For the past several years Charles Borden of the University of British Columbia has been carrying out a most promising attack on the problems of Northwest prehistory, primarily in the Fraser Delta area. Strongly influenced by the latter-day rigorous school of German archaeologists, his field work is thorough and impeccable. His short reports, published in Anthropology in British Columbia from 1950 through 1953–54 have been more than of a preliminary nature. They have taken on, increasingly, the characteristics of final interpretative statements.

This paper is concerned with the prehistory of the Bahama Islands, British West Indies, an archipelago stretching in a 600-mile arc from the southeast Florida coast opposite West Palm Beach to within 60 miles of the northern coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola (Fig. 1). The Turks and Caicos groups, although politically administered from Jamaica, belong both geologically and archaeologically in the archipelago and are therefore included in this report.

The purpose of the present survey is to clarify the relationships of pre-Columbian Bahamian culture to neighboring regions. Before any clarification can be made, however, it is first necessary to outline briefly the archaeological findings in the islands, for no complete survey has yet been published.

From March, 1954, through the whole of the year 1955 the University of California at Berkeley sponsored a program of archaeological field work in southern Peru and related studies in museums of the United States. In Peru the expedition worked out of 2 bases, one at Cuzco in the highlands and the other at lea on the south coast. It was concerned primarily with archaeological survey and exploration, although excavations were also made at 2 Inca period sites in the coastal area studied. The expedition staff consisted of John H. Rowe, Director, Dorothy Menzel (Mrs. Francis A. Riddell), Francis A. Riddell, Dwight T. Wallace, Lawrence E. Dawson, and David A. Robinson.

Until about 25 years ago nearly all that was known of the prehistory of Panama was the result of careful studies based on somewhat haphazard excavation (MacCurdy 1911; Holmes 1888). Almost without exception detailed and often gross provenience data were completely lacking. This unhappy situation was attacked in the late 1920s by Linné (1929). Beginning in the 1930's Lothrop succeeded in outlining and describing a number of culture areas covering most of Panama's Pacific watershed (Lothrop 1937, 1942, 1950). These areas of necessity reflected only the broad picture at the time of and immediately preceding the initial Spanish entradas for, although it was to be assumed that there was internal variation within each of these areas and considerable time depth for the country as a whole, no data on this were available.

The purpose of this paper is to review the archaeological data on the settlement patterns of the Yucatan Maya with a view to reconstructing the history of their changing way of life.

There is little evidence that the population density of the lowland Maya during their cultural heyday was substantially greater than that of the modern State of Yucatan, about 30 persons per square mile.

There has been, of late, much ado in archaeological circles about amateur and professional relations. Actually, there is no new problem here; there has always been an area of strain as well as an area of amicable cooperation between these groups. The tension, it is true, grows more acute with the rapid decrease in number of good sites and is, therefore, simply another manifestation of the competitive friction associated with increasing population pressures on resources of all kinds. Moreover, the spread of amateur interest in archaeology has been tremendous, but the number of jobs for professional prehistorians remains, as always, small.

The history of the natural sciences is replete with instances of valuable contributions by nonprofessionals, from the discovery of new stars, the recognition and description of new species of flora and fauna, the collection and accurate recording of specimens, to the interpretation of the sciences to the general public through the media of the written and spoken word. Many museums have been founded or enriched through the generosity of amateur enthusiasts. Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin there are too many instances of commercialism, hoaxes, and fakes in many sciences. Archaeology is a favorite field of the nonprofessionals, who are to be found in every city or town, running the full gamut of boyhood curio seeker, amateur collector, Boy Scout explorer, private museum owner, serious nonprofessional student, pot hunter, commercial collector and trader, manufacturer and purveyor of false artifacts, and manipulator of skillful hoaxes.

In the latter part of January, 1956, the Universidad Central de Venezuela commissioned me to explore the region of Pedregal in the State of Falcón, northwestern Venezuela (Fig. 1). For some years, I had been thinking that it should be possible to encounter traces of the paleo-Indian in this part of Venezuela. I based this inference especially on drawings of fragmentary chipped stone artifacts from there published by Nomland (1935: 100, Fig. 20 h-1).

The literature of anthropology contains so many references to the fire hardening of arrow and spear points, digging sticks, and other pointed implements of wood that the assumption has become dogmatic and almost fixed. It is needless to refer in particular to specific writings which contain references to fire hardening.

Since fire hardening is assumed to be a culture trait of importance, I decided to make a series of experiments to determine to what extent wood was altered by being charred in a fire.

Once in a while in American archaeology, funds limited by an expiration date or a pressing need for information before site destruction demand carrying on field operations during winter months. When either or both emergencies occur — both did in the 1954-55 winter at historic Jamestown, in Colonial National Historical Park — certain questions arise as to what type of excavating may be efficiently carried on under adverse weather conditions. Possibly the answers gained from experience here may be of interest and value outside of the National Park Service.

Gila Polychrome pottery has been recognized since the time of the earliest archaeological work in the Southwest. Cushing, in 1887–88, recognized in the polychromes at Los Muertos and other Classic period sites of the Hohokam area the pottery type we now call Gila Polychrome. As more of the Southwest became known this type (W. and H. S. Gladwin 1930: 6) was found to be one of the most widespread, with a range extending from the Mogollon Rim on the north into northern Chihuahua and Sonora on the south and sporadically from Texas on the east through New Mexico to Gila Bend, Arizona, on the west (Haury 1945: 63).

Certain published designs from Walls-Pecan Point phase pottery are strikingly in the tradition of the socalled “Death Cult” of the Southeastern United States. Particular reference is made to 2 Walls Engraved bottles, illustrated by Phillips, Ford, and Griffin (1951, Fig. I ll g) and by Calvin Brown (1926, Fig. 278). The first of these, showing a winged serpent almost identical to those of Moundville, is at the University of Arkansas. The second, depicting skulls, long bones, and hands with oval markings at the, palms, is at the University of Mississippi.

In The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise of Charles Babbage, an English mathematician who lived over 100 years ago, is contained an appendix entitled “On the Age of Strata, as Inferred from the Rings of Trees Embedded in Them.“ The account is of particular interest since it defines the method of deriving chronology from treerings, and Babbage actually envisages the possibility of employing the method to secure archaeological dating.

As part of the Gallina project in north central New Mexico, which has been carried on by the University of New Mexico since 1934 under the direction of Frank C. Hibben, a pit house site was excavated in the summer of 1950. Excavations were accomplished with the able assistance of Emily Gray and 4 local workmen. The author was in charge of the field work. This site was selected because the pit house had been the least investigated of Gallina architectural types, and also because it was in the as yet unworked southwestern periphery of the Gallina complex. Furthermore, surface indications showed this particular site to be a Gallina pit house of unusual size.

Previous publications have called attention to the problem of flint decomposition or alteration in artifact and workshop materials from Archaic horizons in coastal Georgia. On the Macon Plateau, Georgia, there are stratigraphic indications of a prepottery horizon characterized by an old artifact assemblage of stemmed and concave-based projectiles, a wide range of cutting tools, both scraper and knife categories, all exhibiting partial or complete chemical alteration of the material (Kelly 1938). Related sites showing similar phenomena of altered flint, in contexts implying Archaic quarries or workshops, have been found in archaeological surveys at Lane Springs in northern Decatur County, Georgia, and in Kinchafoonee, in a Highway 19 road profile on the outskirts of Albany, Georgia (Kelly 1950). Recently, Kelly summarized these and other occurrences indicative of the widespread distribution of such materials over the entire coastal plain of Georgia (Kelly 1954). The difficulties of utilizing decomposed flint for chronometric studies were also summarized (Kelly 1953).