularly of the route pursued by his army, so as to determine what communities would be interested in the proposed celebration. This study was carried on for several years and its results incorporated into a “Final Report of the United States De Soto Expedition Commission” which was printed in 1939 by the Government Printing Office, as House Document Number 7.

The earliest literary reference to a fluted point occurs in a work written in 1722 by Francisco Ximenez. This specimen and others from Guatemala are discussed in the light of recent discoveries from neighboring areas.

Aboriginal northern Great Lakes fishing strategies varied with season, target species, and organization of the labor force. The placement of Woodland archaeological sites complied with the structure of these fisheries, but their locations do not reflect prey specificity or one specialized technology. Rather, resource-general locations suggest an essential step in the process of specialization. Flexibility in settlement and social styles existed among prehistoric foragers of the midlatitudes, as did a variety of solutions to food-getting problems. Slow, accretional processes rather than temporally discrete growth processes were responsible for Late Woodland site characteristics in this region. Stable locational-selection patterns are visible through reexamination of the historical data base and through statistical analyses of environmental factors associated with sites at a number of Woodland localities.

Evidence of tooth filing, north of Mexico, is found primarily in the Cahokia area in Illinois. The custom is associated with the acculturation process that took place between peoples having a Mississippian technology and those having a Late Woodland culture. An attempt will be made here to itemize all the discoveries in the Cahokia area in the order in which they occurred and also to add new information not available to earlier reporters.

A recent paper by George R. Horner, covering work done by Wheaton College at the Fisher site, Will County, Illinois, contains several statements requiring comment. In order to comment on these points it will be necessary to outline certain material contained in an unpublished manuscript of the writer.

The well-known Fisher site, consisting of 12 mounds and over 50 house pits, was initially excavated by George Langford. Later work was conducted by several University of Chicago field parties, and a W.P.A. expedition. The site is located on the point of land formed by the Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers as they approach their confluence and unite to form the Illinois. Four cultural horizons can be recognized at the site: (1) long-headed burials without grave goods in the gravel beneath the mounds, (2) three periods of Upper Mississippi occupation, (3) Late Woodland, and (4) Historic. We are only concerned with the Upper Mississippi occupations in the present note.

The Gordon site has been mentioned previously by Ford (1935, 1936) as site 61, the type site for the Coles Creek ceramic complex originally identified by a surface collection of 175 sherds. In his initial survey of the site, Ford placed it uppermost in the Coles Creek horizon, although the exact relationship of that horizon to other Southeastern cultures was at that time uncertain. Ford states:

A recently discovered sheltered rock scar covered with red pictographs, in Jalisco, west Mexico, is a major addition to the rather meager data on pictographs in Mesoamerica. It appears to contain a complex set of data pertaining to the cosmology of the relatively unknown Indians who inhabited the Jalisco coast during the last Pre-Hispanic period. Analysis of the scar has incorporated both the artistic symbolism of the nearby Huichol Indians, and concepts developed through archaeoastronomy. This analysis suggests that the ceiling pictographs record the use of sky transits of the sun, Venus, or the constellation Orion as wet-season/dry-season calendrical markers. Wall pictographs show the sun on the mountainous horizon, below which is the earth filled with symbols of plants and animals; among these stand shamans calling down the life-giving rain from the god(s) of the sky. I also explore the possibility that one of the ceiling pictographs is a record of the appearance of the Crab supernova in the sky in A.D. 1054.

Construction activities at Torrance County Beach in Los Angeles County, California, recently removed the last remnant of Hollywood Riviera, a once important archaeological site. Among the artifacts recovered during earth-moving operations and from earlier surface hunts are numerous handstones, milling stones, and cobble hammers. Also included in the collection are two mortars, a pestle, and a few rude choppers. Smaller stone-work consists of large, coarsely flaked projectile points, broken knife blades, simple flake scrapers, and an unusual chipped "crescent." The plentiful seed-grinding implements testify to a seed-collecting mode of subsistence for Hollywood Riviera's former inhabitants, whereas a near absence of molluscan remains in the archaeological deposit suggests that they were an inland people, recently moved to the seashore, who had not yet acquired a taste for shellfish. Occupation at the site appears to have occurred entirely within the Early Milling Stone horizon of the southern California coast, dated roughly between 5000 and 2000 B.C., and presumably during an early phase of it.