A reconsideration of material collected from Promontory Point, north central Utah (Steward 1937) suggests that Promontory-Plains relationships may be closer than hitherto realized. Moreover, while several traits of the Promontory culture occur in more than one Plains archaeological complex, some are limited to the Dismal River aspect, suggesting the possibility of close ties between the Dismal River and Promontory peoples. Steward noted that a few traits (hoop and dart game, hand game boneS, side notched projectile points, end scrapers) represented in the Promontory culture were also found in the Plains. Hill and Metcalf (1941: 188, 197) pointed out that tubular steatite pipes and blunt bone “punches” or “flakers” occurred in both Promontory and Dismal River. This paper enumerates still other resemblances.

Until recently Panamanian archaeology has been essentially descriptive with little attempt at chronological ordering. Outstanding monographs and writings of this nature are those by Holmes (1888), MacCurdy (1911), and Osgood (1935), on the Province of Chiriquí, and Linné (1929) on Darien. In the 1930's the Peabody Museum (Harvard) excavations at Sitio Conte in Coclée Province, central Panama, were devoted largely to the careful uncovering of graves and their contents; but analyses of these collections were not made with an eye to cultural sequence (Lothrop 1937, 1942).

In 1955 an archaeological field party from the State Historical Society of North Dakota recovered 2 perforated elk teeth from a village site, 32SI4, on the Missouri River in North Dakota. The excavations at this site were directed by Alan R. Woolworth and the writer. In an attempt to determine the significance of these specimens the writer searched the literature for data on their distribution in archaeological and ethnographic contexts and hints as to their function among socio-linguistic groups.

Jamestown, site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World, furnishes an interesting example of the use of archaeological techniques to put factual meat on abstract or theoretical bones. For over half a century, off and on, a succession of historians, architects, engineers, and archaeologists have sought physical evidence in the earth to identify the location of vaguely defined landholdings and buildings, the first fort built in 1607 by the first contingent of settlers, and clues to everyday living habits as shown by utensils and implements.

There has been, of late, much ado in archaeological circles about amateur and professional relations. Actually, there is no new problem here; there has always been an area of strain as well as an area of amicable cooperation between these groups. The tension, it is true, grows more acute with the rapid decrease in number of good sites and is, therefore, simply another manifestation of the competitive friction associated with increasing population pressures on resources of all kinds. Moreover, the spread of amateur interest in archaeology has been tremendous, but the number of jobs for professional prehistorians remains, as always, small.

In the summer of 1954 the University of Illinois undertook an extensive archaeological village site survey of the Illinois River valley. The Illinois River, more than 250 miles long, is located in the heart of the great Central Plains, an essentially uneroded region of drift covered uplands, with a billowy surface and less than 1000 feet altitude above sea level. The river is the largest, except for the Ohio, draining into the Mississippi from the east. It gathers rainfall from about 25,000 square miles, almost half the total area of the state of Illinois, and flows into the Mississippi about midway between its head and mouth. It is located centrally on a venation of waterways stretching from the foothills of the Rockies to the Appalachians, and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.

Some time between 1837 and 1844 Dr. Montroville Wilson Dickeson found a fossil human pelvis and bones of extinct animals in the vicinity of Natchez, Mississippi (Culen 1900: 113–5).

In 1846 Dickeson reported this find to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, stating in substance that the human bone was found at least 2 feet below 3 associated skeletons of Megalonyx in a “plateau of blue clay … that underlies the diluvial drift of Natchez“ (Dickeson 1846: 106–7).

The history of the natural sciences is replete with instances of valuable contributions by nonprofessionals, from the discovery of new stars, the recognition and description of new species of flora and fauna, the collection and accurate recording of specimens, to the interpretation of the sciences to the general public through the media of the written and spoken word. Many museums have been founded or enriched through the generosity of amateur enthusiasts. Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin there are too many instances of commercialism, hoaxes, and fakes in many sciences. Archaeology is a favorite field of the nonprofessionals, who are to be found in every city or town, running the full gamut of boyhood curio seeker, amateur collector, Boy Scout explorer, private museum owner, serious nonprofessional student, pot hunter, commercial collector and trader, manufacturer and purveyor of false artifacts, and manipulator of skillful hoaxes.

Evidence of aboriginal contact between Mesoamerica and the Greater Antilles is hardly overwhelming and the little that has been gathered remains controversial. The problems surrounding the derivation of the Antillean ball game (for a brief summary, see Rouse 1953: 197) exemplify the need of caution in interpreting resemblances. A more generalized connection between the areas exists on the level of the sociopolitical organization developed in Classic Lowland Maya culture as well as in the Circumcaribbean and the Gulf Coast area of North America (Steward 1947: 104-5; Sears 1954).

An important radiocarbon date of 9130 ± 250 years (W-345) was recently received from Washington, courtesy of M. Rubin, United States Geological Survey. That it pertains to an archaeological site in an area commonly supposed to have been under Valders (Mankato) ice at that time is of significance in our studies of prehistory in Ontario. A few notes on the occurrence of the sample may be of interest.

The Sheguiandah site, in the northeast corner of Manitoulin Island, has produced strong indications that man was present before the last ice sheet advanced over the area. Unfortunately, no satisfactory charcoal sample was obtained from the older deposits in 4 years of excavating.

In the latter part of January, 1956, the Universidad Central de Venezuela commissioned me to explore the region of Pedregal in the State of Falcón, northwestern Venezuela (Fig. 1). For some years, I had been thinking that it should be possible to encounter traces of the paleo-Indian in this part of Venezuela. I based this inference especially on drawings of fragmentary chipped stone artifacts from there published by Nomland (1935: 100, Fig. 20 h-1).

In the Central American Republic of El Salvador the Rio Lempa divides the eastern third of the country from the rest. In its lower course it flows through a large coastal plain, built up in geologically recent times by river deposits and sediments from the volcanic chain in the north (San Vicente and the volcanic group of the east). From west (Balsam range) to east (Colinas de Jucuarán) this plain has a length of about 100 km. and a width of 20 km. Some 20 years ago the nearly flat land, which slopes only very slightly from the volcanic chain to the Pacific coast, was still heavily wooded, but since then most of the forest has been cleared away for cotton crops, only leaving tiny patches of the original vegetation. In this process a number of archaeological sites were revealed, especially east of the Rio Lempa, in the department of Usulután.

Upon examination of a series of artifacts found at the Poverty Point site, West Carroll Parish, Louisiana, in the collection of James Durham of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, I noted one plummet made of native copper (Fig. 1). As copper objects are unreported for the Poverty Point site (Haag and Webb 1953), it is worthwhile to note the existence of this specimen.

The plummet is made of native copper, probably hammered into shape from a copper nugget. It measures 48 mm. in length, 20 mm. in diameter and is perforated for suspension. The plummet was picked up on the surface at the Poverty Point site by James Durham's brother, F. M. Durham, in 1944. According to F. M. Durham the specimen was found south of the large mound, in the area between the mound and the river.

The literature of anthropology contains so many references to the fire hardening of arrow and spear points, digging sticks, and other pointed implements of wood that the assumption has become dogmatic and almost fixed. It is needless to refer in particular to specific writings which contain references to fire hardening.

Since fire hardening is assumed to be a culture trait of importance, I decided to make a series of experiments to determine to what extent wood was altered by being charred in a fire.