Recent archaeological investigations at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon reveal that residents constructed a large diversion channel during the eleventh century A.D. as dramatic growth resulted in the expansion of the building onto the main valley floor. Sediments in the diversion channel reflect repeated episodes of flooding, rather than slow moving water typically found in irrigation canals, and archaeobotanical data indicate deposition during late summer or early fall. Although an agricultural function is possible, the channel may have been built primarily to divert floodwaters away from Pueblo Bonito while providing a nearby water source for construction and domestic use. The diversion channel was destroyed by the entrenchment of the “Bonito paleo-channel” in the late A.D. 1000s, and then buried by a combination of cultural debris and valley flooding. Although the canyon stream system changed throughout the occupation of Pueblo Bonito, there is no evidence that the formation of a deep natural channel in the floodplain had any negative effect on the growth of the great house

This study documents the contexts of platform pipe creation, distribution, and disposition at Illinois Havana Hopewell Tradition (50 BC to AD 200–250) sites to identify regional variation in Hopewell ceremonialism and exchange. We observe that the large deposits of stone pipes buried during communal rituals in the Scioto Valley and the continued influence of the Hopewell Sphere of Interaction have skewed archaeological interpretation. Aside from the several large deposits, pipes are limited in the Scioto Tradition and seldom found in habitation areas. In Illinois, pipe fabrication debris commonly occurs in habitation areas along with numerous examples of pipe repair and maintenance. Local pipestones—often from northern Illinois Sterling deposits—predominate, and exotic imported pipestones are unusual. Pipes are rare inclusions with individual burials as indicators of status, spiritual prowess, achievement, or group membership. The high value placed on pipes as communal sacra in Ohio and their value in Illinois as items of personal influence parallels their common occurrence in Illinois and their unique context in Ohio Hopewell. This study of the contexts of pipe manufacture and deposition reinforces current discussions of such artifact assemblages as important in documenting local variations in political, social, and religious mortuary ceremonialism across the “Hopewellian sphere.”

Artifacts, including ceramics, ground stone, and soil samples, as well as dental calculus, recovered from sites in the eastern North American central Plains were submitted to multiple laboratories for analysis of microbotanical remains. Direct accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) dates of 361–197 cal BC provide evidence for the earliest use of maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) in this region. Squash (Cucurbita sp.), wild rice (cf. Zizania spp.), and palm (Arecaceae sp.) microremains were also found. This research adds to the growing evidence of the importance of microbotanical analysis in documenting plant use and in the identification of early maize. The combined data on early maize from the eastern Plains adds to our understanding of the timing and dispersal of this crop out of the American Southwest. Alternative explanations for the adoption and early use of maize by eastern central Plains communities include its value as a secondary resource, as an addition to an existing farming strategy, or as a component of Middle Woodland rituals.

Centering in Georgia and extending to the adjacent portions of the states of Tennessee, Alabama, North and South Carolina are a series of archaeological complexes characterized by pottery with a complicated stamped decoration. These complexes have not yet been sufficiently defined. This paper will attempt a partial statement of the resemblances and differences between the major divisions of the group. It will not attempt to evaluate the excavations in a detailed manner. This material is what Holmes (1903, pp. 130-137) called the South Appalachian Province in which he lumped all the stamped pottery from the southeastern area. The Swift Creek Complicated Stamped material as defined in a preliminary paper by Kelly (1938, pp. 25-31, Pl. 11, a) will not be considered here. It has become evident in recent years that subdivisions of the rest of the material could be made and that they would have temporal or spatial significance.

Descriptions of Indians in northern Mexico with copper artifacts occur in the sixteenth-century expedition reports of Cabeza de Vaca, Francisco Ibarra, and Father Rodríguez. The phrasing of Cabeza de Vaca's account indicates that both copper bells and plates were excavated from abandoned villages and then traded widely. Statements given in all three journals point to the site of Paquimé, or Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua as the most probable source. Since Casas Grandes was deserted in the sixteenth century, it is suggested that the copper objects found among the Indians in northern Mexico by Cabeza de Vaca, Ibarra, and Rodríguez were looted from Casas Grandes rather than obtained by trade from west Mexico or Mesoamerica.

Campbell and Ellis in their article on the Rio Grande Atrisco Sites (American Antiquity Vol. 17, No. 3, 1952) say: “Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of the type (5 out of 8 specimens) is its tendency to show a definite rifling or beveling which would presumably insure its whirling in flight.” This is an amazing statement to find in a serious report made by two competent modern archaeologists.

Beveling the edges of points is a very ancient trait. Fluted points have been found with beveled edges. However the reason for this beveling was not to insure the spinning of the shaft in flight; beveling is not productive of that effect. In fact, aerodynamically, there is not enough force generated against the surface of these bevels on any point small enough to serve as an arrow or atlatl dart tip, to spin the shaft. Spinning is achieved by the set of the feathering, but we know of no use of unfeathered arrows on this continent. Even the early atlatl darts seem to have been feathered at the nock end.

Lafitau's 1724 engraving of Huron agriculture, previously taken as evidence for triangular stone hoes in the Northeast, actually is a copy of de Bry"s engraving of Timucua agriculture, and the hoes shown are a European type.

Hall's (this issue) comment to my paper published in American Antiquity five years ago (Hockett 2005) makes the following statements: (1) I calculated "depositional rates" for a series of Great Basin faunal assemblages; (2) my analysis did not account for atmospheric radiocarbon fluctuations; and (3) my paper argued "against an increase in hunting artiodactyls from the Middle to Late Holocene." He further argues that recalculation of the data I presented demonstrates that both large-and small-game hunting increased from the Middle to the Late Holocene. Hall is wrong on all accounts. I agree, however, that calibrated dates should now be used instead of the raw radiocarbon dates I used in my original paper. Using calibrated dates, however, does nothing to change the initial patterns I outlined five years ago. Three more recent papers (Hockett 2007, 2009; Hockett and Murphy 2009) on large game hunting in the Great Basin also corroborate my 2005 interpretations.

Stone engravings from Sechin, hitherto interpreted as human eyes, are reinterpreted as anuran eggs. The reasons for this interpretation and the possible symbolic meaning of such eggs are given.

For the past several years Charles Borden of the University of British Columbia has been carrying out a most promising attack on the problems of Northwest prehistory, primarily in the Fraser Delta area. Strongly influenced by the latter-day rigorous school of German archaeologists, his field work is thorough and impeccable. His short reports, published in Anthropology in British Columbia from 1950 through 1953–54 have been more than of a preliminary nature. They have taken on, increasingly, the characteristics of final interpretative statements.

Baltasar Jaime Martiñez de Compañon, has been mentioned in anthropological literature for the past fifty years, albeit rather sporadically; but up to the present time the importance of his legacy has not been appreciated by those anthropologists in the Peruvian field, especially those who have dealt with the ethnology and archaeology of the North Coast. Although one of the purposes of this brief note is to call attention to the necessity of incorporating the valuable illustrative material of Martiñez de Compañon in future works, the primary purpose is to make known to the anthropological public that, except for an extremely rare edition of plates which is but a tiny fraction of the whole, the enormous fount of ethnological and archaeological information that Martiñez left remains unpublished.

During a field trip to British Honduras in the summer of 1950, the carved representation of a serpent sketched in Figure 116 was seen in the private collection of Mr. Eustace Evans of Belize. Esthetically, the piece is designed and executed with a skill that makes it an outstanding example of aboriginal art. The specimen is also deserving of description because it is stylistically unusual for the Maya area, being quite different from the traditional Maya artifacts.

The data contained in the paper by Munson, Parmalee, and Yamell (1971) concerning the Scovill site in Illinois have been employed for the purpose of examining the demographic and dietary status of the inhabitants. It is calculated from the meat residues found by the authors that this source of food would have supplied 181,800 g of animal protein, and from the residues of nuts that this type of plant supplied 1,588,000 Calories. The nutritional requirement in these substances for the probable population of the site was very much greater than the residues found. Hence the residues do not approach the probable consumption. On the other hand it is shown that the environment could provide much more meat and nuts than are represented by the human consumption.

The increase in funding associated with new legislation subsequent to the late 1960s and the introduction of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) research has changed archaeology in many ways. Not the least of these changes is the first full flowering of archaeology's four fields of endeavor (research and report writing, teaching, management, and outreach) to the extent that it is now possible for individuals to devote major portions of their career to a single field, and increasingly they are doing so, though a career that entails some work in more than one field is still, and probably should remain, the rule. Within the research field, academic research and research activities related to archaeological resource management (ARM) should develop as complementary rather than as compartmentalized approaches to the database. The teaching field must emphasize training students for service in all four fields. Management and public outreach should be recognized as legitimate fields of full-time archaeological endeavor, and public accountability should be embraced.

In 1956, as part of a larger archaeological salvage project for The Dalles Reservoir sponsored by the National Park Service and under the general direction of Douglas Osborne of the University of Washington, a complete record by prints was made of some 400 petroglyphs along a 15 mile stretch of the Columbia River. The original idea for the method and its application to petroglyph recording belongs to Sari Dienes, who has used it in her own art. With the assistance of the writer, Mrs. Dienes did the actual printing of the designs. The project was successfully completed with the aid of a supplementary grant from the Seattle Art Museum.

In connection with a reconnaissance of southwestern Campeche and Tabasco undertaken for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the writer was able to make a brief visit to the ruins of Piedras Negras in the Department of Peten, Guatemala, in January, 1940. At the time of this visit, he encountered a fragment with hieroglyphic text on the raised basal terrace at the corner of Structure K-5, close to but not in direct association with the fragments of Stela 38. As the fragment was unfamiliar, it was photographed on the offchance of being previously unrecorded. However, no measurements or drawings were made.

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of excavations conducted in 1933, as yet unreported, and to correlate the findings with present knowledge of Jamaican and other West Indian prehistory. Descriptions of the sites and specimens may be of value to archaeologists in this area.

Since 1933 great strides have been made in archaeological knowledge of the West Indies. Irving Rouse has correlated known cultures in most of the Greater Antilles and in some of the Lesser Antilles. He has established seven arbitrary time periods, I, IIa, IIb, IIIa, IIIb, IVa, and IVb, for the area (Rouse, 1939, 1941, 1948, 1951, 1952) on the basis of stratigraphy, sedation of modes, establishment of style sequences, and cross-dating of trade objects. During these periods four cultures existed. The period I culture is preceramic and is associated with the Ciboney Indians who may have come from North America. The first ceramic culture, Igneri, is associated with the Arawak Indians, who pushed north and east from the Orinoco Valley in period II. It lacks the ceremonial complex which distinguishes the two later ceramic cultures, sub-Taino and Taino, which developed in the Greater Antilles during periods III and IV, the former as a simpler variant of the latter.

The archaeological record of the Cochise culture does not support the theory proposed by Martin that no major climatic fiuctuations have occurred in the Southwest during the past 10,000 years.

During the summer of 1948, from June 14th to September 25th, the authors made a second archaeological expedition into the area including Lakes Mistassini and Albanel in south-central Province of Quebec. The work was directed by Frederick Johnson and done under the auspices of the Peabody Foundation, which provided half of the funds necessary. The Viking Fund of New York City generously granted the remainder of the money necessary and for this both we and the Foundation wish to express our gratitude.

Traveling in the trackless interior of Quebec presents many difficulties at best, and without the generous cooperation of the Hudson's Bay Company and its personnel, travel would be virtually impossible. We are sincerely grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Fred McLeod, Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Parsons, and Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Jeffreys, whose hospitality and genuine good will are in keeping with the best traditions of the Hudson's Bay Company.