Ecologically oriented studies in anthropology can be improved by greater familiarity with standard botanical and agricultural sources (many of which are listed in this paper) on the enumeration, classification, domestication, and use of culturally significant plants.

Approximately 2400 stone and 77 bone and antler artifacts were obtained by extensive trenching of the Kayuk site, a large area on the banks of Kayuk Creek in Anaktuvuk Pass, Brooks Range, northern Alaska, where several Nunamiut Eskimo families now camp. No stratigraphy was noted and no structural features were encountered, but four fire areas were excavated. The most diagnostic artifact is the Kayuk point, a lanceolate form with finely executed parallel oblique flaking, which resembles most closely the Angostura point of the Great Plains. Other stone artifacts, some of which also exhibit the parallel oblique flaking, include blades, scrapers, angle burins, microblades, drills, and adz blades. Implements of bone and antler, mostly caribou, include harpoons, leister and fish spear prongs and barbs, and other forms common in recent and prehistoric Arctic sites. The Kayuk site is believed to have been a hunting camp used during caribou migrations through Anaktuvuk Pass by a prehistoric Eskimo group which probably wintered on the northern coast as do the modern Nunamiut. The Kayuk complex probably belongs somewhere in time between the Denbigh Flint complex and Ipiutak.

Burials of condors at two central California coastal sites extend the area of this trait, previously known from burials further south and inland. It was probably a ritual practice from Early horizon times (about 2000 B.C.) onward. Possible connections with bird burial in the Southwest deserve study.

A series of papers at the 24th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, in Salt Lake City in 1959, was devoted to Developments in Dating Techniques, and dedicated to Nels C. Nelson in recognition of his pioneering role in establishing the technique of stratigraphic excavation in America. During his work in the Galisteo Basin of New Mexico in 1914 he dug a series of ten 1-foot levels, classified all the sherds found in them into seven types, and calculated their frequencies by levels. These resembled sections of normal distribution curves, and demonstrated that statistical analysis of data from arbitrary levels could reveal chronological change just as could data from physically distinct strata. Within a few years this technique was employed by several other archaeologists and it continues to the present to be an indispensable technique of investigation.

In a review of MacNeish"s Preliminary Archaeological Investigations in the Sierra de Tamaulipas, Mexico, Taylor claims that the sequence of phases is built largely on the evidence from Diablo Cave and that the method of analysis is based on the premise that one congery of artifacts equals one phase. MacNeish rejects these claims by reviewing the way in which he used single components and stratigraphically unmixed deposits from several sites to work out the phase sequence.

The small embossed ornaments of sheet copper found in Southeastern sites have usually been identified as “pendants” or “symbol badges,” and have been considered part of the ritual equipment of the Southern Cult. Four graves of the Wilbanks period at Etowah contained such objects. They had apparently been mounted with feathers and slender wooden rods to form elaborate headdresses. Observers from the 16th century onwards describe “crowns” worn by the Coosa, Creek, and Natchez nobility that would have been very similar.

Chemical and microscopic analyses of material from eight structures at Palenque show that mortars, plasters, stuccos, wash coats, and lime-aggregates were used as building units, and extend the distribution of limeaggregate, known also at Comalcalco, Las Flores, and Uxmal.

The archaeological content of ten years of Life magazine is analyzed in an attempt to identify what may go into formulating the public's images of the archaeologist and his goals. The four themes which appear in the 34 Life articles are: chance nature of archaeological discovery, role of the archaeologist as an expert, emphasis on technical knowledge and skills, and heavy use of superlatives. Analysis of other mass media, including fiction and cartoons, might lead to the identification of other themes. The image of archaeology presented by mass communication is considered important in a science so dependent upon public cooperation.

Mesoamerican masons have used an extract from the bark of such trees as the chucum, chacte, chacah, and jabin in the preparation of lime plaster since prehistoric times, reportedly to increase the workability or strength of the lime and to reduce cracking in the plaster. Experiments involving the use of plasters prepared with these high tannin-content extracts show that the extracts have an effect on the properties of lime plater probably by stabilizing the system during drying.

A bison-kill site in Wyoming with a radiocarbon age of about 8000 years has yielded numerous points of a type formerly termed “Oblique Yuman.” It is proposed that they now be named Allen points, after this site.

Although the Portuguese route from Lisbon to Goa via Bahia and Cape of Good Hope was the first direct route from South America to Southeast Asia, it was so little used that it was unimportant in the introduction of American plants into Asia. It is more likely that American plants brought first to Portugal were carried directly from there to Asia.

The small agricultural slip formerly used with horses or mules for dirt removal on farms and railroads is an efficient and inexpensive device for two or three men with a pick-up truck to use for moving back dirt.

The site of Pueblo Viejo extends knowledge of Ronquin-style ceramics farther east along the Orinoco than hitherto reported and provides new information on Ronquin settlement of the south bank of the Orinoco River. Laja de Manapiri adds another prehistoric settlement to the relatively thick cluster in the Caicara-Parmana area. Both sites contain Late Ronquin ceramics in a variety of forms including vessels, adornos, and figurines. Early Ronquin material is found at Laja de Manapire and is probably present at Pueblo Viejo. The Middle Orinoco is important archaeologically because of the possibility that the Ronquin styles link the Antillean area and northern Venezuela with the Guianas and the Upper Orinoco-Amazon region.

The striking of long, slender, parallel-sided flakes, or blades, from prepared cores has long been known in the Arctic and Mesoamerica. Small pointed blades with distinctive triangular cross section are also found in the Late Horizon in both mainland and island Canaliño sites in that part of the Santa Barbara Channel region of southern California which was ethnographically occupied by the Chumash.

Alma Neck Banded has long been considered to be a component of Mogollon 1 and Mogollon 2 horizons. Present evidence indicates, however, that this pottery type is a horizon marker for Mogollon 3 when it does not occur in the same context with Three Circle Neck Corrugated and Mangas Black-on-white of Mogollon 4. Apparently Alma Neck Banded first appeared in the southwestern United States between A.D. 600 and 700 and continued to be made until about 950. It is still difficult to determine the order of temporal priority between Alma Neck Banded and Kana-a Gray.

Borhegyi and Scrimshaw's identification of goiter on two prehistoric pottery figurines from Guatemala is questioned and their discussion of iodine deficiency as the cause of endemic goiter is challenged.

Measurements of bison metapodials give promise of a basis for species identification, but more data will be needed for fully satisfactory results. Bones from the Allen site in Wyoming are probably either Bison occidentalis or Bison antiquus.