Archaeological remains from the southern Californian desert region, spanning a period from 7000 B.C. to historic times, are segregated into four broad cultural horizons. The earliest certain evidences of human occupation consist of stone tools and weapons from the shore line of ancient Lake Mohave. The Lake Mohave artifacts comprise types designed primarily for hunting and related activities. Next in sequence are the lithic materials from Pinto Basin and other localities that demonstrate a mixed hunting-gathering economy. The third or Amargosa period is inadequately known. Triangular arrowpoints, pottery, and numerous seed-grinding implements distinguish the closing aboriginal phase. The major research needs are indicated.

This paper describes and demonstrates an improved statistical method for determining chronological sequences among archaeological sites. The method, derived from a system of measurement called contextual analysis, depends on the pattern of artifact types present and absent at each site rather than on the relative frequency of occurrence of types. The process of contextual analysis is presented in sufficient detail to provide a guide for other studies.

For purposes of demonstration, the chronology of 16 central California burial sites, originally analyzed by Heizer, Fenenga, Lillard and others, and subsequently re-examined by Belous, was again reworked. The results showed an extremely high measure of agreement with Heizer's chronology, a rank order correlation coefficient of .96 being obtained. This high agreement is taken as evidence not only that a purely statistical method of establishing dependable sequences is possible, but also that contextual analysis is a sufficiently sensitive technique to solve the archaeological problem.

Two coastal sites on Long Island, the Stony Brook site and the Baxter site, are examined in the light of Fairbridge's data on sea level fluctuations during the last 7000 years. In each case, the coastline at the time of occupation is reconstructed, and inferences are made about the ecological setting. Archaeological data pertaining to subsistence pattern are then reviewed in the light of the probable local environment at the time of occupation. Orient culture occupations at both sites date from about 2900 B.P., when sea level is believed to have been about 10 feet below the present level. The Orient component midden at Stony Brook contains more oyster shell than any other species of mollusk, while that at the Baxter site contains a large percentage of clam shell and almost no oyster. This difference cannot be explained on cultural grounds, but can be shown to reflect local environmental factors existing under conditions of lowered sea level. The midden contents at other times of occupation are found to be consistent with the corresponding sea levels.

The burial of the dead is a conservative trait in all cultures, and thus the diffusion and spread of the rare extended burial pattern in the American Southwest provides excellent evidence of cultural contacts and cultural change. Prior to A.D. 1000, the common Southwestern burial pattern is seen to be that of flexure of the dead, with a few rare extended burials known. Concentrations of extended burials first appear at Chaco Canyon sites dating about A.D. 1050, and the pattern seems to spread from there first to the Sinagua region and to nearby Mogollon groups, then to the Hopi and Zuni regions, and finally, with the Sinagua and Salado migrations, into the Gila-Salt River Valley. The complex may ultimately be of Mesoamerican origin. Some data on grave types and burial covering are also discussed.

The recent discovery and excavation of the Levi site, a stratified campsite near Austin, Texas, has uncovered several artifact types previously unknown in Paleo-Indian cultures. In the earliest occupation zone a scraper, two utilized flakes, and a chopper were associated with the remains of tapir and dire wolf. Following this is a zone dated at 10,000 ± 175 B.P. in which a possible Clovis point and a Plainview point were associated with bones of Equus sp. and Platygonus sp. Artifacts from this zone include burins, burin spalls, scrapers, and prismatic blades. Above this lies the major occupation zone with a large sample of projectile points showing a combination of attributes characteristic of both Plainview and Angostura points. These are considered as belonging to the Plainview-Angostura complex. Radiocarbon dated at 9300 ± 160 B.P. to 7350 ± 150 B.P., this zone yielded burins, burin spalls, polyhedral cores, prismatic blades, seed-grinding stones, knives, and scrapers; in all, over 400 artifacts. The uppermost zone at the Levi site contained a mixture of artifacts assignable to Archaic and later cultures.

Two small shell middens, containing numerous Poverty Point objects and associated with a 4000-year-old subdelta of the Mississippi River, have been located in the Pontchartrain Basin. Dated by the radiocarbon method at approximately 1740 B.C., the sites have been established as a separate phase of the Poverty Point horizon. A third site, characterized by abundant imported stone and a well-developed microflint industry, is believed to be contemporaneous with the Poverty Point and Jaketown sites.

U-shaped objects of shell or stone that occur commonly in northern and western Mexico have usually been identified as nose or ear ornaments. It has been found, however, that shell objects of this type appear as lashed-on finger-loops on two Mexican atlatls preserved in European museums, and this serves to identify the whole class of objects. A brief survey of the distribution of such finger-loops is given.

Reconstruction of the subsistence relationship existing between prehistoric man and his environment has been handicapped by the difficulty of ascribing reasonably precise function to many of his tools. This study began as an attempt to interpret the function of the enigmatic celt; it developed into a field experiment which included the testing of a series of stone hoes in an effort to prove or disprove the existence of prehistoric implements with the hoe function. Inherent difficulties and limitations in the functional approach to implement testing and interpretation are indicated.

Until recently, pre-Columbian mushroom-shaped pottery objects were known only from El Salvador. New evidence indicates that they were also used in Chiapas, Tabasco, and Veracruz, in Mexico, in the Lowland Maya Rain Forest area, and possibly on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. They seem to be diagnostics of the latter part of the Late Pre-Classic and Proto-Classic periods. Due to their resemblance, when turned upside down, to round-bottomed, tall-necked jars, an undetermined number of specimens may have been classified by archaeologists and illustrated in the literature as jars. Their function is still unknown, but it is believed that, like the mushroom stones, they were used in connection with the ceremonial consumption and adoration of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Excavations at the site of G-110: La Cabuya provide significant new data on the content and chronological position of the Machalilla culture. Trade pottery establishes its contemporaneity with the late period of the Valdivia culture, estimated at between 1800 and 1500 B.C. While seafood appears to have provided the main subsistence in both cultures, the ceramics and other artifacts are distinct. Machalilla pottery is well made, with thin walls and a high frequency of polished surfaces. Vessel shapes include carinated bowls and stirrup-spout jars. Typical decoration is by incision or thick red painting, separately or in combination, in simple but distinctive patterns. The Machalilla culture cannot be related to any of the known Formative complexes in Mesoamerica or South America, so that its origin cannot be suggested. Its termination was brought about by Mesoamerican contact, which added new traits to the Machalilla complex, producing the combination of elements characterizing the Chorrera culture.

Evidence indicates that the interior culture of Chukotka was using bronze implements at the end of the second and beginning of the first millennium B.C. and the population had become somewhat sedentary. The similarity between late Neolithic and early Bronze Age of Chukotka and the pre-Eskimo Arctic cultures of America is apparent; it also is probable that during this period Chukotka formed part of the area of development of the Yukagir and the Chukchi. The first significant archaeological collection from Chukotka, made by N. P. Sokol'nikov in 1904-07, can be divided into two main cultural groupings on the basis of stone-working techniques; the older group, probably from near Ust'-Belaia, is typical of the continental Neolithic of northeast Asia, and the other group appears to be of the “splitting adz culture,” 7th-8th centuries A.D., and probably was found upstream from Markovo. Burials from the Ust'-Belaia cemetery had associated stone artifacts and pottery similar to ones from Yukutia and the Lake Baikal region of the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age; further corroboration of this dating includes associated bronze artifacts and a radiocarbon date of 2860 ± 95 B.P. from another mound in the same cemetery site.

The fact that Northwest Coast Indians obtained iron for tool making at least 175 years ago makes it unlikely that any literate person ever saw stone edge tools in use in this area, or even talked with an Indian who had seen them in use. Thus, interpretation of the function of stone tools in southeast Alaska is based on an estimate of the type of tools needed for the known aboriginal industries, experimental use of the tools, and Indian tradition. The use of 25 stone artifact types is discussed, including adzes and similar tools, mauls and hammers, mortars and pestles, lamps and pipes, clubs and fighting tools, projectile points, and ornaments.

Two recent series of radiocarbon analyses, from Muaco and Rancho Peludo in western Venezuela, would seem at first glance to provide the oldest dates in the New World for stone projectile points and for pottery respectively. However, both series raise problems of interpretation. The Muaco dates may refer to one of several pre-projectile-point complexes, rather than to the El Jobo complex, which has projectile points; and the earliest Rancho Peludo dates may pertain to an occupation of that site by Paleo-Indians of the Manzanillo complex, prior to the ceramic occupation.

The finding of ceremonial bone and shell objects at Puntarenas Farm, Jalaca, southeastern Costa Rica, along with ceramics of known Chiriqui or Red and Black ware, has thrown new light upon the extent of pre-Columbian trade and the penetration of cult traits from northern South America into lower Central America. Although no radiocarbon date has been obtained as yet, it is known that the manufacture of Chiriqui or Red and Black ware was continued into post-Columbian times.

The presence in this region of shells found only on the Caribbean coast of Central America and not on the Pacific, as well as artifacts of manatee (Trichechus m. manatus Linn.) bone, also associated solely with the Caribbean littoral, indicate the extent and importance of trade. In the same sense, the appearance of the alligator-serpent motif on both coasts of the Nicoya Peninsula and on the western coast with ware related to Ulua Polychrome types and with an Ulua style alabaster vase, places a new northern boundary with respect to the diffusion of this cult motif. The Ulua Polychrome types and the Ulua style alabaster vase put a time horizon covering from A.D. 1000 probably to the Spanish arrival. The alligator-serpent concept, so familiar in the Amazon and Andean regions, the “eagle” or “condor” concept, the feline, the monkey, and the frog all emphasize the common base of lower Central American religion. Likewise they point to San Agustin as a cultural center of great importance in lower Central America.

From the artistic point of view, the bone objects represent some of the most intricate carving yet known in eastern Central America. Both the style and subject matter place these figures in a different category from bone artifacts associated with Mesoamerican cultures.

This study makes a comparative evaluation of geological and biological evidence, on the one hand, and of plant pollen data, on the other, bearing on late Quaternary climates in southeastern Arizona. The findings support the conclusions based on the former and reject the contrary claims based on pollen by Martin, Schoenwetter, and Arms. The increase of pine pollen in the Cochise-Sulphur Spring and the Cochise-Cazador beds at Double Adobe from a few per cent to 28% was much too sudden to be accounted for by the spread of pine from the mountains to Double Adobe, and does not prove a change of the climate from arid to subhumid. The beds themselves indicate a subhumid climate throughout. The low frequency of pine may be due to such causes as scanty production, decomposition, and failure of the pollen to settle in flowing water.

No pollen data are at hand from the mid-postpluvial or Altithermal age of erosion. The preceding and the succeeding beds have long been referred by Antevs to the pluvial/postpluvial transition and to the relatively moist early Medithermal, respectively. The most typical features of the age, arroyo cutting and accumulation of caliche, are most competently explained by a long sharp drought. There seems to be no evidence for the view of Martin and associates that the Altithermal was an age of intense summer precipitation.

The entire synthetic postpluvial pollen profile is alternately dominated by composites and chenopods-amaranths. The last shift to chenopods-amaranths occurred at times ranging from about 4000 years ago to the 19th century. The dominations are apparently controlled by unknown edaphic conditions and are therefore of little or no use for correlation, dating, or climatic conclusions. Still, because of their great numbers, these pollens together with pine pollen are used as the main basis for the division into pollen zones. This leads to incorrect dating of Medithermal deposits and to disregard of documented arroyo erosions and droughts. Schulman's finding, that the radial growth of the ponderosa (yellow) pine, which is completed by the end of July, shows best agreement with the October-July precipitation, implies that the ring width is in accord with some 75 to 80% of the annual rainfall. Thus normally a narrow ring means deficient rainfall. The Great Drought of the 1200's did exist and caused arroyo erosion.

In northeastern Bolivia, on savanna lands subject to seasonal inundation, there are many thousands of pre-Spanish earthworks including drained fields, causeways, mounds, canals, and circular ditches. Additional information is presented here on the nature, quantity, distribution, purposes, and antiquity of these only recently described earthworks, along with a brief review of similar features in South America and elsewhere.

The long-standing interest of the Indiana Historical Society in archaeological methodology has led to a program designed to evaluate the applicability of the proton magnetometer to the location of certain subsurface features. Early trials at the Angel site in southern Indiana, which offers a variety of controlled experimental conditions, have shown that the instrument is capable of detecting the rather slight magnetic anomalies arising from the trench in which the stockade that once surrounded the village was set. While preliminary research has met with some success, a full report of the findings and problems encountered is reserved until completion of the project.

More than 50 campsites, quarries, and workshop sites belonging to the pre-agricultural stage have been explored at Ancón on the central coast of Peru. The sites are located in areas of extinct fog vegetation, which was exploited not only for its seeds and roots, but also for grazing animals. The sites are winter camps. Six different lithic industries have been identified and seriated in a tentative sequence which may reach back to the Pleistocene. The earliest industry almost entirely lacks projectile points and other fine stone work. The next two industries are characterized by their stemmed projectile points and distinctive scrapers, while the three latest assemblages have stemless points and lack scrapers. The pre-agricultural stage came to an end around 2500 or 2000 B.C. with the establishment of permanent villages near the shore as a result of the retreat of the fog vegetation and the enrichment of the sea.