Eighteen archaeological objectives are ordered within two general classes: Class A, placement of archaeological units—traits, types, and assemblages — within a space-time framework, and Class B, integration of the units in a cultural context. Four levels of interpretation of data are distinguished: identification, unidimensional distribution, bidimensional distribution, and processual analysis. Statistical methods appropriate to the different levels of interpretation, including cluster analysis, matrix analysis, and factor analysis, are discussed. It is suggested that the matrix method provides a statistical model of findings in archaeological field work. It is concluded that archaeological theory can be advanced by interpretation in terms of series rather than in terms of classes.

Fossil pollen is directly associated with a radiocarbon date, mammoth bones, and the same stratigraphic units in which mammoth, bison, tapir, and horse bones and Clovis artifacts were recovered at the Lehner site. The pollen evidence indicates that desert grassland occupied the San Pedro Valley of southeastern Arizona about 9000 B.C.

Field work in southwestern Idaho in 1959 has led to definition of a boundary zone between the Great Basin and Plateau culture areas. Around A.D. 1300, this boundary lay along the Snake River in southwestern Idaho, but in the 19th century it lay nearly 100 miles to the north of the Snake River. It is suggested that the contemporary environment of southwestern Idaho was established about 1000 B.C.

Interest in the nature of the socio-political and ceremonial life of prehistoric inhabitants in recent years has resulted in an exchange of information between archaeologists and ethnologists. This paper is an initial effort to furnish a list of the kinds of social units to be found among Southwestern groups in the ethnographic present. It is hoped that this list will stimulate further discussion, bring about greater exchange of information, and result in a better understanding of the nature of prehistoric and ethnographic socio-political and ceremonial units in the American Southwest.

Studies of the Great Basin show that the Desert cultures of 8000 B.C. closely resemble the historic cultures of that area, but linguistic evidence indicates that the ancestors of the historic inhabitants moved into the Great Basin as late as 1000 years ago. The linguistic affiliation of the prehistoric cultures thus cannot be directly inferred. Taylor has proposed that Hokaltecans settled in the Great Basin at an early age and were only recently replaced by Uto-Aztecans who moved in from the northeast—an offshoot from a major Uto-Aztecan movement down the western flanks of the Rocky Mountains. This hypothesis does not satisfactorily account for the distribution of the major subdivisions of Uto-Aztecan and directly contradicts the implications of the distribution of Numic (Plateau Shoshonean) languages. An alternate hypothesis is proposed, namely, that Uto-Aztecans moved southward from the northern Great Basin as the Altithermal began; that they moved in two major branches which skirted the Great Basin, one along the Rocky Mountains, the other along the Sierras; and that, as the Medithermal set in, the Numic branch (northernmost Sierran branch) began to move back into the Great Basin proper, this movement being retarded until about 1000 years ago by the presence of horticulturists. This hypothesis is supported by correlations between lexico-statistical dating of the separation of Uto-Aztecan languages and the dates of climatic periods, and by the distributions of the major Uto-Aztecan branches. Identification of these branches follows recent linguistic studies by Voegelin and Hale. Previous classifications of Uto-Aztecan languages, theories concerning the location of the ancestral Uto-Aztecan community, and the implications of these for the present hypothesis are discussed.

A definition of historic sites archaeology as it applies in the New World is offered, and a five-fold classification of historic sites is proposed (protohistoric, contact, postcontact, frontier, and nonaboriginal). The usefulness of the concept of historic sites archaeology is discussed.

By utilizing archaeological associations of contemporaneity found at different sites and a few pieces of stratigraphic information, and by examining the patterning - the interrelationships of shape and decoration - of the pottery, it has been possible to define ten chronological units in the southern highlands of Colombia. The ten phases are grouped into two regional sequences: one with four phases at Tierradentro and another with six phases at San Agustin. Seriational as well as stratigraphic evidence suggests that the pottery from the burial caves of the Tierradentro region is older than the pottery associated with the shaft and chamber tombs of both Tierradentro and San Agustin and may date to the seventh or eighth centuries B.C. The earliest known shaft and chamber tombs appeared at San Agustin during the sixth century B.C. and, by the fifth century of the Christian era, were replaced by a new burial pattern, one consisting of interment in rectangular graves that were sometimes lined with stone slabs.

A new late-ceramic culture in the west-central Plains is defined on the basis of recent investigations and early scattered references in the literature. This Birdwood culture, which is dated about A.D. 1600, is characterized by river-edge sites that yield thin-walled, sparsely sand-tempered, incised pottery.

Spring Creek Cave, a single-component, habitation site in the Big Horn Basin near Ten Sleep, Wyoming, yielded an assemblage of stone artifacts diagnostic of the Late Middle Prehistoric period in context with a considerable variety of hitherto undescribed perishable items. Charcoal produced a radiocarbon date of A.D. 225 ± 200. The Spring Creek material considerably amplifies present knowledge of Late Middle period technology and economy in the Northwestern Plains and provides opportunities for comparison of Late Middle period perishable items with similar items in Basketmaker assemblages of the Southwest and in other assemblages from various parts of the Basin-Plateau region.

A decorated pottery vessel excavated at the Cahokia site in southwestern Illinois is believed to be a specimen from the southeastern United States. A megascopic and a petrographic analysis are presented to confirm a southern origin. The megascopic analysis suggests that the vessel is of Caddoan derivation. The petrographic analysis demonstrates that the paste of the vessel is not indigenous to the American Bottoms and suggests the use of weathered Tertiary shale deposits from the lower Mississippi River Valley. Both analytical procedures are required in order to assess adequately the sources of origin for suspected foreign pottery specimens in archaeological sites.

One of the eleven known colossal stone heads attributed to the Olmec culture of southeastern Mexico has not been previously published. It is now in the town of Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz, and was brought there in 1951 from a locality about 2 mi. north of the village of Tres Zapotes. It is designated as Tres Zapotes Colossal Head No. 2, even though it is probably not associated directly with the Tres Zapotes site which produced Tres Zapotes Colossal Head No. 1. The sculpture weighs about 8.5 short tons and is made of a distinctive olivine-and augite-rich basalt from the Cerro el Vigia not more than 5 mi. away.

At the Ambo site, chips, splinters, cores, and broken or unfinished implements were spread along a terrace of the Huallaga River near the city of Ambo, Department of Huanuco, Peru. Most of the finds are obviously rejects abandoned near the source of the material from which they were made. Projectile points are abundant and were made by the percussion method, although some were retouched by the pressure method. Many of these resemble projectile points of Lauricocha II and Canario in Peru and of Ayampitin and Intihuasi in the Argentine sierra region, which are dated between 6000 and 4000 B.C.

Black-glass bottle fragments have been utilized by archaeologists to aid in the location of U.S. Army out-posts of the Seminole War period (1835-42) in Florida. The patent covering one type of liquor bottle is reported. The date of manufacture of these containers and the forts from which examples have been recovered are also recorded.

Excavation of the Griesmer site in northwestern Indiana has revealed an Upper Mississippi campsite where riverine food resources were intensively utilized. The discovery of 14 sherds from drilled colanders in Oneota cooking pits suggests relationship to colanders found on some Fort Ancient sites or the conversion of ordinary cooking vessels to meet specific food-preparation needs on a site of this type.

A short-wave ultraviolet-light source applied to human phalanges which have been soaked in a commercial ultraviolet-fluorescing pigment allows for rapid and fairly accurate discrimination between individuals obtained from the same archaeological site. The technique is useful in discriminating between sites to a lesser extent.

A proton magnetometer was used in a magnetic survey of a site near San Diego, California. Two hearths and a fire pit were located which otherwise would not have been discovered without extensive excavation. Magnetic surveying of a site in southern California has proved successful and further use of the method in North America is warranted.

The most unsatisfactory artifact names are those which imply some definite but essentially imaginary function. Those who use such names may confess that they have no proof of this function, but they often defend their position by citing the belief-excusable even when unfounded - that a name of such importance would not have been accepted without sufficient investigation. It is suggested that the term gorget was ultimately derived from the name applied to a metal military ornament used in the 18th century.

Ellis’ first major criticism, that local variations on the regional precipitation patterns were ignored, is considered irrelevant, because of the local, random, and short-term nature of these variations and the essential homogeneity of the climate of the Plateau area. Ellis’ second criticism, that the regional differences in climate between the Plateau area and the Rio Grande region were not taken into account, is considered to have more relevance. These differences could conceivably account for a movement between a desiccated Mesa Verde and a little-affected Rio Grande, but precipitation at Mesa Verde would have to be considerably more than halved for this regional differential to be of importance. Regional climatic differences cannot explain population shifts within the relatively homogeneous Plateau region. Hack's theory of arroyo-cutting accompanying droughts as the direct cause of migrations is inadequate because a number of areas were manifestly unaffected by arroyo-cutting, and there is evidence to suggest that arroyo-cutting is not genetically associated with drought periods as minor as that of A.D. 1276–1299. Certain misquotations in Ellis' note are also corrected, as is a misrepresentation in Jett's article.