Recent disagreement on the nature of Maya hieroglyphic writing calls for a reappraisal of the historical sources, and an examination of alternative methods of decipherment. Unfortunately, no one has both a thorough grasp of the subject and an unbiased attitude.

The radiocarbon laboratory, operated by the Department of Physics and the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania, is concentrating its analyses in four fields of archaeology: the Middle East, Middle America, South America, and the Arctic. It is the policy of the laboratory to publish radiocarbon dates only in groups from one specific field after checks and rechecks of related materials result in a certain measure of internal consistency (Ralph 1955: 149-51; Coon and Ralph 1955: 921-2).

Arecurring question posed to the physical anthropologist by his archaeological associates concerns the problem of properly classifying new skeletal finds within the framework of a known local prehistory. An analysis may result which is initially purely quantitative. However, problems demanding interpretation often develop. For example, when the physical characteristics of prehistoric populations have been metrically described, their industrial accomplishments outlined, and their place in time fairly well established, the problem of spatial distribution becomes a primary interest. The discovery of skeletal material, peripheral to the known area of occupation, must be explained either as an addition to the known biological pattern or as representing a foreign element.

The islands off southern California have attracted archaeological attention since the 1880's, yet actual site reports on island archaeology are virtually nonexistent. This report presents data on excavations at Little Harbor, Catalina Island. It is the first published site report for Catalina Island and the first complete description of a site excavation for the Channel islands as a group. Chronologically, the radiocarbon dating of the site provides a key reference point for time placement of several southern California complexes.

In the summer of 1930, Earl H. Morris accompanied the Bernheimer Expedition in its exploration of the archaeological remains on the slopes of Carrizo Mountain and the north end of the Lukachukai range in northeastern Arizona. Three weeks were spent in the Prayer Rock district on the east side of these mountains (Bernheimer 1930). Morris was intrigued by the possibility of collecting Basketmaker materials from an area so rich in early cave sites; he returned to the Prayer Rock district in 1931 under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. A portion of the materials recovered in this season has been described (Morris 1936,1951;Morris and Burgh 1941) and a series of reports is in preparation on the remainder of the specimens.

On July 3, 1955, six men in three canoes shoved out into Black Lake, Saskatchewan, and began a long journey northward toward the great Barren Grounds. The party consisted of Peter Franck of Woodside, California; George Grinnell of New York City; J. Edward Lanouette of São Paulo, Brazil; Bruce LeFavour of Amsterdam, New York; Fred Pessl, Jr., of Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan; and the leader and organizer of the expedition, Arthur R. Moffatt of Norwich, Vermont.

Lanceolate points, formerly called “Yuma,” but now designated by specific type names such as Plainview, Milnesand, Eden, Browns Valley, and others, seem to have been various expressions of a common pattern or tradition that has been called "Piano" by Jennings (Griffin 1957: 23). The Piano tradition in the West represents an ancient hunting stage of culture that followed an earlier stage manifested by the paleo-Indians who used fluted points and hunted elephants of types now extinct.

At the present time little is known in the Western world about the archaeology of Hokkaido, Japan. Groot (1951) is of limited value for most of his explorations were in the Tokyo area. This dearth of evidence is extremely regrettable in view of the so-called "Ainu problem" about which so many speculations have been published during the past century. During 1953-54 while stationed in Hokkaido with the United States Army, I explored and visited a number of prehistoric sites and made several collections which are now in the U. S. National Museum. Of the many sites visited, three in the southwestern part of Hokkaido in the Sapporo area were chosen for partial excavation. Radiocarbon dates for these sites were determined by the U. S. Geological Survey Radiocarbon Laboratory through the courtesy of Meyer Rubin.

Robert C. Suggs (1958: 432-3) mentions having found at the Manakaway site in Greenwich, Connecticut, sherds from a vessel decorated with curvilinear motifs in dentate stamping. At the Pelham Boulder site, Bronx County, New York, similar pottery has been found by the writer in the subsoil, and within the lowest third of the midden, never higher. Suggs implies that I attributed the sherds to "Hopewellian contact" in a short preliminary paper I wrote (1956). Nowhere in my paper have I mentioned a Hopewellian contact. I did say, however, that “such motifs are reminiscent of some Hopewellian patterns.” There is quite a difference in meaning and implication.

Descriptive articles (Eldridge and Vaccaro 1952; Byers 1954, 1955, 1956) have discussed various aspects of the Bull Brook site. Byers (1955) describes in considerable detail the conditions under which certain artifacts were recovered. In August and September, 1957, crumbs of charcoal were found in another part of the site by W. A. Eldridge and the Vaccaros; Byers was notified and in September he personally recovered charcoal under conditions which confirmed previous reports about its occurrence.

J. L. Giddings has been kind enough to call my attention to an oversight in my recent note on the occurrence of organic tempering in northeast Asia and Alaska (Chard 1958), wherein the data adduced indicated a relatively recent date for the use of feather temper on the Alaskan side. Giddings' own excavations in oval house pits on the Choris Peninsula have revealed a thin, well-fired pottery much like that designated as "Norton linear-stamped," but tempered entirely with down feathers (Giddings 1957). Although satisfactory radiocarbon dates have not been secured, Giddings suspects an age of over 3000 years for the site on the basis of crosscultural comparisons, which would make this perhaps the earliest pottery in the area.

In 1954 Warren T. Lee found the horn core of a bison associated with a hearth and four tools on the east bank of the Columbia River, at Quilomene Rapids, in western Grant County, Washington. The site was found when overflow from a reservoir in the Quincy scablands cut a channel through the floodplain terrace. The hearth and associated materials were located in the wall of the channel 4 feet beneath the surface of the terrace. The finds are important because they provide another association of bison with man in the Plateau which is probably equivalent in time to the little-known Cayuse I phase.

The artifacts described here were collected by Warren T. Lee in 1953 from a shelter hollowed out of basalt by the action of Crab Creek, the only perennial tributary of the left bank of the Columbia River between the junctions of the Spokane and Snake. The shelter is located in a semi-arid region near the western edge of Adams County where Crab Creek meanders in and out of Grant County on its way to the Columbia River at Beverly, Washington (Fig. 1). Testing revealed two occupation levels and produced a small number of artifacts.

The area around Cody in northwestern Wyoming is extremely rich in archaeological sites. One of these, the Horner or Sage Creek site, is now well known as the locus of the Cody complex, a varied group of “Yuma” implements dated about 5000 B.C. (Wormington 1957: 127-8). Extensive tipi-ring sites have been found on the tributaries of the South Fork of the Shoshone River and in other locations near Cody. These so-called tipi rings are perhaps related to those of the Boysen Reservoir in west central Wyoming (Mulloy 1954a). There are also indications of hunting camps of the Crow, Shoshone, and Ogalalla Sioux whose trails met here in protohistoric and early historic times.