Excavations of the last decade have yielded much data which cannot be adequately handled by extant models of Plateau cultural development. The 15,000 years of pre-history revealed by these new data appear to break into seven distinct periods. For each cultural period we present a synthesis of elements, including varying trait-unit intrusions from both the Great Basin and the Canadian Plateau. Included in this examination are such important new factors as a pre-Old Cordilleran stemmed point tradition and a microblade tradition some 5,000 years in duration. Reanalysis also suggests that the "emergence" of Columbia Plateau culture (as ethnographically known) can be placed at about the time of Christ, instead of about A.D. 1200-1300 as previously hypothesized.

A collection of chipped stone specimens from a locality on the south shore of Tulare Lake in the San Joaquin Valley of California includes a number of points which are closely analogous to specimens of the fluted point tradition (Clovis-Folsom). Other chipped stone pieces suggest antiquity and probable San Dieguito affinity. The site, known as the Witt site, after the collector, shows few or no late period artifacts and lies below the late prehistoric Tulare Lake level.

Aerial photographs made with hand-held cameras and taken from small aircraft revealed soil discolorations on two sites in Illinois. The light and dark parallel lines were interpreted as evidence of prehistoric agricultural fields. Evidence of houses in the center of these fields was also noted. Ground reconnaissance, controlled surface collecting, and cross-trenching tended to confirm this interpretation. These data were compared with archaeological evidence from Macon Plateau in Georgia and historic records for the Great Lakes region. It is proposed that Mississippian agriculture was based upon a field system and a technique of ridge-furrow cultivation that made it possible to utilize low-lying river bottom land.

One hundred and twenty years ago, the first obsidian implements were reported from Hopewellian mounds by Squier and Davis (1848). Since that time, a number of regions have been suggested as the source area: Alaska, the Pacific Coast, Yellowstone National Park, New Mexico, and central Mexico. Neutron activation analysis of the elemental composition of Hopewellian obsidian indicates two separate element groups. One of these, the 150 Group, has its source at Obsidian Cliff in Yellowstone. The second, the 90 Group, is also located in Yellowstone, but the exact flow has not yet been discovered.

A simple graphical method is presented for the seriation or ordering of archaeological assemblages or types. Like most seriation methods, it requires the tabulation of coefficients of similarity between the units in question. By a consideration, restricted to the most similar neighbors of each unit in turn, a uniquely determined structure usually emerges within a few minutes. When the archaeological material is such that it may be seriated well, this structure compares closely with computer seriations of the same data. The method is illustrated by the reexamination of seriations by other workers and is exemplified by graphical and computer seriation of the Cycladic cemeteries of the Aegean Early Bronze age.

A site survey was conducted in the upper drainage basin of the Rio Zahuapan in north-central Tlaxcala, Mexico, during the 1964-65 season. Sixty-three ceramic collections from 59 sites were examined and eventually seriated. The resulting sequence of pottery types indicates that, in spite of its location near major pre-Hispanic centers, this area was apparently not in the mainstream of Mexican prehistory until Late Postclassic times. Moreover, the locations and sizes of the sites sampled indicate that the area never completely lost its rural character. However, Tlaxcalan influence increased significantly with the resistance to the expansion of the empire centered at Tenochititlán and the eventual alliance with Cortes.

Dating a moderately large sample of obsidian artifacts from a site can contribute highly accurate knowledge about three basic unknowns for site deposits: (1) the presence or absence of a statistically significant tendency towards superposition in the deposit; (2) the nature and degree of disturbance inhibiting the full expression of the superpositional tendency; and (3) the directional bias associated with the disturbance.

Deposits of the following three sites are analyzed: Mammoth Junction site, California; La Victoria site, Guatemala; and the Chorrera R-B-1 site, Ecuador. A test for artifact reuse is described and is applied to the three sites.

Recent developments in American archaeological theory are criticized with regard to inaccuracies in the use of the concepts of science, theory, and reality. The author argues that archaeology (like anthropology) is a discipline rather than a "hard" science dealing with large amounts of rigorously quantifiable, replicable data; thus attempts to "prove laws" through the use of statistical methods and models borrowed from the physical sciences are often spurious. He believes that theory is primarily explanatory rather than methodological, and hence should be presented as an explanation of a number of cases rather than of one or two selected examples. In addition, rigorous methods of data collection should not be sacrificed in the search for more "rigorous" theory, a search which too often seems to stem from a defensive desire to make archaeology a "hard" science. The author argues that objective reality is too commonly confused with both logical constructs abstracted from this reality and with constructs such as "cultural reality" which are in turn abstracted from these constructs. He feels models describing objective reality are simply utilitarian, explanatory abstractions not related to such concepts as absolute truth and absolute reality. Little is offered in the way of constructive conclusions save for the suggestions that there may be no need for a set of specifically archaeological theory, and that archaeological knowledge is neither power nor defensive justification but merely its own reward.

Six major hypotheses have been advanced to account for ground slate industries containing knives, lance heads, and projectile points, found on opposite sides of the North American continent. Certain of these hypotheses assume genetic connections; others postulate separate sources and developments for such artifacts in the Northeast and North Pacific areas.

A recent study of the cultures involved, chiefly Borden's (1962) Vancouver data, has indicated that: (1) ground slate artifacts made their initial appearance in both areas at about the same time; (2) the respective typologies are quite dissimilar; and (3) possible bone and/or chipped stone prototypes for certain of the specific ground slate forms exist in each area.

These data suggest independent origins and developmental histories.

Excavations in northeastern New Mexico have confirmed the presence of a variety of Jicarilla Apache house types mentioned in Spanish documents of ca. 1700. Associated with a 7-room adobe structure and a pit house was an artifact complex closely resembling that of the Plains Apaches represented by the Dismal River aspect. The predominant pottery, however, is a thin micaceous ware, herein described as Ocate Micaceous, accompanied by trade sherds of Tewa Polychrome, plain black Pueblo ware, and Puebla (Mexico) blue and white majolica. Mid-19th-century Apache sites in the area are “tipi-ring” sites yielding a thicker micaceous ware, herein described as Cimarron Micaceous, White man’s trade goods, and a few stone artifacts. The relationship between Apache micaceous pottery, made from ca. 1600 (or earlier) until the early 1900’s, and that made at Taos and Picuris is still not clear.

The type-variety system of ceramic analysis, as currently used at many sites in southern Mesoamerica, differs in certain respects, especially in emphasis, from the system outlined by Smith, Willey, and Gifford in 1960. The reports on the pottery from the lowland Maya sites of Mayapán, Yucatán, Mexico and Seibal, Petén, Guatemala, in both their overall formats and the specific formats of their descriptive sections, have combined certain aspects of both taxonomic (typological) and analytic (modal) classification. It is argued that the type-variety system, as employed at these two sites, overcomes many of the objections to typological analyses recently raised by J. V. Wright (1967) and provides an adequate basis for both tight intersite comparisons in southern Mesoamerica and reanalyses of the ceramic data by other archaeologists in future studies.

Analysis of faunal remains from archaeological sites is at least as much an archaeological as a zoological problem since food animal remains are essentially artifactual in nature, their occurrence in deposits being the result of human activity.

This paper examines some of the methods used to make such analyses and suggests the merits and faults of the various approaches. It also suggests some of the kinds of inferences which may be drawn when detailed and careful investigation of faunal material is carried out, preferably by the archaeologist.

Recent excavation and subsequent analysis have been undertaken for the express purpose of deriving quantitative techniques for the analysis of faunal remains from archaeological sites. Experiments were conducted which indicate that significant amounts of bones are lost through the various meshes of screen used by archaeologists. Factors were then calculated to alleviate this problem and to yield results amenable to rigorous quantitative treatment. Results obtained in this manner can add accuracy to most salvage operations and credibility to the more ideal excavation conditions. The proposed method was applied to data from Smoky Creek Cave, a Medithermal site approximately 40 mi. north of Gerlach, Washoe County, Nevada; results indicate a pattern of cottontail rabbit and mountain sheep hunting similar to the model which Flannery has proposed for the Tehuacán Valley, Mexico.

A unique grinding tool, termed a "gyratory crusher," was developed very early in Phase I of the Amargosan-Pinacateño occupation of the Sierra Pinacate, an isolated ecological and archaeological enclave in extreme north-western Sonora, Mexico. The gyratory crusher resembles a perforated mortar, either in slab or block form, in which a wooden pestle with a projection extending through the perforation in the mortar base was gyrated, the projection providing leverage against the under rim of the hole, to grind mesquite pods. The crusher underwent modification, and its use seems to have been discontinued with the disappearance of mesquite forests at the end of the Yuman I period, about A.D. 1100-1200. A few similar tools are reported late in time in the western Sierra Madre, Mexico, and also from early horizons in Iran and Israel. Recognition of the tool type may extend its known distribution in both the New World and the Old World.

Test excavations made in the spring of 1964 along the Salt River near Mesa, Arizona, by personnel from the Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, provide new data on the earliest Hohokam. The Red Mountain site produced inhumations, a burial cairn, a different grinding-tool complex, and other items previously unknown in early Hohokam associations. Since only Vahki Plain and Vahki Red pottery are present, the site might be designated Vahki phase; however, this designation alone would obscure and ignore the important differences that are present. There are several better interpretations, two about equally plausible: (1) since the only other excavations in early Hohokam sites in the Red Mountain area have also produced inhumations and at least one other burial cairn, and these sites span the Pioneer period, one can emphasize the persistence of differences in the Red Mountain area by identifying a "Red Mountain branch" Hohokam at least through the Pioneer period; hence, Vahki phase, Red Mountain branch. This designation employs a traditional South-western concept. On the other hand (2) if one subscribes to the hypothesis that both Mogollon and Hohokam are derived from the San Pedro stage Cochise, the Red Mountain data support the identification of a phase transitional between San Pedro stage and Vahki phase — Red Mountain phase. This latter interpretation does not preclude a Red Mountain branch.

Recent archaeological and ethnographic research has made known the pre-Conquest and contemporary settlement patterns of the Teotihuacán Valley. Similar data for the intervening post-Conquest period are not available. Most archaeologists have restricted their research to the pre-Conquest period, and the documents do not contain pertinent detailed information on settlement patterns.

To resolve this problem I propose the application of archaeological methodology to sites located and identified through ethnohistoric research. My preliminary results in the area southeast of Otumba suggest that the method is feasible and productive.

I also explore the theoretical implications of the data recovered from dated archaeological deposits for which the relevant sociocultural factors are known.

Laurel-North Bay ceramic affinities are briefly stated. Possible objections to a northern Minnesota Laurel source and a northwest to southeast diffusion of pseudo-scallopshell stamping and other modes to North Bay are discussed. Archaeological complexes around the Upper Great Lakes are examined for pertinent information, and data drawn from Ontario Laurel sites are used to delimit the probable direction from whence came the Laurel-ascribed elements in northeastern Wisconsin. Diffusional connections with Ontario are favored over Minnesota.

For the period of ca. 2500 to 1700 B.C. a three-phase sequence in the development of twined cotton textiles is outlined. The phases represent divisions of a gradual change from the use of single-warp twining to the use of plural-warp twining as revealed in recent excavation at five sites in the Ancón-Chillón area of coastal Peru.

The geographical distribution of the Ananatuba phase has been extended to the eastern coast of Marajó by the discovery of J-26: Castanheira on the right bank of the middle Rio Camará. Two stratigraphic cuts were excavated, and the pottery obtained was classified into the types established by Meggers and Evans (1957). The resulting seriated sequence shows trends of ceramic change parallel to theirs and a similar intrusion of Mangueiras phase sherds in the upper levels of the deposit. Interdigitation of the J-26 levels into the seriated sequence for the Ananatuba phase shows the new site to occupy a relatively late position, supporting the earlier inference of expansion from the north coast toward the southeast during the history of the phase. A charcoal sample obtained from Cut 1, Level 40-50 cm., and correlating with the appearance of Mangueiras phase sherds in the refuse, gave the date of 980 B.C. ± 200 (SI-385), which places the initial occupation of Marajó by pottery-making groups within the Formative period.

Study of archaeological material of chili peppers (Capsicum spp.) from the sites of Huaca Prieta and Punta Grande on the coast of Peru has shown that the first species to be cultivated was C. baccatum, which was probably domesticated in Bolivia. This pepper reached the Peruvian coast during the same period as four other crop plants of probably southern Peruvian or Bolivian origin, which suggests that southern contacts were important during the late Preceramic stage. During the Initial period, maize (probably of Mexican origin) and peanuts (possibly domesticated in Bolivia) spread along the coast. Another pepper, Capsicum chinense, which is thought to have been domesticated in the lowlands of the Amazon Basin, apparently also reached the coast at about the same time as pottery. Manioc likewise arrived on the coast during this period, and there may have been an introduction of new varieties of maize from Mexico. These crops suggest a mixture of tropical forest and Middle American contacts during the Initial period and the Early horizon.