The Eskimo culture is divided ecologically, Froelich Rainey says in a review of published accounts, into “the Arctic coastal zone in the area of sea ice” and “the sub-Arctic zone south of the maximum extension of heavy sea ice, in Southern Alaska and Greenland… . A third ecologic zone is that region occupied by Eskimo people with an inland form of culture which has been most clearly defined by Kaj Birket-Smith in his description of the Caribou Eskimo of the Barren Grounds northwest of Hudson Bay; but a similar type of inland Arctic culture occurs also in north Alaska. The prehistory of the inland zone is unknown, since no archaeological research has been carried on in that region.”

The italicized lines point to a vast gap in knowledge of the Eskimo past. The inland zone remains largely unknown because of two handicaps to archaeological exploration: the nomadic nature of any far-inland hunting culture about the Arctic Circle precludes the possibility of large and permanent villages, and.organic materials disintegrate rapidly under the climatic contrasts of the interior.

The studies reported here were made during a brief field trip to Mexico in the summer of 1941, when two weeks were spent in Mexico City and one week was spent in Michoacán. In so far as archaeological material was touched, they represent a venture into a field of research in which the author possesses no competence or previous training. The main object of the trip was limnological, and financial resources were meager. How blind the resulting gropings were was fully appreciated only after the trip, when a better acquaintance with the literature on Middle America was possible. Although some definite results were achieved in the form of a respectable pollen sequence 6.2 meters in length, obtained from deposits of the modern Lake Patzcuaro, the pollen analyses from cultural sites in the Valley of Mexico and at Tzintzuntzan were negative. Nevertheless, it is felt that their publication is justified, since the method, if properly applied, holds distinct promise, and future workers will undoubtedly wish to know what was done and wherein the failure lay.

In this study, an examination has been made of the leaf fibers from various species of the genera Agave, Yucca, Nolina and Dasylirion in order to establish a technique and to present a set of diagnostic characters which can be used in the identification of archaeological material suspected of containing such fibers.

The split leaves of various species belonging to these genera have been used widely by the aboriginal inhabitants of the American Southwest in the manufacture of sandals, mattings, and baskets. The fibers extracted from their leaves were made into cordage, which was employed in the manufacture of a great variety of articles.

Archaeologists are continually encountering this material and identifying it on the basis of its gross or external appearance, yet, so far as the authors have been able to ascertain, no one has described a convenient method of identification.

Travelers bound east up the Puerco Valley on Highway 66, or on the Santa Fe Railroad, come into New Mexico from Arizona as they enter a pass through a red sandstone cliff which runs north and south just east of Lupton.

The occurrence of negative painting on two vessels from Florida raises some interesting questions in regard to the significance of this type of decoration in the Southeast. The vessels were excavated by Clarence B. Moore at Crystal River on the Gulf Coast about eighty miles north of Tampa Bay, and are illustrated in his report of 1903, Certain Aboriginal Mounds of the Florida Central West Coast.1 Brief references in the text describe them as bowls of excellent ware decorated with black pigment which has grown faint with wear and time. Moore, of course, makes no allusion to the technique of negative painting, since its presence in the Southeast was not suspected at the time.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

Mr. Alex D. Krieger's (pp. 355, 359) reference to the late J C. Jones’ date for Lake Lahontan calls for some clarifying comments. Lake Lahontan, the ancient lake in northr western Nevada which occupied 8500 square miles and reached several hundred feet above the modern lakes in its basin, Professor Jones believed, was not, as generally held, contemporaneous with the extensive Pleistocene glaciations in the adjacent mountains,1 but “the Lahontan stages occurred during the present era, with the survival of the fauna till the last thousand years” (1933, p. 96). The extinct fauna referred to included horses, elephants, camels, and Felis atrox (1925, p. 49; 1929, p. 539). Jones (1925, p. 4) did not correlate Lake Lahontan with other ancient lakes in the Great Basin, did not discuss their relationship, and objected to my introducing the obvious sister-lake in western Utah, Lake Bonneville, into the discussion.