Despite considerable activity during the last two decades our knowledge of the archaeology of Alaska is still rather scanty. Very few places have been thoroughly investigated, and almost all work has been confined to two areas, a northern including St. Lawrence Island and a southern including the Aleutian Islands. The intermediate area, from Wales to Port Möller, with a coast line of approximately 2000 miles, is virtually unknown from an archaeological point of view. If archaeological material from this area exists in museum collections, it is unpublished and thus useless to most students.

The need of information about the archaeology of this part of Alaska was felt very badly by the writer during his work on the analysis of the Ipiutak culture. When it became apparent that early Kachemak Bay culture must belong to the same Paleo-Eskimo complex as Ipiutak, it was natural to assume the former existence of the same complex in the intermediate area, an assumption which ethnological evidence seems to bear out.

Birdshead Cave lies in a fault scarp on the south side of the Owl Creek Mountains about 5 miles west of the entrance to Wind River Canyon, 23 miles north and west of Shoshoni, Wyoming, and 1 mile northwest of the old Burgess ranch buildings. It contained stratified deposits representing seven, perhaps even eight or nine, periods of occupation in six occupation levels covering a wide temporal range. The cave is approached by steep talus slopes broken by limestone rock ledges. It lies about 200 feet above the source of a spring of fresh, potable water emerging near the base of the scarp. The name, Birdshead, is that of an Arapaho Indian who was living at the old Burgess ranch, now part of the Arapaho Indian Reservation.

The potter's art of pre–Columbian Peru has long received high acclaim, and the antiquity and technical perfection of the several Andean ceramic styles is generally acknowledged. Scarcely a year passes but what new pottery types are recognized by archaeologists, and the descriptions of these fill many volumes. It is altogether incredible, therefore, that for the entire 400–year period that has elapsed since the coming of the Spaniards, there exists no detailed and systematic account of the techniques of pottery manufacture employed by any group in the Andean area. With reference to the Conquest period, Rowe states that “the chroniclers say little about Inca pottery,” while Linné, who combed the literature for data concerning Andean ceramic technology, concluded that “ … from the time of the discovery of Peru no descriptions exist as to pottery–making.“

In 1873 the party of Capt. William A. Jones reported that “throughout the Wind River country of Wyoming many pictographs have been found, and others reported by the Shoshoni Indians.” Thus the Dinwoody petroglyphs and those in the surrounding area have been known for three-quarters of a century, and yet were not even surveyed for archaeological purposes until 1938 and 1939. This, of course, is typical of the fate of petroglyphs over most of North America. Only during the last twenty years has any attention been given by competent archaeologists to the subject of “Indian Writing.” There is no need to draw attention to the “interpretation” of these rock drawings by amateur speculators, for Steward's chastisement of them would be difficult to equal.

The chronological picture in the Glades Area of southern Florida is based on the combined sequences for three subareas, Calusa, Okeechobee, and Tekesta (Goggin, 1947). The Tekesta sequence is perhaps most detailed, being the result of site seriation and of stratigraphic testing at Upper Matecumbe Key (Goggin and Sommer, 1949). Even in this sub-area, however, further stratigraphic work is needed to fill out the picture.

An attempt was made to supply the necessary details during three days in January and February, 1949, when archaeological tests were conducted in the Everglades National Park, specifically on the headwaters of Shark River and in the Cape Sable area at the extreme southern tip of the state. The National Park Service was represented in this work by J. C. Harrington, Regional Archaeologist; Willard Dilley, Park Naturalist; and Paul Barnes, Ranger. Dr. John W. Goggin of Miami, Ripley Bullen of the Florida Park Service Archaeological Survey, and the writer made up the balance of the personnel.

In a prior paper I have described, from central New York, an archaeological instance of probable bear ceremonialism in the Owasco culture. A recent find in western New York, although of somewhat dissimilar character, strengthens the probability of the existence prehistorically in New York of a special and reverential attitude toward the bear, this time apparently among an Iroquois people. Briefly, the nature and circumstances of the new discovery are as follows.

Despite the remarkable progress manifest in the archaeology of the Southeast, there remains an appreciable gap in our historical perspective between ethnological horizons and late period archaeological material. Pottery is one highly important time-indicator that persisted into historic times, yet for one of the major Southeastern tribes— the Creeks—pottery in ethnological museum collections is rare. For this reason, the authors here describe the single Creek pot in the Southeastern ethnological collection of the Chicago Natural History Museum. To our knowledge, this piece of pottery has not been described in print before.

The specimen shown in Figures 82 and 83 was received by the museum from the Department of Ethnology, World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. I t forms part of a small accession of ethnological material collected among the Creeks in 1892 by George T. Shurtleff in, or in the immediate vicinity of, Muskogee, Creek Nation, Indian Territory. Although the documentation is scanty, the writers believe that the pot is of bona fide Creek manufacture.

Dr. K. A. Nowotny's note on the Xolotl figure in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Vienna raises some points of general interest. First, Xolotl is mentioned as related to Quetzalcoatl in a rather obscure way in the Codex Magliabecciano.

The writer, talking of Quetzalcoatl says: “este dizen que fue hijo de otro dios que llaman mictlan tecutli, que es sefior del lugar delos muertos. y es de otro ydolo que llaman xulutl que quiere dezir un modo de pan que ellos tienen hecho de bledos y mahiz.” In all the codices which contain the tonalpouhualli, Xolotl is given as Lord of the thirteen day period Ce Cozcaquahtli, associated with the sign of the setting sun entering the jaws of the earth. In Borbonicus, p. 26, one sees an excellent representation of Xolotl and Quetzalcoatl facing one another at a dance of the priests. In the mythological sections of Borgia, Quetzalcoatl is shown as a pair of beings descending through creation.

Heavy and frequent rainfall is a serious obstacle to archaeological work on the North Pacific Coast. Exposure to many days and perhaps weeks of rain may impair the health of the field party and will inevitably dampen the morale of individual members. Rain causes delays, makes the midden material soggy and difficult to work, may collapse the trench walls, and brings numerous other major and minor headaches in its wake.

Last spring a group of anthropology students from the University of British Columbia, working under my direction at a site in the Vancouver area, tested the practicability of a simple shelter, designed to give adequate protection during wet weather and to admit sufficient light for all operations.

The prehistory of northwestern California is yet largely unknown. Any information on archaeological types is therefore of interest. The following note constitutes the description of a unique flat steatite slab upon one of whose surfaces drilled conical pits and holes, together with some incised lines, occur (Fig. 85).

Steatite was locally abundant. Numerous outcrops were worked anciently as evidenced by the large number of prehistoric objects made of this material. Modern Indians know the location of some of these outcrops, and describe the methods of extracting the stone from the mass.1 For the most part steatite was employed in making grease dishes and bowls.

The specimen described here is in the private collection of Dr. H. H. Stuart of Eureka, and was recovered by him many years ago from the surface of the site of the village of Tsapekw which lies toward the northern end of Stone Lagoon on the ocean shore of Humboldt County.

In 1946 and 1947 Dr. C.L. Glenn of Vanderbilt University gathered a collection of sherds from nine sites in the vicinity of Myrtle Beach, Horry County, South Carolina. These sherds were presented to the Smithsonian Institution. Some of the sherds were obtained to the north of Myrtle Beach, others in the immediate vicinity, and still others to the south of the city. The sites consist of small sandy ridges, 20 to 30 feet above mean sea level and overlooking Long Bay.

Dr. Glenn reports that the sites contained ashes, sherds, and a few scattered oyster shells of the “racoon” type, which is the common type found in this vicinity. No bone, antler, or stone material was found in the debris deposit. He states that no local stones are present from which to fashion implements and that the very few which are found are crude and made from imported stones. In the entire collection, only two stone artifacts are included—one projectile point and one scraper.