Late Archaic developments along the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi Valley, after 2000 B.C., contributed a substantial base for the Poverty Point culture. New coastal and inland discoveries bring the total number of Poverty Point sites to 34, with many additional possibilities.

A study of 70,000 artifacts from the type-site is reported; the known cultural content is increased by numerous new traits. The thesis is advanced that Formative elements of Mesoamerican origin, including ceremonial organization, massive mound construction, village planning, ceramics, figurines, advanced lapidary industry, and probable agriculture, enriched the basic Archaic culture and contributed to subsequent cultural developments in the valley.

Muskeeta Cove 2 is a stratified, two-component Woodland site on the north shore of Long Island in Glen Cove, Nassau County, New York. The earlier occupation, in the upper 6 in. of a glacial sand zone, is attributed, on the evidence of its ceramic content, to the earlier segment of the Windsor tradition, most probably its North Beach focus. The second occupation, in a thin layer of black midden earth and shell overlying the sand, is more difficult to identify culturally. By many criteria, most of its pottery can be assigned to the Bowmans Brook focus of the East River tradition, but this assemblage is most distinctive for the disconcerting way in which it blends Bowmans Brook ceramic traits with those of the contemporary Sebonac (Windsor) and Canandaigua (Owasco) foci—often on the same sherds. This mixture of traits has prompted the suggestion that, in this boundary region at least, the generally accepted invasion-replacement relationship between East River and Windsor must be reexamined. After analysis of the pottery from this site, in which the distributions of individual modes as well as their combinations into whole types are considered, a new hypothesis is tentatively advanced: Early East River pottery is seen as the result of the blending of Sebonac, Canandaigua, and central New Jersey decorative modes on vessels with the constricted necks and elongateglobular bodies that were the dominant formal horizon markers throughout the entire region at this time level. Diffusion, rather than invasion, would appear to be the central process here.

In 1966 and 1967, amateurs unearthed a number of split-twig figurines in Stanton Cave in the Grand Canyon’s Marble Gorge. A number of these figurines are described, including one which is perhaps the finest ever discovered. It is documented that these finds by amateurs were stimulated by publication about this site in popular periodicals. It is also argued, using the Grand Canyon as an example, that survey and salvage in connection with large dam construction is never a substitute for long-range study of the archaeology and its environmental context, and that salvage cannot be considered as a benefit justifying dam construction but only as an alleviation of some of the dam damage.

This paper outlines the procedures and equipment necessary for applying a simple flotation technique to recover animal bone, seeds, and other small cultural remains lost in the normal screening of soils from archaeological sites. Soil is initially processed in the field by a water-separation technique. The resulting concentrate is later treated, in the laboratory, by chemical flotation, to separate faunal from plant remains.

This simple, inexpensive technique enables processing of soil in quantity, thereby allowing recovery of small plant and animal remains from midden or feature fills where they occur in very low densities.

It is argued that, without use of such a flotation procedure, inferences about prehistoric subsistence patterns from faunal and floral remains are sharply biased in favor of larger animals and in favor of hunting, over natural plant food collecting, since conventional screens are not adequate for recovery of most plant remains or small animal bones.

Radiocarbon determinations on a series of low-carbon-content ceramic and wattle-and-daub samples were made to determine the validity of radiocarbon dates based on these types of sample materials. Good agreement between radiocarbon dates obtained from the ceramic samples and from charcoal samples stratigraphically associated with the ceramics suggests that radiocarbon dates obtained on low-carbon-content ceramic materials are reliable if appropriate precautions are observed. The confidence which can be placed on radiocarbon dates obtained on wattle-and-daub sample materials is, at present, somewhat less secure. Problems in the use of these sample materials are discussed.

An effort is made to give readers a good idea of what the techniques of factor, cluster, and proximity analyses are; of what are their good features and their limitations; and where one should look for further information. Archaeological uses of these techniques which are discussed include those of Hodson on La Tene brooches and on Mousterian assemblages, L. and S. Binford on Mousterian assemblages, Freeman and Brown on the Carter Ranch Pueblo, and the author on data from Teotihuacan, Mexico. The dangers of using correlations based on inadequate samples are stressed, and one necessary (though not sufficient) condition for sample adequacy is suggested. It is argued that proximity analysis, among other applications, is probably better than the Brainerd-Robinson approach for seriation.

A three-sided female figurine body was found in Preclassic mound fill during excavations by the BYU-New World Archaeological Foundation at Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico. A suggested partial reconstruction is given. Stratigraphically the figurine dates from the Conchas 2-Mamom phase or earlier. Stylistically it seems best associated with the Conchas 2 figurines of La Victoria, Guatemala. Though double figures are well known from Mesoamerica, this example and a triple-sided Olmec figurine head from Veracruz are the only known triple-sided examples. The multiple figures show a wide spread in southern Mesoamerica, but few have been reported and their significance is unknown.

Chance discoveries in recent years in British Honduras have produced four pottery vessels of considerable interest, ranging in date from late Preclassic to Late Classic. Three of the vessels suggest relationship between British Honduran sites and Tikal, while the fourth is decorated with a complex scene not elsewhere recorded in the Maya area.

A plea is made for more careful and less involved and pompous writing on the part of archaeologists. It is pointed out that the so-called scientific-scholarly writing, at its worst, inhibits both expression and comprehension.

The improper publication of bird names in archaeological reports may lead to misunderstanding of texts. Standardized procedures for printing bird names have been in general use by ornithologists for about 100 years but are discussed here for the archaeologists. Examples are given so distortion of facts may be avoided and clarity of interpretation may be better maintained.

The interpretation of skeletal material in the reconstruction of culture history by archaeologists and physical anthropologists is open to a number of criticisms. Problems inherent in the typological approach are discussed.

Some anthropologists have suggested prehistoric Old and New world contacts. Meggers, Evans, and Estrada are the most recent advocates, and their hypothesis of a landfall by Japanese fishermen on the coast of Ecuador seems to have been the causa belli of the attack by John Rowe on “doctrinaire diffusionism.” In a response to Rowe, Jett and Carter (1966) suggest his level of absolute proof is the best, but not the only, proof. Rowe's absolute proof is best because it can be rigorously and objectively tested. But if this level of proof is not met, then the acceptance of such evidence becomes an “act of faith.” The hypotheses of transoceanic contacts can not be evaluated adequately for or against until this level of proof is achieved. Until such time, the acceptance of such theories will remain “acts of faith.”

An analysis is made of an argument from analogy for similarities between the structure of the Poverty Point earthworks and the social organization of the Bororo of Brazil. A valid analogy must be based on demonstrably similar entities. Since some of the data used in Levi-Strauss's argument are not demonstrable as fact, the argument must be judged invalid. Archaeologists are urged to show caution in expressing in writing their inferences and interpretations since their work ultimately may be used by other anthropologists for making cultural generalizations.

Historical sources are a potentially rich and as yet almost untouched source of specific and general analogies for use in archaeological interpretation. In particular, certain unique sources, such as Diderot’s Encyclopédie, offer many specific examples, but more generally history offers the archaeologist the chance to formulate broad analogies dealing with basic questions of cultural evolution.