This Study deals primarily with the pottery from a series of 8 Middle Woodland village sites in the central Illinois River valley (Mason, Tazewell, Fulton, Peoria, and Marshall counties in Illinois, see Fig. 62). Comment regarding 3 other sites is also included. All of these sites but one are either directly associated with Hopewellian burial mounds or have Hopewellian pottery and other artifacts scattered throughout the debris. There are numerous other sites known with material similar to these sites, but they are not included here due to the small number of sherds in each of these sites (for example, F°77, Fv88, and others reported on by Cole and Deuel in 1937).

The purpose of this particular study is twofold. First of all an attempt is being made in this report to present indications of changes through time and style preferences in a rather well-known culture. It is hoped that these indications will help us to understand the temporal position of the different sites and to build up a body of information that will allow better understanding of the various cultural forms, in this particular case, pottery.

Along the eastern side of the Great Valley of California is the Sierra Nevada, a great mountain chain 500 miles long and 75 wide. The Sierra Nevada has a gradual western slope and an abrupt eastern face fronting the arid Great Basin. The long western side, which contains the main timber belt, was heavily populated in its lower elevations in the pre-Caucasian period. In contrast, the High Sierra above 5000 feet was visited only seasonally by aboriginal groups. The archaeology of this latter zone is little known because it has been assumed that archaeological remains are scanty, and, as a consequence, little work has been carried on. Recent investigations have demonstrated, however, that at some of the seasonal campsites repeated occupation over a long period of time resulted in fairly extensive accumulations of occupational debris.

During the late fall of 1953, exploratory excavations conducted at Vermilion Valley in the High Sierra of Fresno County provided evidence of an extended period of intermittent habitation at an aboriginal camping place.

One of the greatest problems confronting southwestern archaeology in its aim of interpretive reconstruction of the cultures of prehistoric peoples lies in filling the gaps where little or no information exists concerning significant periods of development in particular areas. One such interval, of considerable duration, exists in the middle Rio Grande Valley. We have known for some time that this region was inhabited by some of the early hunting groups (Hibben 1941, 1951) as well as the later Pueblo peoples. But who the people were, if any, that lived here during the interim between these extremes has been, until recently, largely a matter for conjecture. No ecologic reason has been presented to show why this river valley could not have supported its share of inhabitants, whether hunters, gatherers, or agriculturalists, during these thousands of years.

In the Summer of 1949 an archaeological; field group, sponsored by the University of Texas, excavated a large house structure at the Polvo site (57D2-3) in western Texas. The previous summer J. Charles Kelley had excavated 2 structures at this site, which he reported in 1949. The site itself he identified as a component of the Bravo Valley aspect.

The Polvo site is located in southern Presidio County, Texas, some 8 miles south of the junction of the Rio Grande and the Rio Conchos, in what is referred to as the “La Junta” region of the Big Bend. The site lies about one mile to the southwest of the modern village of Redford, at the edge of the old Mexican pueblito Polvo. Physiographically, the site is located in the Redford Vajley, through which the Rio Grande flows into the Canon Colorado. Midway in the valley, an arroyo, known locally as the Arroyo Bayo Nuevo, enters the river.

The Shirt which is the subject of this article is of importance for several reasons: it exemplifies a revolutionary construction principle in old Peruvian dress, indicates that the new style was one still based on the weaver's art, and gives significance to textile fragments which heretofore have been anomalous.

The specimen (Fig. 76) is the property of Edwin Ferdon of the Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, who has kindly given permission for a descriptive and analytical article concerning it. In the spring of 1953 the writer examined the specimen, then on loan to the Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico. I wish to thank Frank Hibben, Curator of the Department's collections, for making this textile available for study, and Joseph Allen for photographing it. The shirt bears the loan number UNM F 15-93. My colleague, John Rowe, has kindly assisted with advice on the dating given herein.

When archaeologists go into the field to excavate, they generally pass up excellent opportunities to contribute to ethnology, physical anthropology, linguistics, or some other branch of this ever-widening subject of anthropology. Before undertaking such extracurricular research, the archaeologist must familiarize himself with the general ethnography of his region. Such tools as the Outline of Cultural Materials (1950) and Notes and Queries on Anthropology, Sixth Edition (1951), can be used to obtain such ethnographic control.

By hiring workmen the archaeologist creates a unique research tool — an artificial small group within an already functioning society. This group is artificial in the sense that it does not arise from the society itself, and is likely to cease functioning after the departure of the diggers. The artificial small group consists of locally hired workmen, plus the archaeological party, and seldom numbers over 50. This artificially created group will become a “face to face” or “natural group” (Coon 1948: 563) as it meets from day to day.

The Maya area has yielded little in the way of Early Man, although certain discoveries, like that at Santa Isabel Iztapan (Aveleyra and Maldonado 1953), have unquestionably established hunters of now extinct fauna in the Valley of Mexico. In Guatemala only a peculiarly cut sloth bone suggests human co-existence with Upper Pleistocene fauna (Shook 1951: 93, 96). But, apart from these, one can only note two other finds, both made some years ago, one at Concepcion, Campeche, Mexico, the other in the Peten, Guatemala. These latter ‘discoveries have been treated in a few important studies as containing either sure or probable remnants of a fundamental, early Mesoamerican horizon. I strongly feel that before these particular finds achieve widespread acceptance, in print or otherwise, as except tionally ancient, they should be re-examined especially from the comparative standpoint.

The Concepción artifacts and those from the Peten were, for the most part, percussion-flaked flint implements, bifaced, usually with one end rounded, the other relatively pointed, and with unretouched edges, not unlike the Acheulian hand ax of Europe.

In a recent issue of American Antiquity Douglas S. Byers, in “Bull Brook — a Fluted Point Site in Ipswich, Massachusetts ” (Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 343-51), pointedly raises the question of how the stone artifacts at this site have become buried rather deeply in the soil. To quote Mr. Byers: “Not the least of the problems is that having to do with the means by which the implements became buried. The surface of the land shows differences in elevation that could not have amounted to more than 5 feet over the entire area. There is no sign of an old land surface at the depth at which the fluted point complex occurs. Neither slope wash, wind action, nor frost action seem to offer satisfactory media for burying the objects. The matter remains a puzzle until further study may uncover new evidence.”

This particular dilemma, is one that I am sure will be encountered in the study of any old site, such as the fluted point sites.

Due to the kind invitation of William C. Eldridge and the Vaccaro brothers, discoverers of the site, I have had opportunities to visit and excavate in this flutedpoint site during the current spring. In part of the work I was accompanied by Theodore L. Stoddard.

In April we went to examine a possible hearth area where concentrations of charcoal had been reported in association with fragments of artifacts and chips of the stone used by the paleo-Indian occupants of the site. The surface which was exposed lay about 12 inches below ground level and well within the horizon of yellow-brown sand. Concentrations of charcoal were irregular in outline and density, and as one trowelled downwards they appeared to separate into fingers suggesting roots. Associated with some of the better preserved charcoal were bits of carbonized bark. We therefore concluded that the charcoal represented the remains of stumps which had burned out in rather recent woods fires, and that association of charcoal and fragments of paleo-Indian artifacts was purely fortuitous.

From November 15, 1950, to April 7, 1951, an archaeological survey was conducted by the Smithsonian River Basin Surveys, in cooperation with the National Park Service and the Corps of Army Engineers, of the area to be flooded by the dam at Buford, Georgia. On the upper Chattahoochee River we came across an aboriginal cooking pit containing quantities of pottery which could be unhesitatingly identified as historic Cherokee. While a certain amount of confusion as to just what might constitute Cherokee ceramics was dispelled some years ago by the publication of Hiwassee Island, it does seem advisable to present the Buford material as an areal and temporal variant. It differs in some particulars from the Overhill pottery described by Lewis and Kneberg from the Little Tennessee; there are other differences from recently identified Cherokee pottery from the middle Etowah River in northwest Georgia; and again, it is unlike some ceramic assemblages from Lower Cherokee towns in northeast Georgia and western South Carolina.

In a review of the Scalp Creek report (Hurt 1952) Donald J. Lehmer questions the evidence which would warrant the denning of a Randall component at the Scalp Creek site (39GR1), Gregory County, South Dakota (Lehmer 1954). In addition, Lehmer makes this statement, “However, when a subsequent report by Hurt tentatively derives the St. Helena focus of the Upper Republican aspect from a component established on the basis of 39 potsherds, it becomes a matter of somewhat more concern.” The writer wishes to summarize the evidence which led him to define a Randall component, since it is not fully covered in the review, and also to disclaim any adherence to the hypothesis quoted by Lehmer.

The writer defined 3 components at the Scalp Creek site. The lowermost component was assigned to the Loseke Creek focus of the Plains Woodland tradition. The Randall component occupied a midplace in stratigraphy and contained, in addition to the Loseke Creek ceramic types, 39 sherds classified Ellis Plain and Randall Incised (Hurt 1952, Fig. 16, 1-6).

Pacific Power and Light Company of Portland, Oregon, has now completed construction of the Yale dam, flooding 9 miles of one of the largest river valleys in southwestern Washington. Before the dam was completed an agreement was made between E. Robert de Luccia of the Company and Douglas Osborne of the University of Washington and the Washington State Museum to assure that archaeological resources within the reservoir would be permanently recorded. Correspondence was initiated by Dr. Osborne with Mr. de Luccia, who is Vice-President and Chief Engineer of Pacific Power and Light. The understanding of an archaeologist's aims and needs displayed by Mr. de Luccia and his associates is most heartening. The company employed two archaeologists, Thomas Kehoe and Alan Bryan, and supplied subsistence for a period of two weeks for these men and a third student, Ralph Turman.

According to all ethnographic and historical information, the upper Lewis River Valley was not peopled by the Indians until quite recently, and then not from the coastal area, but from the Plateau over the Klikitat Pass.

Discovery of a second small prehistoric site in the interior of the Chukchi Peninsula during the summer of 1952 is of interest despite the paucity of the material recovered. The finds, including the first pottery from the region, are sufficient to shed some light on a littleknown area whose past is of great concern to Americanists. Okladnikov's report (1953) forms the basis for this account.

The first interior site, consisting of surface finds on the Yakitikiveem River judged on typological grounds to be of “Neolithic” age in the East Siberian sense of the term, was summarized by Krader (1952). Previously, archaeological knowledge of the extreme northeast tip of Siberia had been limited to coastal sites left by a sedentary sea hunting population — ancestors of the Eskimo. The oldest of these are not thought by Russian investigators to go beyond 500 B.C. The Yakitikiveem finds undoubtedly represent the wandering reindeer hunters of the tundra who must have preceded the historic reindeer-breeding population in the interior of the Chukchi Peninsula.

John M. Longyear, in his excellent presentation of the ceramics of Copan (1952), describes a vessel which he tentatively labels an incense burner. The vessel in question belongs to his Archaic period (?-A.D. 300). He considers it to be the only vessel from this period with possible ceremonial connotations. Quoting Longyear (p. 24): “It is a thick-walled, rough-finished vase, set on three solid cylinder legs (fig. 42 a [reproduced here as Fig. 86, a]). The body is pierced by a number of large, horseshoe-shaped holes. This may very well have been an incensario of some sort.” Longyear gives more details about the same vessel (p. 92). “Other thickwalled, coarsely finished sherds appear to come from incensarios of jar type, only two of which could be reconstructed. One is a large jar, of ‘hourglass” silhouette, supported on three long solid cylinder legs. The walls are pierced by an undetermined number of horseshoe-shaped windows, and the basal angle bears indentations made by the fingertip (fig. 42a).

In a recent article J. Alden Mason (1951) called attention to 2 small Chinese figurines found in local archaeological collections in Mesoamerica. One was from Azqueltan, Jalisco, Mexico and is now in the University Museum, Philadelphia (catalog number NA- 11808), and the other was in the Vitalino Robles collection of Quezaltenango, Guatemala. Both are of a soft stone and were described as “crawling infants.” While browsing through a collection of archaeological objects in an antique shop in Guatemala City I came across another small Chinese figurine similar in most respects to the ones described by Mason. The shop owner, unaware of the Oriental origin of this specimen, was sure that it must have come in with the other artifacts from Kaminaljuyu, a large archaeological site on the outskirts of the city. The figurine has been presented to the University Museum (catalog number 54-4-1).

Like the Quezaltenango specimen (Mason 1951 Fig. 1, a), the stone figurine from Guatemala City is an opaque yellowish-amber color with reddish veins and has a very soft, soapy texture (Mohr scale 2.8).

Increasingly, Americanist archaeologists are tackling problems relating not only to broad ecological adaptations of the peoples whose cultures they study but also to more specific considerations such as dietary patterns. The amount of light which archaeological data can shed is unknown, but the potential is increasingly probed for enlightening clues. Current ethnographic work in New Guinea prompts the following comments concerning 1) degree of exploitation of available protein sources; and 2) social restrictions influencing protein intake.

Sources of concentrated protein available to the Agarabi are not large. However, they are exploited to such an extent that the diet is not as deficient in protein foods as a superficial view would suggest. Pigs, although highly valued, are not plentiful nor are they eaten in large quantities. Wild fowl and small mammals, again not abundant, are eagerly hunted and consumed. Finally, a wide variety of worms and insects are caught and eaten.