The problem of the origin and distribution of semi-subterranean structures is an intriguing one. It is generally accepted that the semi-subterranean structure, earth lodge, or pit house, was one of a number of relatively unmodified traits of Old World origin found in North America. This paper reviews some of the literature on the pit house, and summarizes its development and distribution in the Eurasian and North American continents.

Laymen, believing that early man habitually lived in caves, commonly use the stereotyped term “cave man” in referring to our early progenitors in the Old World. This assumption was an inevitable development since occupational sites in western Europe are predominantly caves or cave shelters. However, some European archaeologists have suggested such sites were seasonally occupied–that they were the winter habitations of man during the upper Paleolithic. There is reason to believe different types of shelters were used during warm seasons since engravings of tents or more substantial structures (tectiforms) have been found on the walls of caves and cave shelters. A number of European archaeologists including Breuil (1910), Clark (1939), Childe (1950), and others have accepted tectiforms as evidence of the existence of artificial structures in western Europe during the last glacial advance. Breuil has gone further and compared some of the tectiforms in the Font-de-Gaume, the Dordogne Valley of France, to the summer huts of Navahos described by Mendeleff in 1896.

The fallis village site is an area of some 4 acres, situated on Lot 2, Concession 4, in the Township of Tiny, Simcoe County, Ontario. Springs at the site are the source of a small stream, which joins the River Wye at the head of Mud Lake. At the foot of this small lake are the ruins of Fort St. Marie (Kidd, 1949) built in the opening decades of the seventeenth century, as the center of activities of the unfortunate mission of the Hurons. Thus the Fallis site is situated in the heart of the historic Huron country.

In A. F. Hunter's work (1899, p. 38), the site is listed as No. 38, “John Fraser's and William Smith's,” with the information that the author casually inspected the site and found fragments of pottery scattered about. Hunter does not report European goods at this site, nor does he say whether it had been cultivated.

Since its discovery by Jenness in 1925, the Dorset culture has presented students of Eskimo archaeology with a persistent problem. Apparently representing an Arctic land-hunting culture, centering in the eastern Arctic, and containing many cultural items also to be found in more southern Indian cultures, the Dorset culture has presented ample opportunity for conjectural reconstructions of its origins and affinities. Mathiassen, who collected Dorset materials from Bylot and Southampton islands, first considered Dorset merely as a localized and specialized phase of the Thule culture (Mathiassen, 1925, part 1, pp. 206-12, 258-60; part 2, pp. 164-65). Later, however, he came to regard Dorset as non-Eskimo, and as a culture both influenced by, and influencing, Thule (Mathiassen and Holtved, 1936, p. 130). Jenness originally regarded Dorset as a paleo-Eskimo form of the proto-Eskimo culture of the Arctic Interior (Jenness, 1933, p. 365), but later shifted to the viewpoint that Dorset was a genuine Eskimo culture–albeit showing some Indian influences–which was distantly related to the cultures of Western Alaska (Jenness, 1940, p. 9). That this was the case has been repeatedly assumed as proved by de Laguna (1946, p. 106; 1947, pp. 13-14, 284-85).

Archaeological excavations along coastal Alaska from Cape Prince of Wales south to the Alaska Peninsula, a distance of approximately 2000 miles, were not initiated until 1948, when Giddings (1949) began work in the north at Cape Denbigh, and Larsen (1950) began at Bristol Bay in the southern section of this great area (see Fig. 7). During the summer of 1950 the writer carried out excavations at Hooper Bay, in approximately the center of the unworked region. Although the Hooper Bay Village material includes about 2000 artifacts and 1500 pot and lamp sherds, this paper is limited to a preliminary analysis of the cooking pots. The importance of pottery in determining the sequence within Eskimo prehistory has been neglected, in the face of the abundance of organic material which the frozen middens and house remains yield. The full significance of Alaskan pottery was not emphasized until de Laguna (1947) made her detailed study of the ware; also, Larsen (1950, p. 186) pointed out that potsherds are particularly good time indicators in a region like southwestern Alaska, where the preservation is poor. In this paper the Hooper Bay sherds are considered with particular reference to their position within the Bristol Bay-Norton Sound region and their relationship to finds of similar pottery in the north.

Although the American Philosophical Society–University of New Mexico Mackenzie Valley Expedition of 1938 (Bliss, 1939, p. 365) was not primarily concerned with Eskimo archaeology, the members felt, while at the trading rendezvous Aklavik on the lower Mackenzie River, that the opportunity to run down to the Arctic coast was too obvious to be neglected. The archaeology of the Western Eskimo of the Mackenzie area has never been well studied; little, as a matter of fact, has been added since 1930 when Mathiassen wrote the introduction to his Western Eskimo report. This paper will add somewhat to a meager store of fact.

Cremation pits were discovered in the Yakima and Snake River valleys and on the Columbia at Wahluke and at The Dalles before 1927. Recently one has been described from the John Day region in Oregon by Cressman (1950). The cremation complex which the pits represent appears in the late prehistoric period and was undoubtedly widespread and important in the cultural development of the region. In the Dalles-Arlington area, at least, it lasted into historic times. Recent evidence associates the cremation complex with Sahaptin groups inhabiting the region above The Dalles until late historic times. This new evidence controverts an earlier theory, largely based on ethnological traditions, that the Salish were the early inhabitants of the area. The finding of burials below the cremation level at Sheep Island (i.e., a stratified burial site) has particular bearing on the problem.

In a recent issue of this journal (Vol. 17, p. 151) Donald J. Lehmer protests against the coefficient of agreement used by W. S. Robinson in his paper on “A Method for Chronologically Ordering Archaeological Deposits” (American Antiquity, Vol. 16, pp. 293-301). Lehmer's objection to the coefficient

In the months of July and August, 1950, excavation at the Aztalan Village site was carried on by the Wisconsin Archaeological Survey under the field supervision of Chandler W. Rowe. Additional information was gathered concerning this Middle Mississippi village; this information is being prepared for publication. However, it seems advisable to record the peculiar situation encountered in three of the refuse pits (features 76, 74 and 83) in the hope that correlative information may be forthcoming.

A unique stone bearing a number of rude linear cuts (Fig. 44), some in a design, was found in the course of routine fieldwork during the summer of 1950 by a party of geologists of the U. S. Geological Survey, Navy Oil Unit. This field party, to whom the credit for the discovery belongs, was under the leadership of Charles L. Whittington. Also present at the discovery were John Stevens, Leonard Rolnick, Bruce Thompson and Francis Minard. Although petroglyphs as individual items are not uncommon elsewhere on the continent, its occurrence in northern Alaska is singular enough to be worth recording.

The large flint blade (Fig. 45) was found several years ago by A. C. Smith, who lives on West Sugar Loaf Creek near Lead Hill, Arkansas. He found the specimen near a small shelter entrance on the stream in association with three others of the same size and type. However, the others have been given away and their whereabouts are unknown. Artifacts found in the same general area are all of the stemmed and barbed projectile point variety commonly associated with the Woodland Pattern.

The Mangum Plate consists of three fragments of elaborately embossed copper sheeting formed of separate parts overlapped and hammered together and riveted where necessary. The pieces were found in 1936 by Spurgeon C. Mangum on a knoll situated on his farm 5 miles northeast of Port Gibson, Mississippi, 1 mile south of Bayou Pierre (R 3E, Tn 12N, S 28). The site has since been acquired by the State of Mississippi for the National Park Service for development as a feature of archaeological interest along the Natchez Trace Parkway.

In the Lillard Collection primarily comprising archaeological materials from California now permanently housed in the University of California Museum of Anthropology, is a prehistoric artifact from Oregon which deserves special mention.

The specimen (Fig. 48) which is broken now measures 8.1 cm. in length, 3.7 cm. in width and 8 cm. in thickness. In cross section it is slightly curved from the natural contour of the original material. The inner convexity bears traces of the interior spongy or cancellous material of the antler.

J. Alden Mason (1951) described two soapstone figurines which seemed to be of Chinese manufacture that have turned up in Mexico and Guatemala, respectively. In connection with these, I should like to call attention to still another object of the same substance, discovered in Yucatan, which is undoubtedly of Chinese manufacture.

Gann (1918) illustrates a “soapstone lamp” which he had found in a mound near Bacalar in Quintana Roo. He describes this “lamp” as decorated in front with a floral design and at the back by wing or feather-like ornaments possibly meant to represent the tail and halffolded wings of a bird, and remarks that its pleasing design and flowing lines are totally unlike the cramped and highly conventional style found in “similar small objects of ancient Maya manufacture.”

Completion of the analysis of the artifacts from Chaluka, the old village site at Nikolski, Umnak Island, has brought to light a number of new observations on the Aleutian core and blade industry, orginally described in American Antiquity, Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 52-54. The use of lamellar flakes is part of the earliest Aleut culture and most of the flakes, four fifths, are found below the three meter level. This earliest Aleut culture was introduced by the paleo-Aleut people.

These flakes were used mainly for scrapers and retouched on only one surface and along one or both edges. Quite a few of these are tanged, apparently for end-hafting. A number have well-worked points which, together with their general form, suggests their use as gravers. There are also two adze blades, two knives and at least one projectile point which appears to have been made from lamellar flakes.

Those of us who have at one time or the other had the occasion to cast arrowheads or flints are aware of the disappointing lack of realism that plaster presents. Translucence is never present and too frequently the crisp retouch flake marks are lost under a coat of paint. More often, a successful reproduction is quickly ruined by careless handling.

After many trials that resulted in nothing more convincing than arrowpoints looking like painted plaster, the properties of various plastics were tested. Failure with liquid plastics led to experiments with powdered dental acrylic. This material, I found, had all of the properties required for faithful reproductions of stone flake work. The acrylic can be colored with pigments. It is strong, transparent, and can be molded to any desired shape with excellent detail without too much difficulty.