This article is based on an address to the society for American Archaeology at its annual meeting on May 17, 1946 at Indianpolis. A following address by Dr. Waldo R. Wedel desalt with the chronology of central Plains cultures. As the two chronologies embraced a very considerable portion of the United States and were in rather remarkably close agreement, it was suggested by retiring editor Byers that they be published in this journal.

Archaeology in the central and northern Great Plains stands today on the threshold of what may be its outstanding opportunity for sustained achievement. The intensive field investigations so auspiciously launched in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas in the decade before the war, have been at a virtual standstill since 1940; and with the rapid expansion of the nation's armed forces and defense industries, the number of students and laboratory workers available for study of the accumulated data and collections, dwindled nearly or quite to the vanishing point. Here and there, a few individuals found it possible, intermittently and subsidiary to war-connected activities, to carry on limited researches.

In this paper we wish to point out (1) certain occurrences of cord-marked and stamped pottery in Mexico which possibly bear relationship to similar decorative techniques in the eastern United States, and (2) a few instances of trade pottery in central Mexico which point to an origin in more northerly cultures. Neither author pretends to be intimately acquainted with ceramic problems in Middle America, and this account is incompletely documented. We are, however, quite sure that the material to be presented will prove important in any consideration of pre-Columbian contacts between the eastern United States and Middle America.

Mainly through force of habit and lack of factual data, the general tendency has been to view Southwestern agriculture as arising from a Basketmaker-Puebloan center. Recently G. F. Carter has clearly demonstrated that, in addition to the above, there was a second center of equal importance and antiquity, mainly in the area occupied by the ancient Hohokam and their successors, the Pima-Papago. It is with the latter center that the present paper is concerned.

The peninsula of Kamchatka in Siberia is situated between the Sea of Okhotsk on the west and Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean on on the east. This peninsula is about 750 miles long and 80 to 300 miles wide with a mountainous and volcanic interior and a somewhat severe climate. Forests cover all the land except where there are areas of tundra or alpine vegetation.

The archaeological site commonly referred to as Spiro is becoming more and more a topic for discussion among Mississippi Valley archaeologists. This developing interest and enthusiasm in the Spiro site has been stimulated in various ways; by examination of artifacts in private collections or in museums, by an increasing reference to Spiro materials in the literature, and through recognition of Spiro as a grandiose example of the so-called “Southern Cult” complex. Although there has been considerable interest in the site, little synthesized information has been published. Only recently, Orr has presented the most definitive facts available.

Llewellyn Lemont Loud, archaeologist and senior preparator in the University of California Museum of Anthropology, died in Oakland, September 6, 1946.

Born August 18, 1879, in Woodland, Aroostook County, Maine, of farming-stock parents of Scotch ancestry settled in Penobscot County (the name was originally McLoud), Loud graduated in the classical course of the Caribou High School at the age of twenty-two, being able to leave the parental farm for study only during the winter months.

Two recent articles have pointed out the use of wheeled toys in pre-Spanish times in Mexico. Evidence points to ceramic wheeled toys having been used in several localities in that country. Ekholm found them at Panuco, Vera Cruz; Staub collected one just south of Panuco; Drucker describes several from Tres Zapotes, Vera Cruz; Charnay dug up some at Tenenepango, southeast of Mexico City; and one was obtained by Saville in the “valley of Oaxaca.” According to Caso, copper animals with legs perforated as for an axle probably came from Panama.

On May 25, 1946 Mrs. Wauchope and I were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. M. L. Vincent, Jr., of Lake Charles, Louisiana, on a picnic to Little Pecan Island in southwest Louisiana. During the day, we made a small excavation to sample a ridge which had previously yielded some human bones and fragments of pottery.

About five miles of marsh separate Little Pecan Island from Grand Chenier Ridge, not far from the town of Grand Chenier (Fig. 54). The waters of Little Pecan Lake wash its north and east shores. The island is about three miles long and is nowhere over 500 yards in width.