In shell middens bones and shells are surviving indicators of the diet of the former inhabitants. Unless carbonized, the plants consumed leave no obvious trace.

A comparison of Californian and Fijian (Viti Levu Island) shellmounds reveals a striking similarity in the quantity of bone and an even more striking dissimilarity in the quantity of shell. In both areas bone constitutes less than onehalf of one per cent of the weight of the mound mass. In Fiji shell constitutes on the average 13 per cent by weight, whereas the average in California is 52 per cent—four times as great. The following speculations are based on these facts.

Dr. Max Uhle's excavations at Moche in 1899 for the University of California yielded a collection of pottery and associated non-ceramic objects that remains the touchstone for Early-period finds from the Northern Peruvian coast.

Moche pottery has been published by Kroeber.The Mochica were imaginative as well as skilled craftsmen, and their ceramics is proof of an ability to express ideas and to handle tools with precision.

The unexpectedly high proportion of gophers to other animal bone in the Tijeras Pueblo excavation may indicate boys’ trapping activities. Relative completeness of large animal skeletons suggests large game was killed nearby.

The word “archaic” appears in the literature of New World archaeology with more than one usage. In 1910, the existence of three levels of human remains was demonstrated in the Valley of Mexico. The lowest level, in which well-developed ceramics were included, was characterized by hand-modeled human figurines in contrast to the mold made ones of Toltec and Aztec horizons. The civilization of the lowest level came to be called “the archaic type” (Boas 1915). Tozzer (1916: 466), in a paper presented at the Pan American Scientific Congress, Washington, 1915, noted that the terms “tipo de cerro” and “tipo de montaña” had also been used, and suggested that “Archaic” was a more fitting term.

Antillean petroglyphic art reached its highest development in the technical excellence and lively artistic expression of the many petroglyphs in Puerto Rico. This report is the beginning of a systematic study of Puerto Rican and Antillean petroglyphs which is intended to trace stylistic developments through the Antilles to South American points of origin. Sixty surface prints were made at 13 sites in three regions of Puerto Rico, but only those from Salto Arriba, Icacos, and Caonillas are discussed in detail. The simple and accurate, though time-consuming method of surface printing is fully explained. There are two distinct local types or styles of petroglyphs in addition to the simple curvilinear and abstract designs. The swaddled infant type appears at least as early as Rouse's Period III and represents the beginning of a local petroglyph style. The later Capá type reaches its final stage during Period IV. This study confirms Rouse's placement of the Puerto Rican petroglyphs in his Periods III and IV (A.D. 350-1584), and demonstrates the development of local petroglyph styles parallel to the development and spread of Taino culture.

Abasic Question that must be answered for any archaeological site is, how old is it? Although some archaeological sites can be dated on the basis of archaeological correlations alone and although dendrochronological (Giddings, 1952, pp. 105-110) and radiocarbon methods give absolute ages for other sites, many sites can be dated only by methods based on the geologists’ knowledge of geographic and climatic changes during the last few tens of thousands of years. The dates of these changes are established in part by radiocarbon and related methods. Study of archaeological sites accurately dated by radiocarbon methods will amplify the geologists’ understanding of late Quaternary events.

The well known techniques of dendrochronological and radiocarbon dating need no discussion. The interrelations of methods that depend ultimately on our knowledge of Quaternary climatic and geographic changes are not always well understood, however, by archaeologists. The present paper is intended to clarify some of these interrelations.

This paper begins with a discussion concerning the development of the term "atlatl weight" in archaeological literature. It then proceeds to analyze in detail data relative to 60 atlatl weights from 39 locations on the Plains area of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Although most of the specimens are surface finds, a number are from systematically excavated, radiocarbon-dated occupations.

Differentiated primarily on their general shapes, five groups of atlatl weights seem apparent: Class I, loaf-shaped; Class II, end-ridged; Class III, long ellipsoidal; Class IV, zoomorphic; and a miscellaneous category.

Available evidence suggests that atlatl weights were being made, in the area under consideration, from about 2500 B.C. until A.D. 800.

The aboriginal agriculturists discussed here lived in a somewhat secluded environment, the Connecticut River Valley from Bellows Falls to the Connecticut line. In this long-occupied territory, surrounded by high ridges of volcanic origin, heavily wooded, and watered by innumerable spring-fed streams, the cultural development of the inhabitants was apparently of a homogeneous nature. As late as 1636, when the English began to establish plantations throughout the valley, the natives were found united in a well-defined River Confederacy, with frequent intercourse maintained through river travel. While trade routes probably connected this section with many other parts of the country, cultural contacts had apparently persisted among the river tribes in spite of occasional raids of warlike groups from other regions.

In recent years several dugout canoes have been found in Ontario, but details are lacking for most. One raised from shallow water at Balsam Lake is badly eroded and appears to be of some antiquity. It is a sleek craft of unusual length, remarkably slim proportions and contour, and considerable rigidity, despite its apparent lightness in proportion to its size, because of its substantial bow and stern.

The appearance of iconographic-style pottery at fourteenth-century Pueblo villages in east-central Arizona marked an important shift in the decoration of pottery. These polychrome containers were painted with elaborate imagery that contrasts with earlier geometric-style traditions. Remarkably, though the type was circulated and copied throughout the region, we still know very little about how it was used. This paper addresses that issue by analyzing surface abrasions on a large corpus of White Mountain Red Ware whole vessels. Our research not only examines changes in the uses of Ancestral Pueblo ceramics during the late prehispanic period, but underscores the importance of use-alteration studies to interpreting the biographies of ancient objects.

A brief review of the rise of interest in historic sites preservation and of the use of archaeological techniques in this field, is followed by a discussion of the recent phenomenon of urban renewal as it applies to an increasing necessity for archaeological work in urban areas. Experience gained in the archaeological program at Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, provides the basis for a discussion of some of the specific problems encountered in urban sites: excavation costs, problems of public relations, the necessity for special equipment and specialized artisans, and the archeologists' training.

Although recognized as one of the most significant cultural transformations in North America, the reintroduction of the horse to the continent after AD 1492 has been rarely addressed by archaeological science. A key contributing factor behind this limited study is the apparent absence of equine skeletal remains from early historic archaeological contexts. Here, we present a multidisciplinary analysis of a horse skeleton recovered in Lehi, Utah, originally attributed to the Pleistocene. Reanalysis of stratigraphic context and radiocarbon dating indicates a historic age for this horse (cal AD 1681–1939), linking it with Ute or other Indigenous groups, whereas osteological features demonstrate its use for mounted horseback riding—perhaps with a nonframe saddle. DNA analysis indicates that the animal was a female domestic horse, which was likely cared for as part of a breeding herd despite outliving its usefulness in transport. Finally, sequentially sampled stable carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope values from tooth enamel (δ13C, δ18O, and 87Sr/86Sr) suggest that the horse was raised locally. These results show the utility of archaeological science as applied to horse remains in understanding Indigenous horse pastoralism, whereas consideration of the broader archaeological record suggests a pattern of misidentification of horse bones from early historic contexts.

The Promontory caves (Utah) and Franktown Cave (Colorado) contain high-fidelity records of short-term occupations by groups with material culture connections to the Subarctic/Northern Plains. This research uses Promontory and Franktown bison dung, hair, hide, and bone collagen to establish local baseline carbon isotopic variability and identify leather from a distant source. The ankle wrap of one Promontory Cave 1 moccasin had a δ13C value that indicates a substantial C4 component to the animal's diet, unlike the C3 diets inferred from 171 other Promontory and northern Utah bison samples. We draw on a unique combination of multitissue isotopic analysis, carbon isoscapes, ancient DNA (species and sex identification), tissue turnover rates, archaeological contexts, and bison ecology to show that the high δ13C value was not likely a result of local plant consumption, bison mobility, or trade. Instead, the bison hide was likely acquired via long-distance travel to/from an area of abundant C4 grasses far to the south or east. Expansive landscape knowledge gained through long-distance associations would have allowed Promontory caves inhabitants to make well-informed decisions about directions and routes of movement for a territorial shift, which seems to have occurred in the late thirteenth century.

This paper gives the results of test excavations conducted at the Lake Jackson site, Leon County, Florida by the Florida Park Service during the months of April and May, 1947. During this time systematic excavations were made in a portion of the village area lying in the vicinity of the large mounds for which the site is well known. These excavations were preliminary in nature, and it is hoped that they will be followed by more definitive study.

Rowe (1950) in his review of Andean Culture History by W. C. Bennett and J. B. Bird, 1949, makes certain critical observations on the use of the horizon style concept as a unifying device in the reconstruction of Peru-Bolivian prehistory. Not only Bennett but Kroeber (1944) and I (Willey, 1948) are included in these analytical criticisms. As this is a subject of general importance to Andean archaeology, and in view of my stand on it, I would like to call attention to some of my previously expressed ideas.

In 1915, while making ethnological investigation? among survivors of the Tadoussac band of the Montagnais Indians at Tadoussac, Quebec, Dr. Frank G. Speck, of the Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, learned from the Indians that stone implements had been found on a sandy hill north of the village. From the surface of the site he collected about three hundred chips and stone artifacts which are now in the National Museum of Canada. Another lot of about two hundred and fifty specimens collected by him are in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. In 1927, this and other sites were investigated by the author, who made a careful search of the exposed surface of the area between Tadoussac and Moulin Baude River, about three miles to the east and gathered about one thousand instructive specimens besides several hundred chippings.

The projectile points described below are surface finds discovered by Oscar Lewis within a few miles of his ranch located about twenty miles south of Glendive, Montana. As some of the types represented are those which have been found to have considerable antiquity elsewhere and the complex is similar to that recorded in Pictograph Cave I, a cultural horizon buried under two other prehistoric and one historic horizon at Pictograph Cave near Billings, Montana, their occurrence in this locality is of interest.