On “An Interpretation of the Prehistory of the Eastern United States”

Extract

The article, “An Interpretation of the Prehistory of the Eastern United States,” by J. A. Ford and G. R. Willey in the 1941 American Anthropologist inauguratesan epoch. At last we have an interpretation of the archaeology of most of our East which is definite, evidential, and sequential.

Eastern archaeology has developed its generalized findings very slowly. It is almost a century since Squier and Davis published. The cultures are undoubtedly hard to interpret. Their remains are such as to call both for quantities of finds and for fine discriminations in relatively low-quality material. Nevertheless, venture at broader but substantiated understanding has been less than the difficulties warranted. The systematic or McKern classification has been extremely valuable; but at its rate of progress, a quarter century or more might have elapsed before classification was converted into chronology.