Middle American archaeological research has always been especially centered in the Maya region of Guatemala and Yucatan, for here, apparently, ancient American civilizations reached their culmination in art, architecture, writing, and probably in mathematics and astronomy. There are more specialists who limit their researches to one field in the Maya area than in any other branch of American archaeology, and among these are many whose sole interest is in the topics of epigraphy and the calendar. This field is highly specialized and requires experts, but the great value of their results is not per se, but lies in the accurate dating which can be given to developmental phases of architecture, ceramics, and similar products; once the temporal relationships of these are established, they may be used as a time-scale for adjacent regions to which these objects and traits were carried by influence and trade.

In the summer of 1935, a road gang working in the vicinity of Torrington, Wyoming, near the north bank of the North Platte River, was blasting for road material in the face of a low bluff. Among the debris of one explosion they found several broken skeletons, together with a few stone artifacts and some bone beads. The artifacts were dispersed among the workmen, but the skeletal material, together with a few of the beads, came into the hands of Dr. S. H. Knight, Professor of Geology at the University of Wyoming. On a trip to New York he brought the cranial fragments to the American Museum of Natural History, where they were restored by the author.

The resemblance of certain objects from the Crystal River Mound in Florida to others taken from mounds of the Hopewell culture in Ohio was first noted by Shetrone in 1931. Willoughby discussed a certain type of design on a round copper plate, interpreted by him as representative of the foot of a bear, and commented upon the presence of such Hopewell-like objects as plummets of shell, stone, and copper, copper ear spools, and conjoined copper tubes. The resemblances between these widely separated mound groups are much more numerous than have been listed in any publication up to the present date, but the Crystal River Mound and other related mounds in Florida have been denied inclusion in the Hopewellian culture for the reason that most of the pottery found in them is not of the Hopewell type.

The many Iroquoian village and camp sites scattered throughout New York, Pennsylvania, New England, and Ontario, have produced innumerable pottery fragments but relatively few perfect vessels. Many sherds come from the village refuse dumps, for the Iroquois were a cleanly people, and it is only after the advent of the historic period that we find pottery jars and other goods in the graves. Our problem deals with this mass of fragmentary and intact pottery.

The writer is indebted to Mr. Verne E. Chatelain, Assistant Director of the National Park Service, Branch of Historic Sites and Buildings, and to Mr. Alonzo W. Pond, Archaeologist, for the invitation to make this study. Particular thanks are due to Mr. Pond for his generous permission to use the four photographs that deal with the find of the prehistoric miner, and for much of the archaeological information related to this discovery.