The problem of the age of the pyramids of the Sun and Moon at Teotihuacán is considered in the light of evidence from an extensive and hitherto unreported Tzacualli or Teotihuacán I occupation to the northwest of the Pyramid of the Moon. Material from a small excavation in this new zone is commented upon briefly. Previous analyses of the age of the pyramids are discussed in the context of the new evidence, the conclusion being that the Pyramid of the Sun and probably also the Pyramid of the Moon were built in the earliest phase of the occupation of Teotihuacán rather than later as commonly assumed. The relationships of the Tzacualli phase to other sites in the Valley of Mexico are discussed and it is concluded that the pyramids were probably built in about the last century before Christ or earlier. Since the building of these enormous pyramids implies a relatively complex level of social integration, this new level must have come into being some several hundred years or more before the building of the pyramids unless a large-scale migration was involved. For this it is contended there is no good evidence. Linné's new chronological placement of Tlamimilolpa before Xolalpan rather than after is discussed. Comments are made on the significance of this reversal of chronology for the growth of the city and for the expansion of its “influence” to other parts of Mesoamerica.

Site 52, a possible platform mound, is unusually situated near the bottom of a draw rather than along the ridge of Chapin Mesa. Complete excavation of the small surface structure yielded two distinct levels of construction and several architectural phenomena which previously had not been reported from San Juan Anasazi sites. A rectangle of multiple-coursed masonry was built on a sloped, irregular ground surface. An interior crosswall with a floor level opening, a raised circular floor feature, two peripheral stepped abutments on opposite sides, and a complex of masonry walls and external alignments on the third side were added to the basic rectangle. The second construction level utilized what appeared to be intentional interior and exterior fill as a base, and two alignments further subdivided the rectangle. Two rubble-filled abutments were appended externally to the fourth wall of the rectangle. Artifacts were rarely found. Solid, continuously built coursed masonry, construction techniques, and pottery types suggest that Site 52 was built during Pueblo III and may have been a platform mound of ceremonial significance.

Field trips in 1953-54 and 1958 and the checking of about 150 sites provide the background for these preliminary sequences. El Salvador is divided into three cultural regions. Western El Salvador is strongly linked with Guatemala and Mesoamerica while the eastern region is basically Central American. The central part of the country is heavily influenced by both of the other regions with the Mesoamerican component predominating. In the western sequence the Atiquizaya phase is connected with the Las Charcas or Providencia phases in the Guatemalan Highlands and the Cuyagualo phase with the Full Classic material at Copán. The latest complex in the western region, the Majahual phase, possibly flourished during the conquest period on the western shore. The central sequence begins with the Tovar complex about 700 B.C. and ends with the Cihuatan phase which demonstrates the Pipil domination of this region in later times. In eastern El Salvador, where archaeological knowledge begins with the footprints of La Rama at about 1500 B.C., several complexes with wares made in the Usulutan technique developed. The eastern sequence culminates in the Lower Lempa culture about A.D. 1000.

Between May 11 and June 10, 1959, the Arizona State Museum conducted salvage excavations along a section of U.S. Highway 66 from the Arizona-New Mexico state line westward through Lupton for about 5.8 miles. Work in 10 sites with heavy equipment and a large crew of Navajo laborers resulted in the excavation of 16 pit houses, 43 surface rooms, 7 kivas (two only partially excavated), 6 trash deposits, 18 burials, and 21 miscellaneous architectural features. These ranged from Basket-maker III to Pueblo III, with no Pueblo I representation, and included an early Basketmaker III village with Mogollon affiliations. It was possible to clarify the definition of the White Mound phase and to demonstrate a specific front-oriented village plan for the Wingate phase. This intensive excavation produced a large quantity of material and data, thus raising the problems of how to accomplish the analysis of them and the publication of the results. This preliminary report is only a partial answer.

In 1959 the Neville Public Museum, Green Bay, Wisconsin, discovered and excavated a cremation burial site near the base of the Door Peninsula in northeastern Wisconsin. Associated with the cremated remains of a human being were fire-cracked rocks, the fire-shattered fragments of large quartzite bifacial implements, and projectile points of Eden and Scottsbluff types. A possible Turin type of side-notched flint projectile point was also in association. The site is on the crest of a fossil beach equatable with the Main Algonquin lake stage of the Green Bay-Lake Michigan basins, thus establishing a maximum possible age for the cultural features. That the artifacts and burial are post-Lake Algonquin by not more than about 2500 years is indicated by typological comparisons of the artifacts with radiocarbon-dated assemblages in the High Plains, usually regarded as the center of the Eden-Scottsbluff complex. An age of 6500 to 4000 B.C. is suggested for the burial.

All radiocarbon dates from North America, associated with extinct Late Pleistocene mammals, those from levels stratigraphically later than levels with extinct forms, and dates associated with recent fauna are tabulated alphabetically by site. Dates associated with extinct fauna are cross-referenced in an alphabetical listing of species. Dates considered invalid are tabulated and are not utilized in formulating conclusions. Most herding animals, such as the Columbian mammoth, horse, camel, and bison, as well as the dire wolf, rapidly became extinct about 8000 years ago. The dates suggest a southward withdrawal from the Great Plains by the mammoth and a partial contemporaneity of Clovis elephant hunters in southern Arizona with Folsom bison hunters on the Plains. Dates for the extinction of the Imperial mammoth are probably too early. The mastodon may have survived in isolated areas after the extinction of other forms. The super bison may have become extinct earlier than 8000 years ago and Bison bison seems to have been present in some areas before the extinction of B. antiquus. Radiocarbon dates do not support the supposed late survival of the ground sloth. Extinction apparently occurred earlier in the Great Basin and Coahuila than in intervening areas.

Six dome-shaped, late Woodland burial mounds were excavated at this site (39BF224). Primary and secondary interments were found; either or both types may be present in a single mound. Primary burials were flexed and always found in deep pits. Each pit contained a single individual and burial offerings. Secondary interments of one or more individuals on the mound floor are represented by scattered masses of bone and also by a compact bundle burial.

Pottery from the mounds was of a single, undecorated type, described here as Truman Plain Rim. Vessels are conoidal, tan to dark brown, and tempered with quartz particles. The most distinctive characteristic of this pottery is the simple-stamped impressions extending horizontally around the vessel exteriors. Stone artifacts consist of triangular projectile points with corner notches and a straight base or side notches and a concave base, planoconvex scrapers, knife fragments, grinding stones, and retouched flakes. Bone artifacts include tubular and barrel-shaped beads and a splinter awl. Artifacts of fresh-water and marine shell recovered are a pendant, spoons, rings, disc beads, and a tubular bead. Additional artifacts, found in a stratum below the mounds, represent an earlier, non-ceramic occupation.

In the concluding sections, a history of mound excavations in the central and northern Great Plains is given, and the relationships between the Truman Mounds and material from other Woodland sites in Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota are discussed.

Burins have recently been discovered in several Texas sites, in Central Texas, associated with Angostura points and in the Trans-Pecos area, in a Desert Culture context. A few parallels are seen with Alaskan burins. The data indicate that in Texas, burins are part of the paleo-Indian and Archaic complexes. There is also a possibility that they were made as late as the 16th century along the Rio Grande.

Burins have been considered a significant trait of many early lithic complexes in northern North America ever since Giddings (1951) discovered them at Cape Denbigh. Within the past year burins have also been recognized in the Archaic and paleo-Indian cultures in the Trans-Pecos and Central parts of Texas.

Two Russian publications provide new information about the sites on Lake El'gytkhyn in the Chukchi Peninsula: a detailed description of the lake, a discussion of its origin, summary description of 33 blades from the craftsman"s hoard, and 13 objects from the campsite. The fine classification of the blades is criticized and the identification of some of the other tools is questioned.

The immediate stimulus for N. C. Nelson's stratigraphic technique in the Galisteo Basin, New Mexico, was his participation in 1913 in Obermeier and Breuil's excavations in Castillo Cave, one of the most famous of the Spanish paleolithic sites.

Use of the stratigraphic technique in American archaeology would seem to have been initiated by Manuel Gamio in 1911 at Atzcapotzalco, Mexico.

Quill flatteners from Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming, which are attributed to Menominee, Sioux, Arikara, Blackfeet, and Arapaho, are described in four groups. Iron, S-shaped flatteners date from the period of European contact and trade, and two types of antler and horn flatteners are believed to have been made during the same time period. The only prehistoric or archaeological specimens are in the fourth group of flatteners made of long, thin pieces of mammal bone with rounded ends.

The discovery of fluted points at one site in the Andean Highlands near Quito, Ecuador, suggests that the fluted-point tradition extended into South America. The association of scrapers, knives, and gravers with the fluted points indicates a hunting assemblage which may be related to paleo-Indian horizons of western United States.

Lothrop places on record the original study of the “mise en coleur” gilding of Coclé objects which Bergsøe had completed in 1940. The Coclé specimens were made of a copper-gold alloy with low gold content, and were cast in molds. Because such an alloy corrodes easily, the exact composition of the Coclé alloy could not be determined. The Coclé goldsmiths did not use the hammered overlay, mercury gilding, or leaf gilding processes, but rather the “mise en coleur” process in which the copper is removed from the surface of the alloy leaving a blackish-brown, spongy gold deposit as an overlay. This spongy overlay is compressed and returned to a golden color by hammering and burnishing. The surface copper was probably dissolved by ammonium carbonate derived from urine.

Evidence is supplied that the weights often attached to atlatls do not add to the force of the dart. An experiment was made with a copy of the atlatl with stone weight from Baylor Rock Shelter and cast with and without the weight showed no significant difference. It is proposed that the purpose of the weights was to secure balance on the hand of the atlatl-dart combination. The superiority of the harpoon over the arrow in carrying a line is given as explanation of overlapping of relics of bow and atlatl along water courses.

Many surface sites represent three different early complexes that generally occur in this area at separate locations and are not mixed with each other. The earliest occupation, perhaps late Pleistocene, is characterized by Folsom points and a type of Pinto Basin point. A second occupation, probably younger and occurring in a different area, is represented by Gypsum Cave points and a second, different type of Pinto Basin point. The third occupation, representing the Uncompaghre complex, and evidently the youngest of the three occupations, can be correlated with the Recent but prepottery alluvium of the region.

In Illinois, the shells of fresh-water mussels are often found in large numbers in the middens of former Indian habitations which were located adjacent to rivers. Living representatives of the species present are usually common in the rivers of the state today. With knowledge gained through study of the habitat-demands of the different species as they now live, one is able to reconstruct the environment in which each species existed at the time when the mussels were taken for food. The picture formed by the combined habitat-demands of the different species is a portrayal of the river as it existed at that time. An analysis of the shells taken from a midden on Haw Creek, now often intermittent during summer months, suggests that it was a small river 2000 years ago. Other analyses of shells have shown that decided changes have taken place in other streams.