In recent years considerable attention has been given to theoretical statements and to concrete applications of what is called the “taxonomic method“ in archaeology. Although this method is not necessarily in conflict with the direct historical approach to archaeology, a growing preoccupation with the former has definitely been at the expense of the latter. The direct historical approach, although employed more or less for many years, has not received formulation comparable to that of the taxonomic method, nor have its potentialities for planned research programs and its possible integration with recent types of historical ethnographic research received full recognition. Even, therefore, if it is unnecessary to argue its value, it seems timely to attempt a statement that may help clarify its procedures and research possibilities.

The Southeastern archaeological area has never been clearly defined but has tacitly been considered that part of North America south of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi. By some archaeologists it has been thought a rather homogeneous culture area, but no other portion of the continent presents a more varied content. With several types of topography represented, it is logical that many kinds of aboriginal sites are to be found within its scope; the number of seemingly unrelated tribes that claimed this area as their home connotes a varied past. In early historic times it was one of the first sections of the continent to be explored by Europeans. In recent years intensive archaeological investigations have thrown new light on the history of the region and its inhabitants. Tremendous shell midden deposits along river and creek courses and on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, rock shelters and caves showing occupation, and a few inland sites of demonstrable antiquity all indicate an earlier population entirely different from that encountered by the first visitors from Europe.

In recent years, questions and arguments about the Mogollon culture have grown hotter. Southwestern archaeologists have split into two camps, one pro- and the other anti-Mogollon. The main argument seems to be whether or not the Mogollon culture was ever a separate entity with a development distinct from the Hohokam and Anasazi cultures, and, if the Mogollon was a separate entity, should it be granted the same independent taxonomic status as the Hohokam and Anasazi?

Much work remains to be done in the Mogollon culture and one can not make too many dogmatic statements. But in this article, I propose to set forth some conjectures which will at least use the available data and which may clarify the situation somewhat.

Much of the discussion about the separateness of the Mogollon has hinged on the problem of dating the earliest known phases of this culture, namely, the San Francisco, the Georgetown, and pre-Georgetown.

For many years the Adena aspect has been one of the best known prehistoric cultures in the Ohio Valley. The type site was excavated by Dr. W. C. Mills of the Ohio State Museum at the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time, however, it was thought to be a burial place of Fort Ancient peoples. This opinion was not outmoded until the publication of the results of the excavation of the Westenhaver mound by Dr. Mills in which he, for the first time, set forth the concept of an Adena culture as distinct from both Hopewell and Fort Ancient. A list of traits distinctive of the Adena culture was published by Mr. H. C. Shetrone in which no mention was made of the pottery associated with the culture. In a more comprehensive publication by the same author, little attention was paid to the ceramic remains because of the paucity of data. The last statement regarding the presence or absence of pottery in Adena is that of Dr. E. F. Greenman : complete pottery vessels and pottery sherds are here considered as separate cultural items and are placed in Table C, containing traits not characteristic of the Adena culture.

Stalling's Island, located in the Savannah River eight miles above Augusta, Georgia, is the site of a large, deep shell midden. Jones mentions the Stalling's Island midden, but the principal source of information has been the report of Clafiin's work. The present report deals with an excavation intended to obtain additional information on the cultural affiliation of this material. Interest was aroused by Clafiin's statement that sherds were absent from the lower levels. It was hoped that some evidence of vertical change would be found and that it would be possible to demonstrate the cultural affiliations of this group. Three stratigraphic blocks were excavated, two in arbitrary six-inch levels, the third in arbitrary one-foot levels.

The field of California archaeology has long been considered an example of unproductive and timeless culture. This judgment has hardly been a fair one, yet the fault lay not with the anthropological public but rather with the local archaeologists, since field work was rare, intermittent, and unplanned. No scientific institution has ever found it possible or deemed it advisable to institute a long-term archaeological survey of the area. However, the past ten years have seen the recording of sufficient data to demand a retraction of the older viewpoint which offered little promise in future work. In 1929, David Banks Rogers published his volume on the archaeology of the Santa Barbara region; Olson's preliminary report followed a year later. Both treatises are in essential agreement as to the type and succession of prehistoric cultures on the Santa Barbara coast.

Archaeological investigation in the vicinity of Sonoyta, Sonora, Mexico, an oasis and crossroads settlement on the south bank of the Sonoyta River, a spring-fed desert stream that parallels the Arizona-Sonora boundary for some miles, discloses plentiful evidence of a lengthy and probably continuous occupation of the area by a toolusing agricultural people. The location and general environment of Sonoyta is shown in Fig. 3a.

During the last thirty years, several tons of polished stone artifacts, mostly metates, manos, and hammers, have been found in the Sonoyta Valley within easy walking distance of the townsite. Many of these, particularly metates and manos, have been salvaged by local Indians, and are still in use.

In early colonial times the Manchester region was, at certain periods each year, the home of Passaconaway, chief of the Pennacook tribe and the head of the Pennacook Confederacy. This confederacy includes such tribes as the Agawam, Wamesit, Nashua, Souhegan, Pennacook, Winnepesaukee and Namaoskeag (Amoskeag). When the first settlers arrived in the Manchester region, they found a number of villages in which lived a large native population. Not only the Pennacooks lived here but other friendly tribes came to Amoskeag Falls at the proper season to take advantage of the excellent fishing. That this situation had existed for some time is evidenced by the large number of village sites and by the fact that even now, after large quantities of artifacts have been collected, specimens may still be found in the ground.

A survey of the central San Joaquin Valley has demonstrated a threefold cultural sequence north of Stockton, upsetting the earlier view that central California archaeology lacked evidence of change; south of Tulare Lake are indications of similar cultural stratification. Before the survey the 160 miles between Stockton and Tulare Lake was known only from scattered specimens and occasional correspondence with local collectors.

The area of the 1939 reconnaissance is bounded on the north by the southern limit of Schenck and Dawson's 1929 report, the Mount Diablo Base Line; on the south, by Gifford and Schenck's northern limit, the southern end of Tulare Lake; on the east and west, by the Valley drainage limits. This territory includes the basin of the second largest river in California, and was formerly occupied by the bulk of the Yokutsspeaking peoples, and by some of the Miwok and Mono.

The northwestern part of Florida is a strip of land about 225 miles long, extending from Pensacola Bay to Apalachee Bay, in which are recognized two physiographic regions, “Flatwoods and Hammock Lands,” along the coast, and “Southern Pine Hills,” inland. The coastal region, in which are located most of the sites to be considered, is quite flat and of uniformly low elevation, and includes several contrasting types of landscape. The greater part of the land is occupied by the flatwoods or open groves of longleaf and other pines interspersed with grassy meadows and the hammock lands, which support a denser vegetation characterized by palmetto and hardwoods. Along the major rivers are swamps through which wind creeks and bayous.

Recent excavations and laboratory analyses by the Statewide Archaeological Survey of Louisiana have provided the means for a better definition of the Natchezan culture type and its antecedents. Comparative ethnological data were obtained from Dr. John R. Swanton and Dr. Andrew C. Albrecht.

The archaeological data were obtained from six excavated sites and several surface collections. Only two of these sites were documented; the Fatherland Plantation near Natchez, Mississippi, and the Bayou Goula site in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. The undocumented sites were the Angola Farm in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana; the Laborde site in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana; the Ring site in Warren County, Mississippi; and the Glass site also in Warren County, Mississippi. With the exception of Bayou Goula and Laborde these sites have been mentioned by Ford.

In connection with a reconnaissance of southwestern Campeche and Tabasco undertaken for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the writer was able to make a brief visit to the ruins of Piedras Negras in the Department of Peten, Guatemala, in January, 1940. At the time of this visit, he encountered a fragment with hieroglyphic text on the raised basal terrace at the corner of Structure K-5, close to but not in direct association with the fragments of Stela 38. As the fragment was unfamiliar, it was photographed on the offchance of being previously unrecorded. However, no measurements or drawings were made.

In October, 1939, an atlatl and an atlatl dart were brought from Lassen County, California, to the Lillard Museum for examination. These pieces had been found in Susanville in the collection of Mrs. McDow, whose husband had obtained them from an Indian, Charlie Paiute, formerly a resident of the Susanville area.

The atlatl is made apparently of willow; is 75 cm. long; averages 21 mm. in width; is 10 mm. thick at the distal end and increases to 13 mm. at the handle. The wood has been stained with a red pigment (a very similar stain may be obtained by grinding hematite, adding water to it and daubing it on wood). It is black and greasy, apparently from dirty hands, at the handle and along the edges paralleling the groove.

On November 2, 1929, a stone carved to represent a man's head was found in a gravel pit in the ancient valley of Trinity River in Henderson County, Texas. Subsequently two additional carved stones were found in the same deposits. The deposits were formed by Trinity River, but are about three miles from the present stream, near a small back valley tributary known as Cedar Creek, about five miles west of the town of Malakoff and three miles north of Trinidad. Cedar Creek unites with Trinity River six miles south of the place where the carvings were found. In preliminary notices the discovery has been referred to as the Malakoff locality.

The essentially surface nature of Eastern Woodlands sites has invited the accumulation of private collections. Likewise, in densely populated areas such as New Jersey and adjacent states, many sites have either been destroyed by building operations or have been subjected to repeated cultivation. As a result, an enormous quantity of archaeological material has been lost to scientific excavation. While archaeologists have realized that intensive collecting by private individuals has always followed the plow, little has been done but deplore and ignore this activity. In consequence of this attitude, there is a tendency to assume that the contents of excavated sites represent the range of aboriginal culture, especially when cultivation has not been practiced for several decades. Furthermore, the enormous quantity of material in collections has not been utilized to supplement the archaeological data obtained from excavations.

The Willamette Valley represents an area that has been relatively untouched by any well-organized archaeological and ethnological research. In 1877, Gatschet did some anthropological work which was mostly linguistic. Mr. J. L. Hill did some work in 1883 in the Calapuya mounds, and Dr. J. B. Horner of Oregon State College has removed many skeletons and artifacts from some of the mounds since the turn of the century. Other than this, most of the work has been done by local collectors. Information of any kind concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of the valley is extremely scarce and disconnected. This is owing to the early shifting of the tribes, their rapid extermination by disease, and the scanty references in the records of the early colonizers and explorers.

On the western end of the north coast of Honduras, the outstanding river is the Ulúa, whose basin is formed by the plain of Sula. In the south, the gradually descending steps of the Cordilleras with the open avenues of the Ulúa on the west and her tributaries, the Lindo due south and the Comayagua at the east, bring contact to the wet valley of Sula from the semi-arid interior. Eastward lies the low margin of coast and the lagoons and river systems of the Pijol range. West and southwest is mountain land with an important river valley, the Chamelicon, which merges into the Sula plain. At the north is the open sea, bringing to this region varied influences from many and distant places.

The Ozark Uplift of northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri has been a fertile field for archaeological investigation. Natural conditions have greatly facilitated research here, for despite the humidity of the region, there are numerous dry shelters or caves formed by the weathering of shale beds beneath limestone strata in bluffs along White River, its tributaries, and the Cowskin River. Debris, burials, and pictographs show that the Indians had used the shelters as combined homes, cemeteries, and places for ceremonials. In contrast to village sites in the lowlands of Arkansas, the bluff shelters afford more than a fragmentary picture of Indian life. Here, the burials are complemented by remains fortuitously preserved through absence of moisture, and the entire cave floor is comparable to the middens of the lowlands. The archaeological materials illustrate the complete life cycle of the aborigines. Cradleboards and burial wrappings, foodstuff and human feces all contribute to a reconstruction of Bluff-Dweller life.