In San Diego County clay figurines occur sporadically throughout most of the intermediate valleys, inland valleys, and mountain regions, and although of rather wide areal distribution they seem to be numerically rare. In addition to those described in this report, specimens are known to be in the possession of the Museum of Man, San Diego, and the Cuyumaca State Park Museum. A probable fragment was found by B. F. McCown in the excavations at Temecula. Other finds are occasionally reported but have not been documented or described.

In his recent study of the Fort Ancient aspect, J. B. Griffin has described two unique vessels from the Madisonville site as follows:

Two of the most unusual vessels from the site have pedestal bases. One of them was recovered relatively intact from the right side of the skull of an extended adult male. This jar is entirely typical of the Madisonville Cord-marked jars with the exception of the stand, which is an anomaly in any cultural group in the eastern United States. The vessel and the stand are 19 cm. high, and the stand alone is 6.5 cm. This unique piece is in the Cincinnati Art Museum. On the other jar the pedestal has been broken off, but there is no doubt but that such a base was formerly attached. This jar does not have any handles, but in its other traits it is a representative Madisonville Cord-marked jar.

Data provided by 42 COPA (Committee on Public Archeology) representatives are provided as a synthesis of current status of state support for archaeological research programs. Trends indicative of increasing support are documented. Eight states have not been updated.

This article calls attention to the lack of cooperation among osteologists in sharing with archaeologists their information concerning bone identification by way of field manuals.

The problem of the antiquity of man in early America has rapidly divided itself into a series of detailed researches, each one dealing with special facets of the matter. To date the greatest progress in the relationship between the various cultures of the paleo-Indian has been made with geologic methods by which the rhythm of climatic changes of the late Pleistocene and recent times has been tied in with deposits involving human materials. The radiocarbon method has now appeared to bolster and refine the time scale. From all of these activities there is rapidly emerging a clearing picture of early times in the Americas.

The reinterpretation of the Mabaruma phase, British Guiana, by Lathrap does not introduce new evidence that requires abandonment of the original estimate of about A.D. 500 for its introduction from the Orinoco delta.

In October, 1937, Mr. Frank M. Harvin, Jr., of Columbia, South Carolina, presented me with sixty-three stone artifacts that he had collected on various visits to a plowed field overlooking the Congaree River near West Columbia, South Carolina. In Mr. Harvin's collection were two fluted points of the type known as “Folsom.” Later I looked through the Babcock Collection of Indian artifacts from Chester, South Carolina (now in the University of South Carolina Library), and found another fluted Folsom point among the hundreds of chipped implements in that exhibit. Inspection of my own collection and the Simpson Collection in Rock Hill, South Carolina, failed to reveal any other examples of this type, which has a wide distribution in the East and South, although I do not remember having seen any reported from South Carolina.

Zoomorphic beads of carved and polished hard stone, most often red jasper, have been found in Late Archaic, Poverty Point or unknown context across the southern states from western Louisiana and Arkansas to western Alabama. These beads have features that resemble locusts, specifically the grasshopper and the cyclical cicada. The most regularly accentuated feature is a midbody disc or projecting plate that is thought to represent the auditory organs or vibrating membranes of these insects and which participate in production of a relatively tremendous volume of sound. It is proposed that the locust bead concept, involving an element of magic, spread across the southern states in multicultural context at a time level near 1000 B.C.

The skeletal remains described in this report were found by Pius Fischer on November 14, 1936, as gravel was being dug from a pit near the town of Bradwell, Saskatchewan, for highway purposes. The find was reported to the R. C. M. Police, and Detective Sergeant F. W. Davis kindly mentioned the matter to Dr. Vigfusson, who proceeded a week later to the site of the find with Professors Jackson, Edmunds and Spinks. Unfortunately, by that time the gravel had been excavated to a distance of about four feet beyond the original position of the bones, and thus all evidence of the condition of the burial had been obliterated.

Because fresh-water dams are flooding areas faster than archaeologists can investigate them, it has become urgent to develop a method of underwater archaeological research. Some technical equipment, such as “scuba” and other devices used by amateur divers, is already available. This, together with specialized techniques, some already developed, makes it possible to carry on archaeological research under water. The action of water is not always destructive. In fact, certain kinds of lakes act to preserve objects, either organic or metallic, which would be destroyed out of water. The objective of underwater research, then, would be twofold: (1) to recover data endangered by too long exposure to the destructive action of water, and (2) to recover data protected by the preservative action of water.

The reason for the following is an article by Henry B. Collins: “Radiocarbon Dating in the Arctic” which appeared in the January, 1953 issue of American Antiquity. This is the third article in four years in which Collins comments on the interpretation of the Ipiutak culture advanced by Froelich Rainey and me in our publications on the excavations at Point Hope, Alaska, 1939-41 (Larsen and Rainey, 1948). Although critical regarding certain points in our theory on the development of Eskimo culture, his comments in the first two articles are on the whole objective and justifiable (Collins 1950a and 1951). His latest article, however, is written in a surprisingly sharp, polemic form which is entirely unprovoked and it contains statements which disclose that he has misunderstood certain important points in the Ipiutak report and misinterprets archaeological evidence. My aim is not to begin a polemic because experience shows that polemics are merely a waste of valuable time and print; they often foster ill feelings and seldom give positive results.

James B. Griffin, in his recent paper, “The De Luna Expedition and the Buzzard Cult in the Southeast,“ advances the hypothesis that the ceremonial material characteristic of such mound sites as Etowah, Georgia; Moundville, Alabama; and Spiro, Oklahoma, is the result of proselytizing efforts of escaped Mexican Indian servants ’ imported with the De Luna Expedition (1559–1561). He states that “the De Luna Expedition might well have furnished the impetus that resulted in the adoption in the Southeast of various Mexican art styles and concepts.“

This question is of course a basic one in Southeastern archaeology. These Mexicanoid elements are graphic focalizations of a cult which swept over the Southeast from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and from the Plains to the Atlantic. Taken at face value, this hypothesis of Griffin's is a simple tool for explaining the otherwise puzzling stylistic resemblances between Southeastern ceremonial art and the Mixteca-Pueblo “culture” of Mexico.

In the January issue Robert Merrill reviews a study of mine called Concepts and Structures of Maya Calendrical Arithmetics. Considering the flinty nature of the material I wish he had noted that there is a section devoted to “Summary.” Two “Appendices” also failed to get mentioned, but the other sections are characterized briefly. Section XV was mistakenly grouped with others as dealing with “analysis of various moon formulae.” In it, a moon formula is simply assumed, and the subject is a theory, admittedly incomplete, as to how the Maya computer of the Eclipse Table on pp. 51-8 of the Dresden Codex may have been able to do as well as he did without understanding the celestial mechanics involved. Thus, this short section has a bearing on just how “gifted” the much-praised ancient Maya astronomer-priests really were.

Thorne Cave is a site in Cliff Creek Canyon, north-eastern Utah. Between 5000 and 2000 B.C. alluvial fill in the canyon reached the level of Thorne Cave and formed its floor. At this time, and intermittently for perhaps the next 200 years, peoples with a Desert Archaic cultural tradition camped on a dune near the cave mouth while the canyon and the cave continued to fill. Stratified camp debris was washed into the cave, and alluvium accumulated well above the cave brow, leaving a dead space in the dome area of the cave roof. Dissection of canyon alluvium later re-exposed Thorne Cave and washed away much of the evidence of human occupation. Radiocarbon-dated charcoal indicates that the site was occupied as early as 4230±250 years B.P. Materials recovered from Thorne Cave include redeposited charcoal and food-bone scrap; projectile points, small choppers and scrapers, manos, and grinding slabs; bone awls, needles, a pendant, a flaking tool, and a scapula seed-header; and impressions of twined basketry.