During the summer of 1964, a field party from Wichita State University conducted a survey in the vicinity of May Lake, 50 air mi. northwest of Anaktuvuk Pass. A large number of heavily patinated artifacts was discovered on and beneath the present ground surface in the flood plain of a small stream not registered on U.S. Geological Survey maps and named Sedna Creek. The artifact assemblage consists of flakes and flake tools, all of which belong to one single tradition. A comparison with Far North assemblages indicates that Sedna Creek is the fourth site of the British Mountain complex. Of Old World sites, Ust-Kanskaia, Tuin-Gol, the Mal’ta-Buret complex, Sannyi Mys, and Chastinskaya appear closely related.

Also, Heizer questions the existence of a period of climate moister than that of today at the time when makers of the Lake Mohave lithic complex camped about high shorelines.

The following article attempts to do two things:

(1) Distinguish descriptively between sand-wear and wave-wear so that other archaeologists can use these criteria.

(2) Show that a widespread cultural co-tradition existed in the Inter-Montane West about 7000 B.C. during a period of moister climate. Artifact inventories are submitted. This co-tradition was characterized by sparsity or lack of stone-on-stone milling, by a number of unique implements, and by a practice of frequenting the shores of now-dry water sources. This widely distributed orientation toward fossil water implies a generally wetter climate at that time.

This co-tradition was characterized by sparsity or lack of stone-on-stone milling, by a number of unique implements, and by a practice of frequenting the shores of now-dry water sources. This widely distributed orientation toward fossil water implies a generally wetter climate at that time.

Test excavations at the site of Huistla in Jalisco, Mexico, yielded a series of ceramic types which is similar to types or wares found in the coastal lowland strip of Nayarit and Sinaloa. These affiliations indicate an occupation during a period sometime between about A.D. 800 and 1200. A reappraisal of the Aztatlán complex, recently divided into a series of local phases by Kelley, Winters, and Grosscup, leaves the impression that, while subdivision of the complex is justifed in light of their new data, certain continuities in ceramic design styles between these phases still give substance to the Aztatlán complex.

A series of seven idealized levels of procedure in conducting archaeological research is proposed: preparation, acquisition, analysis, interpretation, integration, comparison, and abstraction. This scheme was employed to investigate archaeological phenomena from Lava Beds National Monument, northern California.

Archaeologists are constantly faced with the problem of estimating population numbers of the social units they study. After a brief survey of some of the methods used in population estimations, particularly in California, attention is focused, in this paper, on a population model proposed by Robert Ascher. Nine variables which comprise the basis of his model are considered individually, and as a result of this analysis the precision with which these variables can be controlled is seen as insufficient for purposes of population estimation. Alternatively, broader, more comprehensive, ecological studies are suggested for acquiring the necessary data for population estimation.

The traditional approaches of comparative human osteology have proven largely unsatisfactory in attempts to determine biological relationships among human populations which cremated their dead. However, one category of information, that of discrete traits or skeletal anomalies, has been largely ignored. Cremations from Point of Pines, Arizona, were analyzed to determine if this kind of information, along with that usually sought from skeletal material, could be obtained in sufficient quantity to make comparative biological studies feasible. The results were encouraging, but they indicate that extraordinary care will be required in the future excavation and storage of cremated material.

Several areas with extensive obsidian-working debris on the surface have been found in Teotihuacán. These date from the Late Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic periods. During the Late Preclassic and Classic periods there seems to have been a continuous expansion of the city's obsidian industry, accompanied by an increasing trend toward specialization in certain of its aspects. It is probable that the introduction of some new markets, for example the Mayan area, into the Teotihuacán economy was one factor involved in this expansion. Another probable factor was the growth of population within the Valley of Teotihuacán itself, which in these periods depended upon the city"s workshops for its supply of obsidian.

The identification of pottery artifacts modeled after Cucurbita species from the Mochica culture of Peru is discussed. The evidence strongly suggests these artifacts were modeled after cultivars of C. moschata, not C. pepo as reported from time to time in botanical literature.

Excavations carried out at the site of Donnelly Ridge in central Alaska have led to the delineation of an early core and blade culture which includes the Campus site and two sites previously excavated on the Teklanika River to the west. Sites of the Denali complex are linked by distinctive microblade cores, core tablets and microblades derived from the latter, large blades, biconvex bifacial knives, certain end-scraper forms, a distinctive burin type, and other traits. The clearest affiliations of the Denali complex are with a series of late Upper Palaeolithic sites west of Lake Baikal, but relationships may be seen with sites in Hokkaido and Kamchatka as well. The bearers of this culture probably entered Alaska prior to the final submergence of the Bering land bridge.

Laboratory and experimental studies of glazed polish (corn gloss) on sickle edges, trillo teeth, hoe blades, and mealing stones indicate that this polish is analogous to modern lapidary polishes which are produced as submicroscopic frictional fusion zones by rubbing with soft powders. Frictional contact with opaline inclusions in grasses has produced corn gloss by fusion of flint surfaces and by fusion to them of dehydrated molecules of opal. The one-to-one equation of corn gloss to grasses has many implications to culture history. Among others, a previously unsuspected type of intense agriculture, closely adapted to conservation of prairie soils, is indicated for Hopewell, Middle Mississippi, and other American Indian cultures.

In his surface survey of the Valley of Mexico, Tolstoy found large quantities of a distinctive type of pottery concentrated in the southwestern portion of Lake Texcoco (Tolstoy 1958: 53). This pottery, called Texcoco Fabric-marked, was almost always found on low mounds, tlateles, lying either within or very near the old lake bed.

Tolstoy offers no explanation for the correlation between the tlateles and the fabric-marked pottery other than that they seem in some way “to be traditionally connected with the Aztec practice of extracting salt.”

Evidence is presented in this paper that shows Tolstoy's explanation of the use of Texcoco Fabric-marked pottery is not a very satisfactory one, and an alternative hypothesis—that this fabric-marked pottery was used in food production—is proposed.

The suggestion is made that some of the earthenware vessels perforated by drilled holes and described as colanders may have been used, not as colanders, but as cages to contain small rodents or other captives.

Application of ammonium chloride powder to artifacts of quartz, obsidian, and chert aids in the production of photographs that show excellent surface detail.

Evidence is presented for the delineation of a Paleo-Indian site in Wisconsin. Surface finds from the Kouba site in Dane County include an assemblage of fluted points, gravers, and scrapers of similar types to those from Paleo-Indian sites in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Vermont.

A study of floor construction in the Maya area leads to the conclusion that a definite technique or pattern seems to have been used from the Preclassic to the Postclassic periods and that this consisted of using a foundation under a base which was covered by a plaster. It appeared further that the same technique was applied regardless of the raw materials at hand. It was also found that the use of burned earth or clay as an element of a floor was rather widespread and appeared to be deliberate rather than the result of the burning of flammable superstructures. No attempt was made at this time to determine the fine structures of the separate floor elements based upon their chemical or physical properties.