Excavations in the Savannah River swamp in southeastern South Carolina have uncovered a shell midden believed to represent the accumulation of a single occupation by Savannah River Archaic peoples. Two radiocarbon dates from the basal portions of this shell midden suggest an age for the associated Stallings Plain pottery of 2505 B.C. and 2515 B.C. A third radiocarbon date — A.D. 1450 — from the upper levels of the shell midden clearly reflects contamination derived from later occupations of the site. Nothing in the field evidence provides a sound basis for refuting the two early dates, but in view of their antiquity, firm acceptance must await independent corroborative evidence from other Southeastern sites.

In 1947, at a conference on Peruvian archaeology held in Viking Fund headquarters in New York City, Wendell C. Bennett proposed a concept of area co-tradition and used it as a means of expressing certain characteristics of Peruvian culture history. He first defined the concept in abstract terms, then described the Peruvian co-tradition, and finally suggested the possibility that other area co-traditions might exist in the Southwestern United States, Middle America, and Northwest Argentina (Bennett, 1948).

Acting on Bennett's suggestion, Martin and Rinaldo (1951) subsequently worked out a Southwestern area Co-tradition in some detail. In addition, Willey (1953, p. 374) has suggested the existence of an Arctic or Eskimo cotradition and of three co-traditions in the Eastern United States: Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippi.

In the present paper, I shall confine myself to the use of the concept in Peru and the Southwest, since these are the only places where it has yet been applied in any detail.

A recent settlement pattern survey in central Mexico offers a useful perspective from which to view the first part of an ethnohistoric document–the Codice Xolotl–which deals with the same area. Regional settlement patterns from the Early Postclassic period seem to correspond most reasonably with events depicted in the Codice. It is suggested that the first part of the Codice Xolotl is most useful to anthropologists when considered within a framework of relevant archaeological information.

Excavations in the Western Mound at this prehistoric Hopi pueblo provide 13 adjacent columns of refuse in masonry rooms which yielded 21,569 painted sherds. Stratigraphic analysis of these ceramic profiles has resulted in a relative chronology of five color classes of locally made painted pottery which will serve as a control for future ceramic studies at the site. Black-onwhite, black-on-orange, and orange-paste polychrome were made from about A.r>. 1200 to 1300 when they were abruptly replaced by black-on-yellow and yellow-paste polychrome. The differences between trash deposited in rooms and that dumped in the open, the anomalies of sherd and vessel quantities, and the well documented nature of this large sherd collection make possible observations on the problems of stratigraphic interpretation. Numerical comparison of painted sherds with vessels restored from them demonstrates the hazards of interpretation based solely on limited sherd samples. The fact that one of the rooms produced a sequence exactly the reverse of the situation in the other 12 rooms emphasizes the need for more extensive testing in room blocks than in trash dumps. Restoration of vessels from sherds found at different levels in different rooms shows the inadequacy of chronological inference based on stratigraphic position of unassembled sherds.

Archaeological sites to which the rather indefinite term Archaic has been applied have been known from various areas throughout the eastern United States for a good number of years. At the outset, these sites were defined as Archaic primarily by their lack of evidence for agricultural practices and pottery, although more positive traits were also used in such definitions. The term Archaic has now come to be used in two major ways: as a time period in a local sequence, and as a cultural stage in general preceding the development of agriculture and settled communities.

A critical aspect in the estimation of human effort embodied in mound construction or in midden deposition is the volume of the deposit. When these deposits are of irregular contour, the use of standard geometric formulae for the determination of volumes of solids is inadequate. Given a basic contour map of a given deposit, a rather precise determination of volume can be calculated by the application of the formula derived from that for the volume of a truncated cone. The use of the formula involves the determination of the volumes between contour intervals, and then adding the successive contour interval volumes. This is done by measuring the areas of adjacent contours and inserting those data into the formula. The procedure can be accomplished by hand, using grid paper or a compensating polar plenimeter, or by computer–either mainframe or micro–by the incorporation of the formula into an existing contour mapping program.

In a recent paper, Nance has proposed that the serrated "Stockton Points" of central California were used as cutting implements rather than as arrow points. His sample comprised 10 specimens. Functional analyses of 87 additional examples (plus the examination of 2 specimens imbedded in human bone) are reported here and indicate that Nance’s hypothesis is incorrect. We argue the obvious point that very limited artifact samples are inadequate for generalizing on functional use.

An Epiclassic period (ca. A.D. 800-1000) Mexican-influenced archaeological pattern is delineated for the Río Negro and Río Motagua basins, the two principal arteries of highland Guatemala, which flow to the Gulf and Caribbean lowlands. This pattern is argued to have originated along the Mexican-Mayan cultural frontier of the Gulf coast. A subsequent Toltec pattern in these same river basins parallels Chichén Itzá and Mayapán and also can be seen to have originated in the same general Gulf lowlands. Such Mexican/Toltec patterns in archaeology show that ethnohistorical claims by the later Quiche and Cakchiquel peoples for having introduced Toltec cultural forms into the highlands actually predate their stated migratory movement and a threshold of "history" (A.D. 1200s) by centuries.

To aid our understanding of prehispanic social change in a subcontinental context, this article presents data and analysis relating to the occupational histories of 351 Mississippian platform mound sites in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Based on the premise that sites with platform mounds served as the administrative and ritual centers for Mississippian polities, our study demonstrates that polities in the study area rose and fell with some regularity, and in many cases, new polities succeeded old ones in the same locations. Our work expands on a previous analysis of 47 northern Georgia area sites. Through a theoretical framework tailored for macroregional processes and a rule-based approach in collecting and standardizing data from previous work, this study serves as an example for incorporating different processes and regions to provide a more coherent and complete picture of the Mississippian macroregion. Our results show that polity cycling was typical in our study area, and we argue that the rise and fall of polities is best described within a theoretical framework emphasizing collapse and resilience. By treating collapse as a normal feature of Mississippian polities, we can better understand the interconnectedness of Mississippian polities across regions.

This is a report of archaeological and ethnological work done on Andros Island, Bahamas. No habitation sites of the Lucayans were found and evidence seems to show that the island was sparsely populated in prehistoric times. The famous “Indians” of whom so many tales have been written, turned out to be descendants of Negro-Seminole crosses instead of Lucayans. This work was done through five weeks during the months of July and August, 1937. Visits were made at all the mail boat stops and two weeks spent at both Mastic Point and Mangrove Cay.

Michael Fotiadis (1994) and Barbara Little (1994) both question the oppositions that structure current debate about the “objectivity” of archaeological science; they raise concerns about my own proposal for a “mitigated objectivism” where it reaffirms these oppositions. I welcome their discussion and offer three responses to clarify and situate my own position. Most valuable, they identify several lines of inquiry that should be pursued beyond the philosophical analyses I have developed, in this instance of gender research.

Artifact collection has become increasingly expensive, especially with respect to curation costs. Consequently, many government agencies as well as researchers have turned to an alternative, “on-site” analysis approach in which many analytical procedures usually reserved for the laboratory are conducted in the field. Using data gathered at an andesite quarry in eastern Nevada, we evaluate such an approach in terms of feasibility, reliability of results, and cost, as well as its impact on the surface archaeological record. Although we still believe that artifact collection is central to archaeological research, we argue that in circumstances where collection is not possible, a well-designed and systematically implemented on-site approach can yield reliable results, although not without some visible impact on the surface archaeological record.

Any relative nutritional differences among the diverse maize (Zea mays L.) landraces traditionally maintained in the Greater Southwest are little understood. In this article, we investigate a range of nutritional traits of five indigenous maize landraces in the US Southwest based on different kernel endosperm types: pop, flour, flint, dent, and sweet. We present macronutrient and micronutrient values for accessions of each landrace grown in the same environmental grow-out experiment. Macronutrient values vary considerably across these endosperm accessions. Sweet and flour maize had higher values of fat and protein, whereas dent had the highest carbohydrate content. Sweet and flour maize were comparatively the best sources of micronutrients. Sweet maize yielded the highest values of potassium, thiamin, and magnesium, and flour kernels had the highest riboflavin and niacin content. These results indicate that the maintenance of diverse maize landraces had nutritional as well as ecological, symbolic, and culinary value in both the past and today. Compared to modern commercial maize standards, traditional southwestern maize landraces had a somewhat higher caloric value, many had higher vitamin and mineral content, and all accessions but dent displayed higher protein values. This suggests that southwestern maize-focused diets that included diverse landraces may have been more nutritious than previously understood.

This paper presents a multivariate statistical and spatial analysis of rock art site content and composition for the Didima Gorge, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In presenting an experimental set of methodological approaches, the paper attempts to identify categories of rock art sites based on their image content and other archaeological characteristics, and then explores how these types might have related to various social, religious, and economic contexts in the past. The paper finds evidence for three kinds of rock art site use in the Didima Gorge: (1) large residential "home bases" that were centers of economic activity, (2) large unoccupied sites that were special locations for ritual activities, which the paper argues were sometimes the locations of puberty initiation, and (3) small isolated sites that were locations of private magical activities done by lone individuals. The central theme of this study is that there is clear evidence for diversity in terms of the contexts in which rock art sites in the Didima Gorge formed, and that no single account is adequate for their explanation.

It is a very bold individual indeed who will suggest ideas concerning descriptive methods pointing toward a system for the simplification of classifications for archaeological artifacts. The chief difficulty in the way of arriving at simplified classifications lies in the great diversity of irregular forms. Consequently, the problem becomes so intricate, so full of pitfalls, that one is apt to become lost in a maze of detail out of which there is but slight possiblity of gathering together and properly grouping the essentials.

Whether the subject be axes, celts, gorgets, projectile points or any one of the many groups of artifacts, we must recognize at the very start that there are certain forms which almost defy description.

Pollen grains have recently been found in quantities sufficient for statistical analysis in the sediments of Ramanote Cave, Santa Cruz County, Arizona (Arizona: DD:12:1 Amerind Survey System). At the suggestion of Terah L. Smiley of the University of Arizona the samples were collected by Charles C. DiPeso of the Amerind Foundation, Inc., in the summer of 1953. The author is indebted to Edwin B. Kurtz, Jr., and to the Botany Department, College of Agriculture, University of Arizona, for the use of laboratory facilities. Because many cultural materials have been found in cave deposits and many cave explorations are now in progress, this preliminary report is intended to point out the necessity of collecting samples for pollen analysis during the progress of archaeological investigations.

Peat bogs have long been known as ideal deposits for pollen studies due to high pollen frequencies and excellent conditions for preservation.

This Article is intended less as a descriptive piece on the archaeology of the Rimac Valley than it is as a single-valley application of various conclusions reached by Richard P. Schaedel in his Major Ceremonial and Population Centers in Northern Peru (1951). Schaedel, in a broad synthetic study of major ruins on the North Coast of Peru, comes to several interesting conclusions on the “urban revolution” in that region. The author, who was already engaged in a survey of the Rimac, with the focus on the coastal cultures from sea level to the 1000-meter line, felt impelled to shift the emphasis of his survey from straight description to a Central Coast application of Schaedel's North Coast findings. This was a fairly easy task, as the sites were already being analyzed both architecturally and ceramically.

The Rimac, the “valley of Lima,” presents sufficient of both typical and atypical features of a Peruvian coastal valley to make the application of Schaedel's theories to a single valley at least fairly indicative of their validity for the entire Peruvian coast.

The dating of the Lake Mohave artifact assemblage relative to the fossil beaches on which the material was found has been in dispute since Malcolm Rogers (1939) published a monograph disagreeing with several findings given in the original report (Campbells, Antevs, Amsden and Bode, 1937). Mr. Rogers' critique was never answered by the original authors, and his findings have been accepted consequently by most authors who have attempted summaries of the material (Martin, Quimby and Collier 1947, p. 437 and Fig. 122; Wormington 1949, pp. 84-87; Roberts 1951, p. 126). Rogers agreed with the Campbells that the great majority of the artifacts found (Rogers, p. 42, puts it at 95 per cent) are restricted to the surfaces of the fossil beaches. Rogers questioned, however, the Campbells' conclusion that human occupation was contemporaneous with times when the lake stood at the overflow level, which is that of the beaches. Rogers' most crucial evidence was given as follows: “There is splendid evidence that this condition did not prevail, because of the presence of a large encampment on the 937'-940' bay bar which extends directly across the outlet channel. Man could not have camped in this section during any period of overflow.” (Rogers 1939, p. 43). This “beach bar site” was previously reported by the Campbells. Rogers' statement, in contrast to Bode's original determination (Campbells et al., p. 108), implies that the bar actually blocks the old outlet, and thus that it, and its occupational evidence, must postdate the period during which the lake overflowed.

A unique grinding tool, termed a "gyratory crusher," was developed very early in Phase I of the Amargosan-Pinacateño occupation of the Sierra Pinacate, an isolated ecological and archaeological enclave in extreme north-western Sonora, Mexico. The gyratory crusher resembles a perforated mortar, either in slab or block form, in which a wooden pestle with a projection extending through the perforation in the mortar base was gyrated, the projection providing leverage against the under rim of the hole, to grind mesquite pods. The crusher underwent modification, and its use seems to have been discontinued with the disappearance of mesquite forests at the end of the Yuman I period, about A.D. 1100-1200. A few similar tools are reported late in time in the western Sierra Madre, Mexico, and also from early horizons in Iran and Israel. Recognition of the tool type may extend its known distribution in both the New World and the Old World.

Data from recent excavations in central, northern, and northeastern Utah, and in the southwestern Wyoming Basin, have prompted a reevaluation of current concepts of the ethnic and cultural origins of the Fremont culture centered in Utah, of its relationships to the Promontory culture of northern Utah, and of the relationship of both these cultures to protohistoric Central Plains culture.

The long-standing interpretation of the Fremont as a northern “peripheral” variant of the Southwestern Anasazi culture is discarded, and a hypothesis of a Northwestern Plains (probably Athabaskan) population partially acculturated to the Anasazi Pueblo pattern is proposed. Additionally, identity of the so-called Promontory culture with the northern Utah variant of the Fremont culture is postulated on evidence from sites in northern Utah. It is suggested that the Fremont culture drifted back onto the Central Plains around approximately A.D. 1400-1600, under pressure from the Shoshonean expansion out of the Great Basin, to become the forerunner of the Dismal River culture, which has been attributed to the Athabaskan Plains Apache.