When Jimmy Griffin asked me to reflect upon the founding of the Society, I compared the assignment to beating a dead horse. Then it occurred to me that most of you here tonight were high school students or younger, when Vol. 1, No. 1 of American Antiquity was in press 32 years ago this month. Throughout your professional lives you have accepted the Society as the natural focus for archaeological contacts and interests. Yet there was a time when it was only a dream; when a number of us worked hard to make it become a reality.

A conference of archaeologists interested in the ceramics of the Maya Lowlands was held in Guatemala City in August, 1965. The conference had as goals the substantive comparison of ceramic complexes and the consideration of theoretical and methodological problems associated with the use of the type-variety approach to ceramic analysis. Comparison produced an arrangement of ceramic complexes from 10 sites in terms of typological horizons established on the basis of horizon markers-chronologically specific traits shared by two or more complexes. Close historical connections between sites were given formal recognition by the definition of ceramic spheres composed of complexes from different sites demonstrating a high degree of content similarity for specific time intervals. Changes in the extent and nature of ceramic spheres through time suggest variations in the intensity of technological culture contact within the Maya Lowlands. The theoretical and practical implications of analytical tools such as type, ware, facet, sub-complex, complex, sphere, and phase were discussed with resultant modifications and clarifications of definitions and methodological procedures.

It is argued that as a scientist one does not justifiably employ analogies to ethnographic observations for the "interpretation" of archaeological data. Instead, analogies should be documented and used as the basis for offering a postulate as to the relationship between archaeological forms and their behavioral context in the past. Such a postulate should then serve as the foundation of a series of deductively drawn hypotheses which, on testing, can refute or tend to confirm the postulate offered. Analogy should serve to provoke new questions about order in the archaeological record and should serve to prompt more searching investigations rather than being viewed as a means for offering "interpretations" which then serve as the "data" for synthesis. This argument is made demonstratively through the presentation of formal data on a class of archaeological features, "smudge pits," and the documentation of their positive analogy with pits as facilities used in smoking hides.

Settlement Archaeology is defined as the study of societal relationships using archaeological data. A separate approach is required because of the inadequacy of the concept of “phase” or “culture” for the investigation of this sort of problem. An examination of the history of Iroquoian warfare in the light of archaeological and ethnological data suggests that while the archaeologist’s ability to interpret prehistoric social phenomena remains severely limited, the questions raised by this sort of approach are important and, among other results, will stimulate a desire to pay still greater attention to traditional problems of cultural archaeology.

Most studies on the use of punched cards and computers in archaeology seem to take for granted that scientific standards exist to express the data upon which algorithms are to be performed, for retrieval or classification purposes. The author's view is different; examples are given of descriptive codes which have been designed under his direction since 1955 for the storage of archaeological data (artifacts, abstract or figured representations, buildings, etc.) on punched cards of various kinds (marginal, peek-a-boo, IBM, etc.). In order to obviate the shortcomings of natural language, three categories of rules are required: orientation, segmentation, differentiation. The concluding remarks concern the relation of the descriptive languages which are thus obtained to scientific language in general; differences are stressed, as well as reasons for postulating a continuum from the former to the latter.

Picosa is defined as a continuum of similar closely related preceramic cultures existing in the southwestern United States during the last three millennia before Christ. It is seen as representing the elementary period of the development of the Southwest as a discrete culture area and is believed to be the result of a cultural synthesis of uniform developments originating as early as 8000 B.C. Although similar to the Desert culture in a culture-typical sense, the Picosa is distinct in terms of detailed inventory and historic derivation. Its role as the progenitor of most of the ceramic period cultures of the Southwest is examined.

The storage, retrieval, and analysis of archaeological data on electronic computers requires that artifacts be described in the framework of models which are: (a) sufficiently analogous to the “real world” of the data to be meaningful; (b) sufficiently expandable or open-ended to be usable in situations as yet undefined; and (c) sufficiently specific to be convertible into machine language. A model which meets these criteria is described, and samples of an artifact inventory prepared on an IBM 1440 computer are shown to illustrate the use of this descriptive system.

A Basketmaker II manifestation is defined from the excavation of an open site northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico, containing two surface dwellings and a large outside cooking pit. Designated the Rio Rancho phase, this culture is found to have had had affinities to Basketmaker II cultures in the San Juan area and to late Cochise and early Mogollon cultures in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. The Alameda phase, an early Basketmaker III manifestation in the same area, is believed to have developed out of the Rio Rancho phase with accretions coming primarily from the San Juan area.

The confusing terminology surrounding the San Dieguito complex is reviewed, and a critical evaluation of the content of this complex is undertaken. The San Dieguito complex is redefined and includes Lake Mohave, Death Valley I, and Playa I and II complexes. An age of greater than 6000 B.C. is shown for at least one component of the complex and a date of 7000 to 8000 B.C. is suggested for the complex as a whole.

The hypothesis is developed that the San Dieguito complex is distinct from the Desert culture and represents a generalized hunting tradition which moved into the area along a north-south belt in the western Great Basin.

Archaeologists have failed to use all available data relevant to climatic changes and other environmental factors necessary for the reconstruction of paleoclimates. This neglect has fostered the continuance of significant problems of reconstruction and interpretation in archaeology. Paleolimnology can be helpful in elucidating some of these problems. Research of this sort has already provided valuable evidence for the advent of agricultural man in Austria, as well as providing data for the reconstruction of paleoclimates in other areas. While pollen analysis has traditionally been used as an indication of climatic change, certain aquatic micro-organisms manifest a more rapid and subtle response to slight climatic changes. Paleolimnological evidence can provide important data for paleoclimatic reconstruction in archaeology.

This paper presents an analysis of stature of the prehistoric population from the Maya site of Tikal, Guatemala. From this analysis, based on 55 skeletons from the Tikal burial series, three important conclusions emerge with respect to ancient Maya demography and social organization. (1) Tikal was settled by people of moderate stature, and this remained relatively stable over several centuries. A marked reduction in male stature in Late Classic times may be indicative of a situation of nutritional stress, which may have had something to do with the collapse of Classic Maya civilization. (2) Stature differences between those buried in tombs and others at Tikal suggest that, in the last century B.C., a distinct ruling class developed at Tikal. This simple class division of rulers and commoners may have become more complex in Late Classic times. (3) There was a marked sexual dimorphism in stature between males and females at Tikal. This is probably partially genetic and partially a reflection of relatively lower status for women as opposed to men in Maya society.

The streets of this Classic period city were laid out in a grid pattern. The axes of this grid were almost, but not exactly, perpendicular. There were a number of celestial bodies that in the period from A.D. 150 to A.D. 750 rose or set so as to markthe orientations of the streets. The Pleiades, Sirius, and the sun were the most probable orientation points. Two techniques which have been developed to test the more certain past existence of celestial references are described.

Recent excavations in south-central British Columbia have revealed a 7,500 year sequence which indicates cultural relationships with the subarctic and the Canadian Prairie Provinces, but few similarities with Columbia River sites until after A.D. 1000. South-central British Columbia and the Columbia Plateau are considered to have participated in different cultural traditions until the damming of the Columbia River about A.D. 1250 allowed the upriver passage of salmon. The similarities noted between British Columbia and Columbia River sites in late prehistoric times may be attributable to the sudden increase in the resource potential of the Columbia River.

This paper begins with a discussion concerning the development of the term "atlatl weight" in archaeological literature. It then proceeds to analyze in detail data relative to 60 atlatl weights from 39 locations on the Plains area of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Although most of the specimens are surface finds, a number are from systematically excavated, radiocarbon-dated occupations.

Differentiated primarily on their general shapes, five groups of atlatl weights seem apparent: Class I, loaf-shaped; Class II, end-ridged; Class III, long ellipsoidal; Class IV, zoomorphic; and a miscellaneous category.

Available evidence suggests that atlatl weights were being made, in the area under consideration, from about 2500 B.C. until A.D. 800.

Data from recent excavations in central, northern, and northeastern Utah, and in the southwestern Wyoming Basin, have prompted a reevaluation of current concepts of the ethnic and cultural origins of the Fremont culture centered in Utah, of its relationships to the Promontory culture of northern Utah, and of the relationship of both these cultures to protohistoric Central Plains culture.

The long-standing interpretation of the Fremont as a northern “peripheral” variant of the Southwestern Anasazi culture is discarded, and a hypothesis of a Northwestern Plains (probably Athabaskan) population partially acculturated to the Anasazi Pueblo pattern is proposed. Additionally, identity of the so-called Promontory culture with the northern Utah variant of the Fremont culture is postulated on evidence from sites in northern Utah. It is suggested that the Fremont culture drifted back onto the Central Plains around approximately A.D. 1400-1600, under pressure from the Shoshonean expansion out of the Great Basin, to become the forerunner of the Dismal River culture, which has been attributed to the Athabaskan Plains Apache.

The 600-sq.-mi. volcanic area of the Sierra Pinacate, in the desert of far northwestern Sonora, Mexico, comprises a geologic and ecologic enclave in which archaeological remains have been undisturbed by erosion. Following a late pluvial occupation by people of the San Dieguito complex, Phase I, the area was abandoned during the Altithermal and later reoccupied by the Amargosans, whose culture pattern, diverging from that of adjacent regions, developed several unique traits through the Amargosa Phase I and Phase II periods. Ceramics were never made by the Amargosan Pinacateños, who traded for pottery almost exclusively with the Yumans of the Lower Colorado River, and later of the Gila River, from about A.D. 700 until early in the 20th century. In historic times, the occupants of the Pinacate spoke a Papago dialect but were hostile to other Papagos and associated almost exclusively with the Yumans. Survivors of the isolated Pinacate band, nearly wiped out in 1851 by yellow fever, joined their relatives and neighbors, the Areneños or Sand Papagos, who also used Yuman pottery. It is proposed that the Amargosan Pinacateños were Uto-Aztecan speakers, and that, therefore, the Papago proper are descendants of the early Amargosan occupants of Papagueria.

At five Little River focus village sites in Rice and McPherson counties, Kansas, so-called council circles are probably the most notable features present. Each consists of a low central mound surrounded by a ditch or a series of depressions (borrow pits) or both. No village site has more than a single circle. At the only one yet excavated (Tobias site), elongate house pits arranged around a patio within the ditched zone formed a structural complex which is apparently unique in Plains archaeology. The houses were built of poles and grass, earth-covered wholly or in part, and had evidently been destroyed by fire. The covering fill contained numerous large boulders and scattered human bones, some fire-blackened. From their plan and contents, it is suggested that these house complexes were special-purpose structures; from their demonstrated orientation, it is further suggested that one of their functions may have been to record solstitial sunrise (and sunset?) points on the horizon.

This paper consolidates and summarizes the mass of radiocarbon determinations that has accumulated in various books, journals, newsletters, and manuscripts between 1951 and the spring of 1965. The dates are derived from Paleo-Indian, Archaic, Early Ceramic, and Late Prehistoric occupations in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the Plains areas of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. Included are 195 radiocarbon dates attesting to the presence of man on the Plains for the last 12,000 years.