The reported occurrence of Folsom points in California, and the suggestion that the parts of the Folsom complex will be found to be as generally widespread west of the Rocky Mountains as they have to the eastward, raises several interesting problems as to the relative age and significance of Folsom material reported from different parts of North America. It becomes obvious, moreover, that an appreciable time has been involved in the spread of the complex if its limits are to be extended, as recent occurrences would suggest.

These and other considerations properly belong to a survey article, and it is enough for the purpose of this paper to mention briefly that during the past several years the Folsom complex has occupied a singular place in any postulated chronological scheme for American archaeology because investigation during this time has failed to show what lies immediately on either side of it.

Webster's criticism of my linear programming simulation of the agricultural carrying capacity of the Tikal sustaining area is answered.

The historical timing and movement of Navajo communities in the U.S. Southwest continue to be key, but unresolved, issues. This paper analyzes tree-ring data to consider initial Navajo settlement patterns in the Little Colorado River watershed, Black Mesa, and nearby regions in northern Arizona. We are critical of previous studies that deem all tree-ring dates to be equally valid, so we present a new approach to systematically identify potential early Navajo sites. After analyzing hundreds of tree-ring specimens from 774 sites, we conclude that dendrochronological evidence offers moderate-to-high confidence that 18 Navajo sites in the study area were settled prior to 1882. These dendrochronological data support the hypothesis of a westward Navajo migration from the Dinétah, reaching Black Mesa in Arizona about 1840, other areas north and east of the Hopi Mesas in the 1850s, and land west of Hopi in the 1870s after the release of Navajos from Fort Sumner in 1868.

The corps of engineers is currently building a power and flood control dam near the little town of Buford on the upper Chattahoochee River in northern Georgia. This is one of several such dams under way in the State, and in accordance with the usual procedure the Smithsonian River Basin Surveys made a routine archaeological reconnaissance of the impoundment area from November 15, 1950 to April 7, 1951. During the survey the writers came upon a large prehistoric mound (9HL64) not previously reported.

We spent three weeks investigating the structure to determine if its eventual flooding in the Buford impoundment would constitute an important loss of archaeological data. The conclusion reached was that a full scale excavation should be made before the site is inundated sometime in 1954 or 1955.

In their report in American Antiquity on the “Application of orthophoto mapping to archaeological problems,” Prewitt and Holz (1976) discuss the use of orthophotos and orthophotomaps in archaeological field inspection but also introduce a number of incorrect definitions and misconceptions concerning the technique. The following comments are an attempt to clarify these points and, in addition, to discuss some other advantages and applications of-and caveats concerning-this useful remote-sensing technique. A select bibliography for further reading in remote sensing and orthophotography is also presented.

The use of dry metallic powder is suggested as a means of enhancing photography of obsidian or glassy stone tools.

Radiocarbon determinations on marine shell have previously been used to provide evidence assigning a fourth to sixth millennium B.C. age to ceramic objects excavated at the Irvine site, an early Archaic period shell midden located in coastal southern California. Objections have been raised concerning the reliability of the stratigraphic association of ceramics and the radiocarbon-dated marine shell materials. An examination of the thermoluminescence responses of two ceramic samples resulted in minimum TL ages of ca. 1500 B.C. Evidence for a presumably indigenous California ceramic tradition may also be present at two additional sites. This suggests that the arrival of ceramic forms into southern and central California by way of the southern Great Basin and Colorado River may be seen as a separate, comparatively recent [ca. A.D. 1000] phenomenon.

In an article in this journal some years ago, Heizer (1944) brought together a number of recorded instances of the transport of artifacts by migratory animals. These instances consisted entirely of cases in which a bird, a sea mammal, or a land mammal had been wounded by man and, surviving the wound, had carried part of the weapon imbedded in its flesh, to some area many miles away. The eventual killing of the animal elsewhere led to the discovery of an exotic arrowhead, spear point, or harpoon head in the old wound. The occurrence of undetected instances of this phenomenon would naturally result in the deposition of artifacts far from their native area where, on the basis of ethnographic and archaeological evidence, they would not be expected to occur.

Impressions of past climates on 1 soils and soil materials are not easily obliterated by time. Morphological and chemical features of the weathering record may be of considerable aid in reconstructing the past environments as well as in understanding the present ones. It should be possible not merely to recognize the qualitative aspects of the past climates, by the morphological-geochemical analysis, but also to attempt establishment of semi-quantitative time scales, of indices of the duration of this or that component of the climatic sequence. This analytical approach to the study of ancient soils, palaeopedology, is now at its beginning. The large but disorganized body of observations and data in this field is still lacking in perspectives and interpretations. The tentative conclusions developed herein are subject to revision and change, and it is our hope to verify and to enlarge this study in the near future, time and opportunity permitting.

As a footnote to Ralph Beals’ most interesting discussion of Father Acosta's views on the peopling of the New World in the October 1957 issue of American Antiquity (Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 182–3), one might note the claim of Thomas Gage, author of the English-American, a new survey of the West Indies, to be the first to develop thoroughly — certainly in English — the “Men out of Asia” via Bering Strait thesis.

In American Antiquity for July, 1940, there appears a short article by Robin Drews, of the University of Oregon, entitled “Peculiar Wooden Tubes from Southeastern Oregon,” in which the author asks if these tubes may be “beads, gambling pieces, pipe stems, or what?” Recently I noted a scrap of ethnobotanical information which reminded me of this query and which, I feel, may throw some light on the subject.

Frederick V. Coville, in his “Notes on Plants Used by the Klamath Indians of Oregon,”1 has the following to say of. the Blueberry Elder (Sambucus caerulea): “ One curious use of the plant, now rarely resorted to, but formerly common among the Snake Indians, consists in punching out the pith from sections of the stem, ramming them full of large crickets, Anabrus simplex Hald., and plugging the ends. The contents of the stems were used for food in the winter” (p. 104).

Shackley and Moore's Comment misrepresents the focus of my 2017 article, which is not “regional” in nature but rather attempts a focused study of one community's relationship with the Valles Caldera; furthermore, the vast majority of the data they present do not correspond temporally with my study.

The function of archaeological mushroom stones has been subject to various speculations. Recently their explanation as ritual objects, associated with the ceremonial consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms, seems on its way to general acceptance. The subsequent analysis refutes such an interpretation and reveals their real function as potters’ molds.

Oral presentation of papers has assumed ever increasing importance as a mode of information dissemination among the professional community. Many oral presentations are diminished in effectiveness by disregard of formal and mechanical aspects of presentation. Discussion of these aspects among professionals is as essential as is formal instruction in them for students.

White and colleagues (2020) have argued that after Cahokia's AD 1400 decline, the native population in the Horseshoe Lake Watershed rebounded beginning in AD 1500 and peaked around 1650, and that the native groups populating the area were members of the Illinois Confederation. These arguments are based on a population reconstruction obtained from fecal stanol concentrations from Horseshoe Lake sediment cores and regional historical, archaeological, and environmental data. We argue that their interpretations are problematic because they discount extensive regional archaeological and historical datasets and do not consider alternative hypotheses that could explain high levels of fecal stanol concentrations in lake sediments.