From the time early in the nineteenth century when the ruins now known as Gran Quivira National Monument were rediscovered, speculation as to the source of the water supply has been rife. Many are the theories to account for the presence of this pueblo ruin in the midst of an expansive waterless region. These theories range from an assumption of the former existence of springs, now long dried up, to tales of marvelous aqueducts which brought water from a spring in the Gallinas Mountains to the east, a distance of fifteen miles. Recently, researches have brought to light new data in explanation of this apparent condition. It is, therefore, the purpose of this paper to assemble all of the available evidence, to evaluate and present it.

In April, May, and June of 1942, salvage excavations were performed under permit from the Secretary of the Interior at five ruins damaged by road construction in lower Mancos Canyon, on the Ute Indian Reservation in southwesternmost Colorado, just south of the Mesa Verde, in Montezuma County. Twenty-four other open sites in the same section of the canyon were surveyed. Cliff dwellings and other sites in side canyons or on mesas were not included, The excavations were carried out for the Indian Service under an interbureau agreement between the National Park Service and the Office of Indian Affairs for cooperation on protection and salvage of archaeological remains along Indian Service road locations. Park Service and Indian Service officials concerned were most cooperative; the four Utes who worked throughout the job, as well as most of the additional Utes and Navahos who were on the job less steadily, proved excellent workmen.

In the summer of 1935 it was realized that a large group of sites just to the east of Flagstaff, between the San Francisco Peaks and the Little Colorado River in northcentral Arizona, were in several respects unique. The presence in this northern area of ball court structures similar to those recognized in southern Arizona by Haury and others was the most outstanding single feature. Subsequently, more detailed research revealed additional southern, or Hohokam-like characters in these sites, and a program of several years of extensive excavation and research was undertaken.

The Hofmann site is in the Ballardvale section of Andover, Massachusetts. It covers the top of a small kame extending, between a small brook and a swamp, from higher land to the northeast (Fig. 12). This brook empties into a larger stream connecting Foster's Pond and the Shawsheen River. A large swamp, between Foster's and Martin's Ponds, connects these tributaries of the Shawsheen and Ipswich Rivers, forming an inland all-water route from the Merrimack River to the clam-bearing coastal flats of Ipswich and Essex. The Saugus or Mystic Rivers may be reached by a short portage, bringing Boston Bay into the system. The Hofmann site is well located to take advantage of such a route, and the association of artifacts found there seems most easily explained on the basis of trade or the seasonal migration of a few families.

Severe, occasionally disastrous, erosion of the bases of adobe walls in the arid and semiarid regions of the Southwest is a phenomenon which has long been observed and commented upon. In historic times, erosion of this type has caused collapse of adobe buildings in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico; about Tucson, Arizona, it is serious, as it is in the Salt River Valley. Evidence of similar erosion has been noticed in excavations of prehistoric massive adobe or caliche walls of Hohokam and Salado structures of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A.D. in the Salt and Gila River valleys of Arizona. Repair to check erosion and prevent collapse of walls was the primary purpose of Cosmos Mindeleff's stay at Casa Grande in the 1890's. Fewkes noticed similar cutting of standing walls at the nearby Adamsville site.

For an observer within the “tropics,” the day-count for a sun calendar is easily determined to the nearest day on four occasions: on the two equinox days, which are the same for all cities, and on the two zenith passages of the sun, which depend upon the observer's latitude. Sunset observations alone, contrary to a tacitly accepted dictum, determine the precise day of equinox, and the average 365¼-day length of the “tropical year,” if the record is continued over several years.

Among the many student archaeologists serving in the armed forces of the United States, one of the first to make the supreme sacrifice was 1st Lieutenant Charles R. Scoggin. He was killed in action on Anzio beachhead, Italy, Feb. 2, 1944.

Lieutenant Scoggin, son of Dr. W. J. and Essie (Cartwright) Scoggin, was born July 10, 1914, at Bridgeport, Nebraska. He received his preliminary schooling at Chula Vista, California, and in 1927 moved with his parents to Ovid, Colorado, where he attended high school, graduating in 1931. Because of the depression, he was unable to continue his formal education at that time and in 1933 moved with his family to nearby Julesburg, Colorado. He was employed at Julesburg until the autumn of 1935 when he enrolled in the University of Colorado at Boulder. As it was necessary for him to work his way through college his attendance was irregular and he had not completed the hours requisite to a-degree when the tide of world events swept him on to grimmer tasks in the summer of 1942.

Despite the familiar abundance of archaeological material in the Southwestern region of the United States, there is a notable paucity of anthropomorphic images of stone. The most significant of such figures which have come to the attention of the archaeologist are those unearthed by Alfred V. Kidder, at the Pecos ruins in New Mexico. Inasmuch as no previous reports of stone images in southern Colorado have come to our attention, the purpose of the present article is to direct attention to the presence of effigies in this state.

In view of the fact that images have been found in New Mexico, it seems plausible that similar objects should exist in southern Colorado. In the course of a survey of the region we have found many indications of an influx of Southwestern culture. Pottery, basketry, and stone artifacts which bear a strong resemblance to those of more southerly tribes have been noted.

The discovery of cremations at the ruin of Pueblo Pardo in central New Mexico has added yet another to the multitude of problems concerning the Chupadera Mesa country to be answered by archaeology. Heretofore, most of the data available for this region have been based upon surface survey, and suffer from the inexactitude of that approach; some of the data, also, are based upon the incompletely published excavations at Abó, Quaraí and Gran Quivira National Monument. In the sites of Abó and Quaraí, which consist of important Mission ruins beside ruins of the Indian pueblos, attention has been concentrated upon the former structures almost to the exclusion of the latter. However, some work has been carried on in the pueblo ruins at both Quaraí and Gran Quivira, although, unfortunately, there appears to be little hope for the publication of any reports upon these excavations. The historian's analysis of the area has been ably handled by Scholes.

The article, “The Typological Concept,” recently published by Alex D. Krieger1 is an encouraging sign that interest in methodology, hitherto confined largely to field work, is now turning as well to the study of specimens in the laboratory. Krieger is to be congratulated for outlining clearly his method of forming types and for a penetrating comparison of that method with other archaeological procedures of classification.

It may be questioned, however, whether the article contributes as much to an understanding of the typological concept as it does to the typological method. In emphasizing the formation of types, Krieger fails to explain what he means by the term “type.” As the present writer understands his remarks, the term “type” is used variously to refer to the categories formed by classifying artifacts (pp. 271-272), to the specimens classified within each category (bottom of pp. 277, 281), and to the pattern of characters used to define each category (pp. 278, 280).

In an effort to expand the known range of early Navaho history, an area in north-central New Mexico was chosen for survey and excavation in the summer of 1940. This territory lies just south of the Colorado line, between 107° and 108° longitude, and between 36° and 37° latitude, in the northwestern part of Rio Arriba County, in the upper San Juan drainage. Reconnaissance extended over the country within a radius of from ten to fifteen miles from Gobernador. The area is about thirty-five miles east of the town of Aztec and includes the canyons of Compaftero, San Rafael, Mufioz, Gobernador, Frances, La Jara and Pueblito.

Sites from this region had been noted as early as 1912 by Kidder and Morris, who point out their seemingly Pueblo-Navaho nature. Father Berard and Van Valkenburgh report hogan remains on the slopes of Gobernador Knob, sacred in Navaho mythology, and Mera obtained pinyon specimens for dating from several small pueblo-like structures in this region.

In a recent issue of American Antiquity, Donald E. Wray and Hale Smith have offered an “entirely hypothetical and tentative reconstruction” concerning the relationship of tribes of the Illinois Confederacy to late Woodland, Middle Mississippi, and Oneota manifestations in the state of Illinois. This paper appears to be a condensed version of a somewhat more elaborate one published in the Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science. The authors concede that their reconstruction may be “wrong in some of its assumptions and conclusions,” but express the opinion that “it seems to be in accord with every type of evidence we can find….”

Since there appears to be no record of an atlatl hook from Ohio, it may be of interest to note the finding of a specimen in a rock shelter. This shelter is located under a sandstone bluff in the NW i of Section IS, Goodhope Township, Hocking County, Ohio. It faces east, overlooking the Hocking River Valley, and is just west of U. S. Route 33 and Brushy Fork, which flows into the Hocking River at this place.

The region under consideration comprises the coastal portion of New York State east of the Hudson River, including Manhattan Island, Long Island, and southern Westchester County (Map, Fig. 4). The archaeological sites consist of shell middens along the tidal waferways. Although construction work coincident with the expansion of New York City has destroyed many of them and the rest are at least partially disturbed, sufficient material has been obtained for the purpose of this analysis. An attempt is made to establish a chronology of ceramic traits based upon sherds excavated by the writer and his associates as members of the Committee on American Anthropology of the Flushing (New York) Historical Society. Additional data were obtained from a study of collections made by Harrington for the American Museum of Natural History. Consideration of the non-ceramic material is beyond the scope of this paper and must await further study.

In his recent study of the Fort Ancient aspect, J. B. Griffin has described two unique vessels from the Madisonville site as follows:

Two of the most unusual vessels from the site have pedestal bases. One of them was recovered relatively intact from the right side of the skull of an extended adult male. This jar is entirely typical of the Madisonville Cord-marked jars with the exception of the stand, which is an anomaly in any cultural group in the eastern United States. The vessel and the stand are 19 cm. high, and the stand alone is 6.5 cm. This unique piece is in the Cincinnati Art Museum. On the other jar the pedestal has been broken off, but there is no doubt but that such a base was formerly attached. This jar does not have any handles, but in its other traits it is a representative Madisonville Cord-marked jar.

Approximately eighteen miles north of Vernon, Wilbarger County, Texas, is Cedar Bluff. It is not as imposing as the word “bluff” may imply, but, in comparison with the low hills and level farm lands of this area, it deserves the name. It is a terrace, about two miles in length, which forms the west bank of Red River at a bend in that stream. The approach to Cedar Bluff is of sandy soil which is of good quality for farming and is mostly under cultivation. Crops are grown in most places to the very edge of the bluff. The face of the cliff shows some water erosion. The general formation consists of an upper layer of sand on gravel; underneath this are horizontal layers of limestone bedded in shale which are underlain in turn by a deep formation of sandstone and red bed material of Wichita Permian.