The acceptance of pre-Columbian art as true and great art did not come speedily. In fact, it has not yet been as generally accepted as has the art of the great civilizations of the Near East and the Far East. An attempt is made here to trace the slow progress toward its general acknowledgment and to examine some of the problems now confronting those concerned with the subject.

When, in the second half of the eighteenth century, humanistic studies gained a wider interest, there already existed a predilection for the art of Greece and Rome and what was built, developed, and permuted on these styles. Neither the Near East nor the Far East was then sufficiently known to be given serious esthetic consideration, and their artistic products were appreciated mainly as rarities and curios; the arts that throve or lay in ruins elsewhere over the globe were glimpsed only occasionally in the travel descriptions of intrepid voyagers.

I Suppose every digger has at one time or another yearned for a potoscope or dreamed of an archaeologicallyrendowed hazel bush whose twigs would tug and dip to well-stocked graves. But if such sure-fire indicators existed, I doubt if fieldwork would be as much fun as it is. Would fishing have quite the same lure if every cast brought a strike? For better or worse, archaeology is a great gamble; each new site offers unlimited possibilities of surprise. So although the introductions to our reports often let it be inferred that our finds have been the result of keen scientific foresight, very few excavations, I imagine, turn out as we expect them to. It was certainly that way at Kaminaljuyu.

A Brief note in Science in the spring of 1943 reported the find of an association of human burials and artifacts with the remains of Camelops, Equus, and Bison, near Tranquillity, Fresno County, California. The present paper is a more detailed description of the cultural remains and a fuller report of the writer's findings at the site prior to 1944. Excavations in that year by the University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, are mentioned below. They will be described in a forthcoming paper by Lloyd and Satterthwaite, to include a critical examination of the evidence for and against the contemporaneity of the human and extinct mammal remains.

The intent of this paper is to present the hypothesis that there are at least two discernible periods of prehistoric Aleut art; one early, the other late. Most designs of the early period somewhat resemble those of the Dorset Eskimo in the East. The art of the late period is suggestive of Punuk Eskimo in northern Alaska.

The formulation of these two periods is based upon an examination of decorated artifacts from the “D” site on the southwestern coast of Amaknak Island (Dutch Harbor, Alaska). These artifacts are part of a large collection donated to the Chicago Natural History Museum by Lt. Alvin R. Cahn, U.S.N.R.

In a Previous article in American Antiquity I have outlined the four main divisions of Maya history: the formative period (prior to A.D. 320); the Initial Series period, which is the classical age (A.D. 320–900); the Mexican period (A.D. 987–1204); and the Mexican absorption period (A.D. 1204–1540). I have also sketched briefly the three provinces into which the Maya area can be rather readily divided.1 Nevertheless, it is difficult to place exactly the boundary between the central and northern areas. I have included in the former the various sites of southern Campeche—such as Calakmul—which are culturally a part of the Peten, and which appear to have been abandoned at the close of the Initial Series period.

The incentive for an archaeological reconnaissance of this region (see map, Fig. 29) by Mrs. Gifford and myself in the fall of 1944, and again for a single day in November, 1945, came from reading references to kitchen middens in the report of the conchologist H. N. Lowe: “The numerous large kitchen middens at Punta Peñasco and Punta La Cholla contained thousands of these Glycimeris maculata with rarely a valve of the much larger G. gigantea. With these were quantities of the huge Cardita affinis, Chione, Ostrea, Paphia, Cardium, and large Murex. No stone artifacts or black earth were noted in any of these shell heaps. Perhaps the early inhabitants preferred their shell-fish raw.” At Punta Peñasco these “middens” proved to be uplifted marine deposits which Dr. Leo G. Hertlein of the California Academy of Sciences identified as Late Pleistocene, basing his opinion on specimens and photographs.

The Sidey-Mackay village site, excavated by the author in 1926, is located on the farms of Messrs. William F. Sidey and John A. Mackay, on Lot 8, Concession V, Nottawasaga Township, Simcoe County, Ontario, about one mile west of the village of Creemore, in territory known to have been inhabited by the Tionontati Indians, or Tobacco Nation, a tribe of the Iroquoian stock. This site, unlike many in the same area, had suffered little from the depredations of collectors; an instructive representative collection was secured. Additional material was collected by the writer from the surface of the Mackay farm in 1923.

Los Primeros historiadores de la conquista de América que tuvieron conocimiento personal de los pueblos indígenas que desaparecieron rápidamente, exterminados sus habitantes o reemplazadas sus culturas por usos europeos, nos dejaron un incompleto relato etnológico de tales pueblos cuyos verdaderos fenómenos en lo religioso, social, industrial, técnico o artístico solo pueden ser comprobados ahora por el descubrimiento arqueologico. Tal es el caso de los Chibchas Muiskas que habitaron las altiplanicies andinas de Bogota y de Tunja en Colombia. De los dos autores mas autorizados que relataron los usos y costumbres de tales indígenas—Fray Pedro Simón y Don Juan de Castellanos—mucho hay en sus obras de fantasia y de opinión ultra católica. Los demás cronistas como Fray Pedro de Aguado, Lucas Fernández Piedrahita, y Gonzalo Fér-nández de Oviedo parecen repetir a los primeros.

It is the purpose of this paper to bring together all of the known examples of those archaeological objects from Mexico which it seems best to refer to as wheeled toys. All but one of these have previously been described and illustrated, but I have thought it worthwhile to repeat to a certain extent in order to put all the evidence into readily available form. I shall also discuss briefly certain of the historical and general anthropological implications of the presence of wheeled toys in ancient America.

According to Alfred M. Tozzer, events relating to the taking of Chichen Itza by the Toltecs are depicted in the frescoes and bas-reliefs on buildings at that site which date from the Mexican period. In a paper entitled “Maya and Toltec Figures at Chichen Itza,“ he analyzes scenes from the Temple of the Jaguars, the Monjas, the North Temple of the Ball Court, and the Northeast Colonnade with reference to the known historic conquest and interprets them as portrayals of the Mexican attacks, the submission of the Maya, and the recognition of Toltec supremacy.

In his paper, Tozzer tells us that the Toltec warrior is characterized by a mosaic headdress; a breast ornament, probably also of mosaic; a back shield or dorsal mirror; decorated garters; bands below the knee; and sandals. He carries a bundle of spears and a bag in his left hand and an atlatl in his right. His left arm is protected by padding or a round shield.

This is a brief, preliminary account of some of the discoveries made during the summer of 1944 when the author, in collaboration with botanists and a geologist conducted an archaeological survey of the region traversed by the Alaska Highway. The investigations were carried on in but a small section of an area, many thousands of square miles in extent, about which practically nothing was known. A similar survey had been made, in 1942, by Froelich Rainey, but unfortunately this was unsuccessful. However his previous excavations in the Yukon and Tanana River valleys in Alaska did give some indication of what might be discovered. Oscar Lewis had had better luck for he had found a few very interesting artifacts at a site on the Highway near Trutch.

Traditions have an incalculable appeal to the human mind. Often tenuous, remote, impossible to prove, they are occasionally startling. The frustrated researcher upon some fascinating problem of human history which fails, otherwise, of solution comes again and again to the consideration of floating tales which seem to hold a kernel of truth, a hint—just a faint hint—of veracity masked in the trappings of legend. Such material may be used, but on the whole it is ghostly, disembodied, and unverifiable. Lacking corroboration, it fails to bring conviction. Often the tale has been borne by some single native who, long since disappeared into forest anonymity, is no longer available for questioning. His story may, however, have passed through several intermediate hands and be quoted in old books whose scholarship is naive. The result is that, use these sources as we may, we turn seriously to other more tangible means of establishing truth. Then, if the search languishes, we are prone to return, still captivated, to the tale spun long ago.

To the archaeologist whose primary field of endeavor is California, the grooved stone ax is a relatively unfamiliar object, since it occurs but rarely either in the course of excavation or in the perusal of the literature. That the grooved ax occurs at all in this region is significant, chiefly for the reason that in western North America it is a form highly characteristic of, and, with few exceptions, restricted to the Southwestern culture province proper. Since southern California is generally considered a western peripheral extension of the Southwestern culture area, it is not surprising occasionally to encounter the grooved ax here. It is interesting to note that this implement also occurs far to the northward in central and northeastern California, a region commonly thought to be beyond the zone of direct influence by or immediate contact with the Southwest proper. Presumably the grooved ax in central and northern California represents an extreme northwesterly extension from its native locale, which we assume to be the Southwest.

Numerous calendric hieroglyphs of inscriptions at Chichen Itza have been deciphered, with the result that a large body of new material is available for a fresh approach to a solution of the Maya correlation problem. Furthermore, there has appeared a new method of interpreting native time counts which will necessitate revised ideas concerning the chronology of inscriptions, of architecture, of cultural changes, and of historical events at Chichen Itza.

Formerly it was thought that the Maya date 9 Lamat 11 Yax, 13 Tun 1 Ahau meant that the calendar round date 9 Lamat 11 Yax, with a positional determinant 13 Tun 1 Ahau, fell n 13 Tun ending on a day 1 Ahau. This Tun-Ahau method of interpreting a date rested on a fallacy and produced a result irreconcilable with the data. According to the new Katun-Ahau method, the given date, 9 Lamat 11 Yax, fell in a current 13 Tun of a current Katun ending on a day 1 Ahau; this is thoroughly consistent.

Since its discovery and exploitation by commercial diggers in 1933, the unusually rich ceremonial complex of the Spiro Mounds, Leflore County, Oklahoma, has engaged the interest of archaeologists. The importance of the Spiro site to Southeastern archaeology has been recognized, and the science has awaited report of the scientific excavation undertaken by the Work Projects Administration and the University of Oklahoma for a number of years. No comprehensive report on this important area has been published to date.

In the chapter on the Mazatec language of his “Zentral-Amerika” Dr. Walther Lehmann mentions the fact that Dr. Wilhelm Baur had found the tonalamatl among the Mazatec Indians, but he did not give the names of the twenty days.

During the months of January and February, 1936, while in Usila, a western Chinantec town, the junior author obtained information regarding a Mazatec calendar from Adalberto Gonzalez, a native ( Mazatec from Huautla Jimenez. This informant remembered names of twelve months, and meanings of some.

The notes which follow are the work of an amateur. I am fully aware of the possibility that all of the conclusions, speculations, and suggestion s contained in them may be refuted by further inquiry. This would not be unwelcome, for the main reason for compiling the material was the hope that some day The National Museum of Canada and the various scientific institutions in the province would attack the intriguing problems of our archaeology. The University of Manitoba, The Manitoba Museum Association, The Manitoba Historical Society, The Natural History Society, The Government of the Province of Manitoba, and others should be aware of the rich story of our past and should give earnest consideration to securing the necessary funds and properly trained personnel to interpret that story.

In his recent publication, Hall disagrees with Roberts' interpretation of depressions found in conjunction with house units, as set forth in a report in 1930.

Dr. Roberts' report includes the results of a thorough examination of eighty houses, two kivas, and six circular depressions. It is the latter with which this comment is concerned. These depressions, according to Hall, are neither “borrow pits” nor “reservoirs,” but probably mark the locations of former pit houses:

“The writer cannot help but feel that the majority of Roberts's Piedra ‘reservoirs’ are pit houses and that if these were defined they would resemble the Rosa Phase pit house in many respects.”

The Late prehistoric cultural manifestations of Minnesota are so dominantly of the Woodland pattern that manifestations of the Mississippi pattern have not received much attention in published reports. Prior to 1940, components of the Orr and Blue Earth foci of the Oneota aspect had been recognized in Minnesota, and some sites of each focus had been studied. Since that time, two additional complexes, which I am ascribing to the Mississippi pattern and have named the Cambria aspect and the Great Oasis aspect, respectively, have been discovered. The Minnesota sites, together with the Brandon site in southeastern South Dakota reported by Over and Meleen8 and the Mill Creek sites in northwestern Iowa studied by Charles R. Keyes, make an important contribution to our knowledge of the Mississippi pattern in the area near the meeting point of these three states.