The problem, or rather the series of related problems, which concerns the antiquity of man in the New World is complex and its ramifications involve many different phases of anthropology, as well as a large number of related sciences. I intend to deal only with those aspects of the general problem which have to do with the physical character of the earliest inhabitants of North and South America. In this fashion, any consideration of the antiquity of artifacts or other material which reveals the presence of man in early times will be excluded. For the rest, my consideration of these matters resolves itself into two parts: a discussion of the nature and probable antiquity of skulls and skeletons to which has been attributed some geological antiquity, and then a brief consideration of the related problem of presumed inter-racial differences in both the present and the past Indian population of the New World.

Point Sal is 50 miles north of Santa Barbara, and represents a seaward projection of the Casmalia Hills. Two and a half miles inland from the sea, at an elevation of 1100 feet, there occurs a large flowing spring. On the bench below this spring there is an extensive shell midden of the general type described by D. B. Rogers for the area south of here. Excavation on this site was limited to four small test pits and to the removal of a group of burials from the upper level. The test pits showed a maximum depth of 10 feet near the center, and a thinning towards the edges. Three principal strata were observed, and will be designated as numbers I, II, III, numbering from the bottom up.

Stratum number I was two feet thick. It was of a brown color, of a clayey textured soil streaked with lime. Its shell and ash content was the lowest of the three. Stratum number II was grey colored.

Repair of Mummy Cave Tower, Canyon del Muerto, was begun by the Bureau of American Ethnology and the American Museum of Natural History in 1924 and completed by the National Park Service and Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1932. The final stage consisted of the replacement of the southeast corner, the lower part of which had fallen previous to Mindeleff's study of the structure in 1882, and the rest of it, between that time and my first visit in 1922. As the work of rebuilding neared the top, where less of the masonry had fallen, there was found an alignment of prayer sticks, set vertically in the hearting between the face courses.

The lowest remaining member of the series was a peeled twig, a,2 placed slender end upward and bent into a crook at the tip. Beside the butt of it, 1.5 m. from the top of the wall was the cast of a well-finished stick of larger size, perhaps b, which came from the debris cleared away to provide a new foundation for the corner.

The archaeology of Minnesota is of interest for three principal reasons. Its geographical situation near the center of the continent, where it is the only state having drainage to the Arctic Ocean, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico, gives it importance in the consideration of migrations of early man and of the late prehistoric westward movements of various Indian groups. Until recently, the archaeology of this large area was less well known than that of other areas in the region, so an increased knowledge of it will be of value in contributing to a better understanding of the known archaeological manifestations of the central and northeastern parts of the United States. Finally, over most of the state the last prehistoric remains are of the Woodland pattern, giving an especially good opportunity for a study of that pattern in a relatively unaffected form.

Chavín de Huántar is a small village located in the Department of Ancash in the high mountains of central Peru. Near the modern town is a vast, partly subterranean temple, dating from prehistoric times, within and near which have been found numerous stone carvings of distinctive styles. The name Chavín has thus been applied to a very ancient culture which apparently once dominated the northern interior of Peru and, in places, emerged in the coastal valleys.

The existence, if not the status, of Chavín culture was brought to the attention of the outside world many years ago by Antonio Raimondi, whose name clings to the celebrated stone carvings seen in Fig. 27, b. Charles Wiener has left a description of the great temple at Chavín and the huge dagger-like stone carving that was its chief idol. Plans and photographs have been recently published by Cornelius Roosevelt. In 1919, Dr. Julio C.

In the Fall of 1939, the writer picked up a number of stone tools which have been called hand-axes, choppers, etc., around the ruin of Kuaua, in the Coronado State Monument, New Mexico. These tools are varied in type and workmanship. They were shaped from river boulders, apparently gathered from the gravel terrace upon which the ruin is situated. On all specimens found, one face of the tool was the original surface, and often the nodular surface is to be found on both sides, with the butt also left smooth (Plate XXI).

Further occurrence of these tools was noted by the writer at the former Indian and Mission ruin of Abo, where the tools recovered were similar in every aspect to the above illustrated specimens. Of particular note is the similarity of these tools with those recovered by Sayles in Texas and the Campbells in the Southern California Desert.

Projectile points and other small artifacts chipped from cryptocrystalline silicate minerals constitute a rather difficult photographic problem, for which there is no single solution. Reviews of both photographic and archaeological literature disclose little information on the subject, but show that better photographic methods are badly needed.

When the artifacts to be photographed are opaque, dull-surfaced, and of a single color, standard photographic methods, skilfully used, will produce satisfactory illustrations. General discussions of these methods are numerous in photographic literature: a good summary is given in Ridgway's Scientific Illustration.

Many small artifacts are translucent at the edges or elsewhere, transparent, multicolored, or have shiny surfaces. Good figures cannot be secured from these by “straight” photographic methods. Several special techniques, largely adopted from other branches of science, will be outlined here.

The interesting discoveries in northern Alabama of a series of mounds which can be attributed to the Hopewellian Phase have focused attention on the copper reel-shaped gorgets. Webb refers to one such in the National Museum that was sent in by a resident of Portsmouth, Ohio. It is possible that this is the copper reel-shaped gorget mentioned by Rau that came to the National Museum from the Hopewell group in Greenup County, Kentucky, opposite the mouth of the Scioto. The donor, a Mr. W. Kinney of Portsmouth, Ohio, reported that “On one occasion half a bushel of these ornaments was found in the same mound and sent to the smelter.” A possible reel-shaped gorget or modified breast plate came from an Adena-Hopewell mound near Mt. Sterling, Montgomery County, Kentucky, and has been described by Putnam. In the same publication a brief report is made on the finds from a mound in Franklin, Williamson County, Tennessee. This description suggests a Hopewellian affinity.