The Mountainous belt of east-central Arizona has produced little evidence bearing on the problem of human history prior to the introduction of pottery and agriculture and the development of village life. In terms of the Christian calendar the events since about A.D. 1 are understood with varying degrees of clarity and reliability, but before the beginning of the Christian era the record for this region is still largely a void. The nature of the terrain, composed mainly of mountains with narrow, steeply pitching, and deeply entrenched valleys, has been unfavorable for the formation of the kind of alluvial deposits in which early human remains are often found. But there is no reason to suppose that the ecology of a mountainous region was less attractive to people of a primitive subsistence economy than were the plains or the broad low-lying intermountain valleys.

In 1932 Verne F. Ray reported ethnographic data on the use of unfired pottery among the Sanpoil of the Plateau and discussed archaeological and ethnographic occurrences of both unfired and fired pottery in and adjacent to that area. He was disposed to look upon Sarci pottery as the most likely source for the Sanpoil trait.

Tambo Colorado is the name given to a group of buildings standing on the north bank of the Pisco River in southern Peru, 45 km. east of the Panamerican Highway. These buildings are definitely Incaic, but were built on an earlier site, and are no more than a very small portion of a large occupied area extending to the west, north, and east of the buildings.

Both banks of the Pisco River were densely populated during Precolumbian times, and establishments much larger than Tambo Colorado can be observed in the area.

Aerial photographs have been widely adopted in geology, physical geography, agriculture, soil conservation, and forestry, but it is surprising to find how rarely they have been thoroughly exploited in archaeology. This may be due to the fact that most of the literature dealing with the subject of aerial photographs and their uses has been directed to other fields, with very little appearing in archaeological literature. Possibly the earliest use of aerial photographs in archaeology is discussed in Crawford's Wessex from the Air (1928), while Reeves's “Aerial Photography and Archaeology” (1936), was probably the first work directed specifically to the American archaeologist. Both works deal more with locating sites from the air and taking aerial pictures of them than with aspects of mapping from aerial photographs or their use in reconnaissance work.

Through the kindness of Clement W. Meighan, I have been enabled to examine a collection of fish remains obtained from an aboriginal shellmound on Strawberry Point, a promontory on the northwest shore of Richardson Bay, Marin County, California. Richardson Bay, an arm of San Francisco Bay, extends in a northerly to northwesterly direction from Sausalito. A description of this shellmound, and an explanation of the numerical grid system employed in its excavation, have been published by McGeein and Mueller (1955: 52–3, Figs. 22–3), who designated the site “Mrn 20.” With commendable thoroughness the excavators saved every bone encountered, and it is thus possible to present an identification of every bone rather than the more usual listing of species from a small, selected sample.

In “A New Type of Ancient Peruvian Shirt” (American Antiquity, 1955, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 263–73) A. H. Gayton described a late period Peruvian shirt (UNMF 15–93) from the Central Coast, collected by Edwin Ferdon of the Museum of New Mexico, especially notable for its horizontal neck opening. The more typical vertical opening has been thought to have been universal in pre- Conquest Peru. The shirt is composed of 3 long narrow webs folded vertically, seamed horizontally, with a horizontal neck slit and short sleevelike extensions closed at the ends but left open along the lower edges (Fig. 1). The 2 lower webs are of very open, almost square count, plain weave of 2-ply natural brown alpaca warps and wefts. The upper and longer one, which forms the shoulder and sleeve section, has the same open construction in natural brown alpaca for something less than half its width; the rest is warp faced in red and slate blue warp stripes.

The vast program of highway construction which our country has undertaken creates an urgent problem for all archaeologists, for the construction of these new highways will result in major changes in the roadways of every state and the inevitable destruction of great sections of our archaeological resources. This destruction need not result in the loss of scientific data, however, for the Eighty-fourth Congress included archaeological salvage as an integral part of the expanded highway program.

The stimulus for the development of the Oklahoma Archaeological Salvage Project came from 3 sources: The U.S. Bureau of Public Roads Policy and Procedure Memorandum, No. 20–7; the New Mexico Highway Salvage Program; and the Society for American Archaeology's Committee on Highway Salvage Archaeology. Like all programs it was the result of several stages of growth in which a number of individuals participated.

Waterfall Ruin (N.A. 2676), a cave ruin in the Chinlee Valley about 12 miles south of Poncho House, has been briefly described by Guernsey (1931: 32–6) and was the subject of further excavation by Peabody Museum parties led by Oliver La Farge in 1924 and by the senior author in 1933. A number of modeled clay objects obtained in 1933 are of interest as tending to bridge the gap between the Basketmaker III clay complex and certain later manifestations. The earliest structures at the site are Ba.sketmaker III. The main occupation, characterized by continuous building and rebuilding, was in Pueblo I to early Pueblo II, the pottery being predominantly Deadman's Black-on-red and Kana-a Gray and Black-on-white, with some Black Mesa Black-on-white and all-over corrugated ware.

In recent years there have been some differences of opinion among archaeologists as to the probable use of artifacts shaped like arrowheads but larger than the small so-called “bird points” and ranging in length up to 4 or 5 inches. Some think they are too large and heavy for arrowpoints and must be either knives or spear points. In an attempt to throw some light on this question, tests were made using points varying in weight from that of the smallest “bird points” up to that of spear heads.

During recent excavations in the archaeological deposits in Russell Cave, Jackson County, Alabama (Miller 1956), we reached a depth of 13 feet. From this level we collected a large sample of charcoal found in association with chert projectile points whose shape suggests a placement at the end of paleo-Indian times and the beginning of early Archaic times.