Within recent years there appears to have been an increasing awareness on the part of archaeologists that certain statistical techniques offer economical methods of extracting information of cultural significance from archaeological data. The discussions of Kroeber (1940), Robinson (1951), and Brainerd (1951) have appeared in American Antiquity, and the last two even evoked a comment (Lehmer, 1951). In addition to these papers, which are primarily devoted to exposition of method, a considerable number of special applications can be found in the literature. Archaeological research inevitably brings the researcher face to face with the problems of ordering and comparing quantities of data and of sampling error. There seems little doubt that the best approach to these problems involves a search of statistical literature for appropriate methods.

Although considerable archaeological excavation has been conducted throughout eastern Oklahoma during the past fifteen years, it is only recently that attempts have been made to present a chronological framework for the area (Orr, 1946; Krieger, 1946, 1947; Newell and Krieger, 1949; Bell and Baerreis, 1951). Within this framework of prehistory, the latter portions such as those represented by the Gibson and Fulton aspects are probably the best understood. "With a single exception (Baerreis, 1951), the earlier cultures remain relatively incognito. One of these early cultures is commonly referred to as Fourche Maline. Unfortunately, however, the Fourche Maline materials remain to be clearly described and identified.

In the past 30 years discoveries of great importance in the prehistory of Mexico have been made in the vicinity of Tepexpan, a town some 35 kms. northeast of Mexico City. Diaz Lozano (1922-23, 1927) disinterred a mammoth identified as Mammuthus (Archidisko-don) imperator Leidy, whiah is now seen partially mounted in the entrance hall of the Instituto Geologico de Mexico. Mullerried (1933, 1934) collected teeth and bones of the ground sloth Mylodon harlani Owen on lands of the Colonia Estrella on the northern side of Mexico City near the old exit road to Pachuca, which continues on to Tepexpan and Teotihuacan. Both Diaz Lozano and Mullerried simply described the sequence of strata at the fossil localities, mentioning the nature and depth of the deposits, but without applying specific names to the formations.

For a number of years the subject of California archaeology has undergone a great deal of discussion. A large measure of this discussion has been concerned with the problem of chronology. Heizer (1949) has postulated a classification of cultural and temporal relationships for central California. His chronology is based primarily on stratigraphic sequences together with intrasite comparisons and geological-chemical soil and bone analysis.

This paper is an attempt to examine a part of his sequences using a new method for the chronological ordering of archaeological deposits (Brainerd 1951; Robinson 1951). The material to follow will be divided into three categories: 1) theory and method; 2) a discussion of the sequences resulting from the application of the method used here; and 3) the nature of the conclusions which one may safely draw in the light of 1) and 2) above.

It is now over half a century since Carnot (1893) published his pioneer work dealing with the chemical analysis of fossil bone. In the intervening decades the problem has been investigated by occasional students who have approached the field from different directions. Recently interest in chemical methods has been intensified and the attention of archaeologists has been brought to a focus by the attempt of Oakley (1951) to utilize the fluorine content of human bones as a criterion of age. Also during the past few years a joint project has been pursued by the Departments of Anthropology and Physiology at the University of California (Berkeley) through the generosity of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Thus a considerable effort has been expended, and a reasonable volume of results are on record, with reference to the chemical changes which occur in fossil bone. At the present time it appears that a general survey of this work is in order, together with an appraisal of its value as a tool for the archaeologist and palaeontologist. Fairly comprehensive listings of published works on the subject of bone fossilization occur in Heizer (1950, 1952).

The unusual opportunity of excavating a Huron ossuary presented itself to the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology in 1946. The fact that probably less than a half dozen such sites still remain, coupled with the possibility that the ossuary in question was the one which the French Jesuit, Jean de Brebeuf, saw in use in 1636, led the Museum to decide upon excavation. A special grant from the Province to the Museum for archaeological purposes enabled work to begin.

The site was situated on a small sandy plain about one hundred acres in extent (Fig. 115), on the farm of Mr. Charles Daoust, in the north half of lot 14, concession 7, Tiny township, Simcoe county. The nearest stream is one-half mile to the west. Remains of historic Huron villages lie one mile north and one and one-half miles northwest of the site. When first seen by the writer, the ossuary was visible as a broad, saucer-shaped depression in the ground, whose maximum depth was about two feet, with a slightly elevated rim marking its borders. The owner said that he had long known the place for what it was, since he had once attempted to bury a sheep in itr but he believed it had not previously been disturbed. After finding human bones, and recovering them, he had not again touched the pit (Fig. 116).

Excavations in deeply buried paleo-Indian sites of late Wisconsin age in the Medicine Creek Reservoir area, Nebraska, have resulted in the appearance of a number of preliminary statements in recent years. The present statement, anticipating publication of a complete report of the work, has been prepared in order to make available certain data not hitherto reported.

This report is concerned with data from two stratified sites, the Lime Creek site (Ft-41) and the Red Smoke site (Ft-42), in both of which artifact assemblages including Plainview points have been found. These two sites are on Lime Creek, a small western tributary of Medicine Creek. They are near the Allen site (Ft-50) on Medicine Creek, source of the Frontier complex (Holder and Wike, 1949). As yet no specific relationship has been found to exist between the Frontier complex and the material from Lime Creek and Red Smoke, and therefore the Allen site will not be discussed in this paper. Geologically the situations of all three sites are very similar.

For the past eight years, stories have appeared concerning a vast collection of animal and human figurines of great antiquity, gathered in the vicinity of Acambaro in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico. Senor Waldemar Julsrud possesses some 32,000 of these artifacts in his private collection. These ceramic figures consist of such forms as Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Trachodon, Dimetrodon and other Mesozoic reptilian life-forms. Also included in the collection are a number of modern life-forms such as cow, horse, hippopotamus, elephant, rabbit, and dog. Even more fabulous is the number of miniature Egyptian sarcophagi found in the collection.

In the upper Piedmont region of North Carolina, along the Yadkin River, specimens of copper have been found at three village sites.

As illustrated, the largest specimen appears to be a copper breast plate. Five tubular beads are represented. Seven pieces are roughly cone-shaped and could be classified as decorative bangles, although those which are more proportional and smoothly finished could have been used as arrow tips. The two triangular pierced pendants were found at sites forty miles apart. The copper hawk's bell, a trader's piece evidently of English origin, still rings merrily when shaken. A broken half of the same design was found forty miles away at a other site. Two fragments of unfinished copper are illustrated (Fig. 135).

The grounds of the shrine dedicated to three of the canonized North American Martyrs, in the township of Auriesville, N.Y., have long been believed to embrace the site of the Mohawk town of Ossernenon. The two reasons for such an opinion have been principally: the topography, and the surface finds. To this evidence may be added the sundry post-contact Indian graves found nearby. In order to locate and study the town accurately, excavations were made on the shrine grounds, during the summer of 1952, under the direction of the writer.

The site is situated on a terrace, some 400 feet above sea level, on the south side of the Mohawk River, 40 miles up the river from its confluence with the Hudson, and a mile upstream from the juncture of the Schoharie River with the Mohawk. The area is represented on the' Fonda Quadrangle of the U.S. Geological Survey maps, and on the map accompanying the monograph of Brigham (1929, p. 60), who calls this terrace the Schoharie Wash Plain, and identifies it to be a lacustrine formation dating from the closing phase of the last glaciation.

Figure 137 shows an unusual form of the so-called filfot cross, a favorite design motif on early and late Mississippi stamped pottery of the southern United States. Although several forms of the “filfot” design have been illustrated by Holmes, Heye, Hodge, and Pepper, Caldwell and McCann, and others, I have never seen this particular variant before, nor one to equal it in ingenuity. It is a minor masterpiece of native American complicated design.

I have reconstructed the motif from two badly overstamped potsherds from a cache of two Lamar vessels exposed when a cedar stump was dug from the southwest slope of a watermelon patch (in 1939) on the Castelberry farm overlooking bottomlands of the left or northeast bank of Chestatee River, Hall County, northern Georgia. Although I could find no surface evidence of a village site in the vicinity, the cache itself has been given the designation 2-HL.

This petroglyph (Fig. 138) was found about ninety years ago in Douglas County, Ga., on a hill on the north banks of Sweetwater Creek, not far from where this creek empties into the Chattahoochee River.

The petroglyph is quite different from any of the other known Georgia petroglyphs. The peculiar shape of the stone and the distinctive type of its markings make it one of the most interesting and rare examples of stone carvings in Georgia. The apparently purposely cut deep notch in the bottom of the stone is most puzzling and poses the problem of whether the stone might have been made to be placed upon a cross beam or a ridge pole.

Immediately after the exploration of the Santa Isabel Iztapan mammoth site in the Valley of Mexico had been completed (see pp. 332-40) the recently created Direccion de Prehistoria of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia of Mexico undertook further reconnaissance in the reservoir basin of Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande. Work was concentrated on the Mexican side, where Aveleyra (1951) had located nine sites with abundant lithic materials.

Under the direction of J. Charles Kelley of Southern Illinois University, an anthropological field school carried out investigations in the State of Durango, Mexico, from June 22 to August 8, 1952, with the permission of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia.

Their camp was established on the rancho “Santa Barbara,” property of Fred Weicker, about 50 kms. west of Durango city, in the Sierra Madre Occidental. The camp was on the side of an arroyo, a branch of the Rio Mimbres, which after joining the Rio Chico, flows into the Rio Tunal. This becomes the Mesquital-San Pedro and flows into the Pacific through the State of Nayarit. The camp was approximately 2280 m. above sea level, near archaeological remains consisting of house-mounds, ceramics, and obsidian artifacts.

In designating archaeological sites it has become customary to use one or the other of two general methods. The first, such as the system used by the River Basin Surveys, makes use of numbers and letter abbreviations which together give ready reference to state, county, and site number. A second method has been to name a site after some cultural or geological manifestation associated with the site. Discussions regarding the relative merits of the two methods have for the most part focused upon the degree to which either system lends itself to the efficient manipulation of areal data.

The renewed activity in Plains Archaeology as a result of the salvage program of the River Basin Surveys of the Smithsonian Institution and cooperating agencies has reemphasized some very striking differences in the types of animals used for food by prehistoric peoples. Some groups, such as the Woodland and Upper Republican, set an extremely varied “table” while others appear to have subsisted almost entirely on one species of food animal. With those groups which subsisted on a variety of game, the question naturally poses itself: “What percentage does each species contribute to the diet of the people?” Although complete data on the “dressedout” weights of the various food animals found in archaeological sites is not available, calculations based on the data and procedure outlined here should provide a means of arriving at a reasonably reliable answer to the above question.