This paper is a brief statement of my interpretation of the cultural relationships of Siouan archaeological material recently excavated in North Carolina. It was written in December, 1940. Some of the pottery is now in the Ceramic Repository, but the great majority is in the Laboratory of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of North Carolina. A short visit to Chapel Hill during the first week in November, 1940, enabled me to obtain a bird’s-eye view of North Carolina archaeology. This was possible because of Mr. Coe's familiarity with the area and because there is sufficient material at Chapel Hill to provide a sample of the diverse archaeological units found in the state. While Mr. Coe supplied me with much of the information contained herein, he is not responsible for any errors of commission or sins of omission.

This paper presents a major portion of the existing data concerning the Weeden Island complex of the Florida Gulf Coast. The most important sources of these data are the writings of the late Clarence B. Moore which deal with the results of several years of investigation of northwest and west Florida and adjacent regions. In the course of these investigations, Moore surveyed and excavated well over one hundred sites along this coast. Sources of secondary importance are various smaller exploration reports of S. T. Walker, F. H. Cushing, J. W. Fewkes, M. W. Stirling, and the present writer. In addition, available but unpublished notes and collections on Florida and reports dealing with geographically and culturally related areas of the Southeast were consulted.

Since 1939 the writers have attempted, from time to time, to locate village sites of the Osage Indians, in the hope of determining the type of culture that was associated with that important tribe. The Oneota aspect of the Upper phase of the Mississippi pattern has been assigned to the Chiwere branch of the Sioux with considerable assurance, but identification of the culture of the Dhegiha branch has remained largely in the sphere of debate and speculation. It is not, however, entirely a matter of speculation, for some evidence has begun to come in. The problem is by no means settled, but in view of the times, it seemed wise to present such data as we have been able to gather.

The Osage have been known to the whites since the time of Marquette, but the first visit of which we have record was that of Du Tisné in 1719.

The Eskimo culture is divided ecologically, Froelich Rainey says in a review of published accounts, into “the Arctic coastal zone in the area of sea ice” and “the sub-Arctic zone south of the maximum extension of heavy sea ice, in Southern Alaska and Greenland… . A third ecologic zone is that region occupied by Eskimo people with an inland form of culture which has been most clearly defined by Kaj Birket-Smith in his description of the Caribou Eskimo of the Barren Grounds northwest of Hudson Bay; but a similar type of inland Arctic culture occurs also in north Alaska. The prehistory of the inland zone is unknown, since no archaeological research has been carried on in that region.”

The italicized lines point to a vast gap in knowledge of the Eskimo past. The inland zone remains largely unknown because of two handicaps to archaeological exploration: the nomadic nature of any far-inland hunting culture about the Arctic Circle precludes the possibility of large and permanent villages, and.organic materials disintegrate rapidly under the climatic contrasts of the interior.

San Vicente Lake is being formed by a dam across San Vicente Creek four miles north of the village of Lakeside, California. The dam is being constructed by the Water Department of the City of San Diego as a unit of its broad plan to develop the water resources of the adjacent Coast Range. The waters of the lake, which are now rising rapidly, cover a very beautiful valley. The surrounding mountains, covered with massive granite boulders, create a picturesque setting.

With the recent completion of a number of excavation programs by the University of Chicago, Carbondale State Normal University, and the St. Louis Academy of Sciences, it is now possible to make a preliminary analysis of the aboriginal occupations of southern Illinois and adjoining areas. Much of the data may not be published for several years, so an introductory statement may be useful.

In this paper we will propose a chronological and cultural sequence based upon these excavated materials. Since the final analysis has not been accomplished, the conclusions expressed here are to be taken wholly as a progress report and subject to eventual revision and refinement.

The material will be discussed by period, following the divisions on the charts appended to this paper (Figs. 2 and 3). The horizons will be discussed in order, beginning with the earliest.

At a Literary tea given by Robert Nathan's fictional firm of Laocoön Ltd., the company's imprint was thought by some to represent publishers struggling with a group of authors in the form of serpents. After a decade's editing of archaeological manuscripts, I have learned that this is what editors or publishers might think, but I also know how authors would interpret it. Thought of a blue pencil rises to apprehension as they submit a brainchild to the far from indulgent eye of a publisher-stepparent. But no manuscript is ever perfect, and by the constructive criticism of troublesome editors it is rescued from slips that escape the busy archaeologist.

The studies reported here were made during a brief field trip to Mexico in the summer of 1941, when two weeks were spent in Mexico City and one week was spent in Michoacán. In so far as archaeological material was touched, they represent a venture into a field of research in which the author possesses no competence or previous training. The main object of the trip was limnological, and financial resources were meager. How blind the resulting gropings were was fully appreciated only after the trip, when a better acquaintance with the literature on Middle America was possible. Although some definite results were achieved in the form of a respectable pollen sequence 6.2 meters in length, obtained from deposits of the modern Lake Patzcuaro, the pollen analyses from cultural sites in the Valley of Mexico and at Tzintzuntzan were negative. Nevertheless, it is felt that their publication is justified, since the method, if properly applied, holds distinct promise, and future workers will undoubtedly wish to know what was done and wherein the failure lay.

In this study, an examination has been made of the leaf fibers from various species of the genera Agave, Yucca, Nolina and Dasylirion in order to establish a technique and to present a set of diagnostic characters which can be used in the identification of archaeological material suspected of containing such fibers.

The split leaves of various species belonging to these genera have been used widely by the aboriginal inhabitants of the American Southwest in the manufacture of sandals, mattings, and baskets. The fibers extracted from their leaves were made into cordage, which was employed in the manufacture of a great variety of articles.

Archaeologists are continually encountering this material and identifying it on the basis of its gross or external appearance, yet, so far as the authors have been able to ascertain, no one has described a convenient method of identification.

During three field seasons spent at Palenque under the auspices of the Institute Nacional de Antropología e Historia of Mexico in 1940, 1941, and 1942, I had an opportunity to compare some inscriptions at that great Maya city with interpretations of them published by various students. This convinced me that these interpretations are not always in harmony with the real and actual reading of the inscriptions.

The hypothesis presented in this paper is based upon the correlation of a set of archaeological data with a sequence of historic events. The ideas incorporated here developed from a series of discussions concerning the relationship of the Middle Mississippi cultural manifestation in central Illinois with the Upper Mississippi Oneota culture and with influences which seem to derive from the Missouri-Arkansas region. In the course of this exchange of data, the writers became aware of the fact that a number of recent developments in Southeastern and Middle Western archaeology point to the conclusion that the Middle Mississippi culture in the present state of Illinois represents the material culture of the tribes of the Illinawek Confederacy. Evidence leading to this identification comes from a number of sources, both archaeological and ethno-historical. It must be stressed that the historical reconstruction proposed here is entirely hypothetical and tentative, and is based on inference from a number of lines of reasoning.

Although a reliable relative chronology, based chiefly on the sequence of pottery types, is rapidly being built up for the Andean area, no method has so far been devised for turning the relative dates into absolute ones. As far as we know at present, no permanent method of dating, comparable to the Maya Long Count or even to the Mexican fifty-two-year cycle, was in use in any part of South America, and no one has yet investigated the possibility of building up a tree-ring sequence, even in the drier regions of Peru. Furthermore, the distances that separate the Andean area from the Maya area have so far prevented any correlation of the early pottery types of the two areas, so that we cannot even estimate the age of Peruvian remains in terms of the insecurely correlated Maya calendar.

A group of small stone enclosures, supposed by some to be of natural origin and by others to be the works of man, lies on a rocky travertine-encrtfsted talus slope at the base of the Santa Rosa Mountains on the west side of the Coachella Valley in Riverside County, California. These phenomena are known locally as the "Ancient Fish Traps." They occupy a series of rocky terraces some 90 feet below the maximum high-water shore line of Ancient Lake Cahuilla (called by some Blake Sea), whose basin is now partly occupied by the Salton Sea. The “traps” consist of 85 to 100 bowl-like depressions composed of a travertine-encrusted granite talus debris. They are arranged in three rows, each of which follows the exact contour of one of the old recessional terraces of the lake (Pl. XIX).

This paper deals with the confusion of a certain anomalous condition of the human skull with one type of trepanation. Evidence is presented to show that many specimens exhibited as examples of a certain type of trepanning are clear-cut cases of this congenital bilateral fenestra in the parietal bones. As is generally known, trephining was performed by ancient man to relieve certain maladies such as headaches caused by “demons kicking up a fuss” inside the skull. The excruciatingly painful operation was performed with a crude knife, piece of glass, or sharp-edged stone. Trephining probably flourished in Neolithic times, especially in Bohemia and western Europe. Trephined skulls have been, reported from Bolivia,, Central America, Mexico, Peru, and various other localities.

Travelers bound east up the Puerco Valley on Highway 66, or on the Santa Fe Railroad, come into New Mexico from Arizona as they enter a pass through a red sandstone cliff which runs north and south just east of Lupton.

No one who has seen the fortified villages and inaccessible cliff dwellings of the Pueblo III period of Anasazi culture can fail to have been impressed by the amount of labor expended in their construction or by the inconvenience entailed in living in them. It is clear that they reflect an urgent need for defense; it is less clear against whom their builders had to defend themselves. Southwestern archaeologists have been prone to dismiss this problem with somewhat vague statements about nomad invasions which compelled the agricultural Anasazi to draw together into large groups and build strongholds. This theory was a dyanced very early in the history of Southwestern research, when most of our present information on this region was lacking, and it may be profitable to re-examine it at this time.

The occurrence of negative painting on two vessels from Florida raises some interesting questions in regard to the significance of this type of decoration in the Southeast. The vessels were excavated by Clarence B. Moore at Crystal River on the Gulf Coast about eighty miles north of Tampa Bay, and are illustrated in his report of 1903, Certain Aboriginal Mounds of the Florida Central West Coast.1 Brief references in the text describe them as bowls of excellent ware decorated with black pigment which has grown faint with wear and time. Moore, of course, makes no allusion to the technique of negative painting, since its presence in the Southeast was not suspected at the time.

A recent discovery in west-central Illinois seems sufficiently interesting and important to warrant this initial descriptive report. Six small pottery figurines were found with a compound burial in Mound 8 of the Knight Mound Group. Five of these human effigies, apparently fashioned to represent the prehistoric people culturally responsible for these mounds, not only display the remarkably smooth, stylistic skill of the culture and artisan producing them, but are modeled and painted to show costumes and styles in personal ornamentation wjth sufficient detail to make an important contribution to our knowledge of the producers’ material culture. The sixth figurine is extremely simple and devoid of detail, and is not painted.

One day, in the spring of 1937, while looking at some Indian artifacts in Peabody Museum at Harvard University, I saw a card of flaked stone objects that had been made by Mr. F. R. Whitney of Tacoma, Washington. The card stated that more information concerning these pieces might be obtained in the Museum Library. I promptly went to the Librarian and asked about them. She told me that if I were interested in the manufacture of stone arrow points I should get in touch with Mr. Charles E. Snow, who was then a student of anthropology at the University.

Valshni Village is a surface ruin fourteen miles southwest of Sells, Arizona, in the Sells District of the Papago Indian Reservation. The site is located on the adobe flats of the Baboquivari Valley near the confluence of the Valshni and Fresnal Washes. It is approximately ten miles north of the International Boundary and one-half mile east of the Papago village of Burro Pond. Its distinguishing features are five trash mounds above the desert level and many sherd concentrations.

Prior to 1938 no archaeological investigations had been carried on within the Papago Reservation other than surveys conducted by Gila Pueblo2 and the Arizona State Museum. During the winter of 1938-39, the first excavation in the area was completed at the Jackrabbit ruin under the supervision of Frederick H. Scantling. This work served to define what was called the Sells phase, which has been placed at 1250- 1400 A.D. and thus occupies a relatively late position in the local chronology.