Heizer suggests that the trinominal system of site designation be modified, making all published citation obsolete and necessitating a major conversion in permanent catalogs, site files, and other records throughout the country. No new information would be gained by such a conversion. A simpler alternative is proposed to take care of the minor discrepancy of alphabetical additions; this system would also keep the existing system intact.

Previously published descriptions of pottery styles known from the Mixteca Baja, Acatlán, Puebla area have been concerned with describing and interpreting the relief designs on the interiors of polychrome grater bowls. Attention is directed here to the observation that there are actually two forms of slab-legged, tripod vessels from Acatlán which co-occur in sets. One form is a food preparation bowl or molcajete, and the other is a raised tripod serving vessel or dish that also functioned as a lid or cover to the molcajete. These matching sets were probably high-status burial offerings and may have been used in part of the burial ritual of preparing food for the dead.

Analysis of two separate assemblages of lithic debris from Archaic sites in the Pecos River Drainage (New Mexico) has led to the discovery of what appears to be a noncultural bias affecting flake size, which is believed to be caused by the inherent properties of the flaking material. Graphs of the flake length/thickness ratio versus frequency of ratio occurrence coincide remarkably in their curve characteristics, indicating a nonrandom causal factor. This factor is attributed to the wave pattern created by the blow of the flaking implement and is governed by the physical properties of the medium through which it is passing.

On the coast of Peru farming in mahamaes or sunken gardens fed by ground water offers an alternative to canal irrigation. The possibility that mahamaes were influential during the early stages of farming is examined and rejected on theoretical and empirical grounds. The possible significance of farming in sunken gardens during later pre-Columbian times is briefly examined. It is suggested that mahamaes were important mainly as a supplemental form of farming in areas immediately adjacent to the coast.