Caves in the western foothills of the Altai Mountains have long been known, and collections of Pleistocene fauna were made a century ago in caves in the middle reaches of the Charysh River which rises in the snow-covered Kargon range on the central Altai. The cave near the village of Ust'-Kan in the upper reaches of the Charysh River, which was discovered and excavated in 1954, is the first Siberian cave site of Paleolithic age to be investigated. The deposits contained a rich and varied fauna including 17 species of mammals and 12 of birds. Of special interest are the extinct spiral-horned antelope and cave hyena. This is the first Paleolithic site at which the yak has been found. This faunal assemblage is typical of a steppe region such as the dry, unforested Central Asiatic tablelands, and is quite distinct from the postglacial fauna from the known open sites of the Siberian Paleolithic in the Yenisei, Angara, and Trans-Baikal regions. The occupation of the site is dated by the fauna to the warm phase just preceding the last Altai glaciation. The artifacts exhibit the massive and archaic characteristics typical of the Siberian Paleolithic in general, but differ completely from artifacts at previously known Late Paleolithic sites considered to be contemporaneous with the European Magdalenian and later. The Ust'-Kanskaia tool assemblage is in the Mousterian tradition and may be related to the Levalloiso-Mousterian developments in neighboring Central Asia. Comparative artifact and faunal studies also suggest correlations with the Upper Paleolithic of the Ordos and the ancient cultures of Southeast Asia.

This site contains three major components. Mandeville I is a very Late Deptford culture, represented by sizable village deposits, the premound occupation under Mound A, the initial pyramidal mound building at Mound A, and most of the burial mound, Mound B. Significant contacts are seen with Copena and Ohio Valley Hopewell, and there are definite ties with the Crystal River complex. Mandeville II is a continuity with Mandeville I, but may be considered Early Swift Creek. New layers were added to Mound A, but there was little activity on Mound B. Village deposits of this component are extensive. Primary outside contact for the group is with the Crystal River complex, though some continuing Copena and Ohio Valley Hopewell influence is seen. Mandeville III, unrelated to the earlier components, is an expression of the Mississippian Rood focus 500 to 1000 years after Mandeville II. Village deposits of this component are not plentiful. Mound A was capped and presumably used for a temple base. Relationships lie with Macon Plateau and Lake Jackson, and ultimately to the northwest in the Tennessee and Mississippi valleys.

Archaeological research in the Far West of North America is reviewed in terms of the contributions to methodology and theory. The generally simple level of culture in an area in which functioning native cultures survived until recent times has led to the perfection of analytical techniques for non-ceramic evidence, the development of ingenuity in deriving conclusions, and a considerable use of the direct-historical approach. New methodological approaches have been developed in analysis of physical components of sites, determination of food resources, estimation of population density, establishment of functional typologies, testing of the value of chemical and other changes for chronological control, and experimentation with statistical techniques of seriation. Theoretical trends include a lack of culture classification systems comparable to those in other North American areas, a dependence on classificatory units on the level of the complex or assemblage, and a tendency toward the development of a classificatory system based on an ecological framework.

Metal artifacts are discussed as possible indicators of relationships within Mesoamerica and between Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. All known forms of Mesoamerican metal artifacts for which age and provenience data are available are included in a typological classification, presented as a basis for comparisons and distribution studies. Data on spatial and temporal distribution, with indications of centers of manufacture or use of some types, and with suggested maximum temporal range for each type, are included with the typological classification. Based on these data, a series of suggestions is presented regarding time of initial appearance of metals in various subareas of Mesoamerica, the importance of certain subareas as centers from which metals diffused, and patterns and rates of diffusion within Mesoamerica and between Mesoamerica and the American Southwest.

A newly discovered late Neolithic culture of riverine hunters and fishermen becomes the third major culture known in the Chukchi-Koryak region of Northeast Asia. The arctic maritime hunters ancestral to the Eskimo have long been known, and recently evidence for an inland group of hunters in the northern reindeer and fish areas has been encountered. The Neolithic hunters and fishers lived in temporary, probably winter camps of semisubterranean houses near the game-rich mouths of tributaries on the well-drained gravel floodplains of the river valleys of the Anadyr-Penzhina lowlands. Collections from Vakernaia 1 and 2 in the Main River valley are described. Chipped stone artifacts with pressure retouch include some obsidian knives, and trapezoidal and semilunar knives made on pebble flakes. There are grinder picks, polished slate knives of ulo type, and adzes including a form comparable to the splitting adz of the Chugach sequence in southern Alaska. Picks or mattocks were made of walrus tusk and antler. The bulk of the collection consists of pottery. Hemispherical vessels of great size variation are plain, textile-impressed, and stamped. Although house type, the walrus tusk, and the ulo knives suggest some connection with the Bering Sea hunting cultures, the basic traits appear to be of more local origin.

Plant remains from La Cueva de los Muertos Chiquitos consist mostly of cultivated plants, beans, corn, and cucurbits. The inhabitants also gathered acorns, pinon nuts, black walnuts, and opuntia fruits for food, and used yucca, agave, and possibly cotton for fibers. The beans are unusually abundant and diverse: three species and 12 types or varieties. A type of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus) and two common beans (P. vulgaris), one of them similar to the cultivar Wells Red Kidney, are new to the Southwest and to northwestern Mexico. The lima bean is of interest because it belongs to the round-seeded Carib group with a center of diversification in the West Indies, whereas other lima beans from the prehistoric Southwest are mostly small-seeded and flat, probably derived from Central America. Five races of corn are represented: an ancient race called Chapalote; Cristalina de Chihuahua, the most numerous race in the collections; Onaveño, a race with medium-sized, hard-flint kernels; Pima-Papago, the common soft flour corn of the Arizona-Sonora border; and Toluca Pop, a central Mexican pyramidal, pointed popcorn. Cob fragments and grains show definite evidence of hybridization with Tripsacum or teosinte. Three species of cultivated Cucurbitaceae, a wild species of Cucurbita, and a species of Apodanthera were identified. Fragments of gourds, mostly Lagenaria siceraria, are relatively abundant. Seeds and peduncles of Cucurbita pepo occur in strata throughout the entire profile. Cucurbita mixta was found in the later strata, but remains of this species are meagre. Seeds of Apodanthera sp. may have been used for food. A single wood sample from near the base of the midden produced a radiocarbon date of A.D. 660 (1300 ± 100 B.P.).

Archaeological research in the Southwestern United States is reviewed in terms of advances in interpretation and in method and theory during the past quarter-century. Interpretative advances include the clearer understanding of the early Big Game Hunters, the filling of the gap between the early hunters and the sedentary villagers with manifestations of gatherers and collectors such as the Cochise and Desert cultures, the demonstration that the Desert culture has an antiquity comparable to that of the Big Game Hunters, the definition of the Anasazi, Hohokam, Mogollon, Sinagua, and Patayan variants of the sedentary, pottery-making agriculturalists, and the delineation of the connections between the Southwest and the northern Mexican portion of Nuclear America. Advances in method and theory have been most evident in the control over chronological problems, the development of interdisciplinary approaches, the establishment of culture classifications and pottery taxonomy, and the attempt to achieve problem-oriented archaeology in large salvage projects. The Southwest has long been characterized by long-term excavation at single sites or in small areas and by local development of academic and field training programs in archaeology.

The excavation of two structures in 1959 showed that the end of the Classic came suddenly at the end of Benque Viejo IIIb. One building, probably a palace, had completely collapsed and buried Benque Viejo IIIb pottery; the other, probably residential, was badly damaged at the end of Benque Viejo IIIb and its ruins were reoccupied in Benque Viejo IV, probably by local peasants. No attempt to reconstruct either building was made and this, with the nature of the post-destruction occupation of one of them, suggests that the whole of Period IV was Postclassic. The severe damage to both structures seems to imply that an earthquake hit this center at the end of Period IIIb and the geology of the area supports this idea. The fact that the Classic had disappeared after this event suggests that an earth tremor could actually have caused the collapse of the authority of the hierarchy at this site. At Uaxactún and San José the Classic continued well into the final phase at each site, equivalent to Benque Viejo IV, so it seems that the old order at Benque Viejo declined some time before that at the other two sites. It is therefore possible that the abrupt and unusual fashion of the decline at Benque Viejo, whatever its cause, played a significant part in the end of the Classic culture at some neighboring centers.

Artifacts recovered during U.C.L.A. excavations in 1959 are described in terms of a new typological classification for Mesoamerican metal artifacts. In addition to a number of artifact types known elsewhere in Mesoamerica, the excavations yielded several new forms. Possible relationships of Amapa, and West Mexico in general, to other areas of Mesoamerica, suggested by similarities in metal artifacts, are discussed. Association of metals with Mazapan figurines suggests an initial date for appearance of metal artifacts at Amapa of roughly A.D. 900; terminal date for the Amapa occupation may be around 1200.

Archaeological developments in the zone extending from Mesoamerica to the Andes are summarized in terms of the following topics: early man, the origins of agriculture, the interrelationships of the Nuclear American cultures, the ethnic identification of archaeological complexes, horizonal and tradition formulations, the place of Nuclear America in the hemisphere, relationships between the New World and the Old World, the rise of native American civilizations, and main trends since 1935. These trends include increasing chronological control, greater awareness of context, growing interest in culture process, and more clarity and precision in definitions.

The early peoples of Southern Mexico decorated pottery and painted pictures on walls with a stable blue pigment which is not found elsewhere in the world. Investigation of this blue was started over 30 years ago, but still the true nature of the blue color principle is unknown. Since the blue cannot be destroyed by boiling nitric acid, it does not seem to be vegetable or organic in origin. It is quite unlike azurite or natural ultramarine or other blue minerals which were employed as sources of blue pigment by other ancient peoples. The main obstacle in the investigation is the extreme scarcity of research material. The only samples of the blue available for testing are thinly painted films on potsherds and on wall painting fragments where it is mixed with lime plaster and other impurities. Although attempts to procure lump specimens of the blue, even in gram quantitives, have failed, some progress has been made. It is now known that the inorganic base of the blue pigment is a clay mineral called attapulgite. Ordinary attapulgite is nearly colorless. We still do not know what makes the clay blue; whether it is a special kind of attapulgite or if the Maya produced it artifically. In this paper all the evidence accumulated to date is reviewed.

Although the stability of the pigment, Maya blue, indicates to Gettens that the blue colorant as well as the attapulgite clay base of the pigment is inorganic, the optical properties and thermal behavior of the pigment suggest the alternative hypothesis that Maya blue is a clay-organic complex with an organic colorant in an inorganic base of attapulgite clay.

A prehistoric ceremonial cache in the Arizona State Museum was found in 1957 by S. R. Claridge of Safford, Arizona. In 1958 additional objects were collected on a subsequent visit to the cave. The ceremonial objects include wooden flowers and cones, strings of miniature baskets, terraced wooden objects, a wooden pendant, cotton cloth, and bows and arrows. Apparently most of these objects had been stored in a Maverick Mountain Polychrome jar which had been covered with a smudged brownware bowl. The cache dates from the closing years of the 13th century or the early years of the 14th century. It probably belonged to the group of migrants from the Kayenta area who moved into Point of Pines about A.D. 1280 only to be driven from there about 20 or 30 years later.

The question is frequently asked: How would a change in the half-life of C14 affect the Maya calendar correlations? The optimum “effective” half-life value for this era, as determined by the Pennsylvania measurements of contemporaneous samples of known age, and, as pointed out by Satterthwaite and Ralph (1960), is, by coincidence, very close to the Libby half-life (5568±30 years). Nevertheless, a change in the value of the half-life of C14 would not necessarily change the “effective” half-life, and, on the basis of present data, no change should be made in the University of Pennsylvania dating of the Maya calendar correlation samples.

Archaeological research in those parts of South America not included in Nuclear America is reviewed with an emphasis on Amazonia and the Caribbean area. Southern South America is primarily important at present for the well documented series of Early Man sites which indicate that American Indians had reached the farthest periphery of the hemisphere by as early as 7000 B.C. There have been three main developments and one shortcoming in the archaeology of Amazonia and the Caribbean area during the past 25 years. The developments are the discovery and formulation of new cultural complexes or phases, the establishment of chronological control which has been most successful in the Caribbean area, and the introduction and archaeological testing of Steward's concept of evolutionary levels correlated with environment, especially in Amazonia. The shortcoming is the lack of interest in reconstructing the culture of the excavated sites.