Cast-pewter civilian and military buttons are commonly recovered from Colonial habitation sites, but little has been recorded regarding the manufacture of these necessary items of apparel. A Colonial brass-button mold and its use is described and figured.

A well-preserved carved wooden ax handle was recently found on the Chiltepe Peninsula, Lake Managua, Nicaragua. The upper portion is in the form of a king vulture. The specimen is unique, since wooden objects in this area are rarely preserved. It was probably the work of the pre-Columbian Mangue Indians.

Starting with a similarity between an Olmec design and a specimen from Kotosh, Coe concludes that all New World civilizations derive from Olmec. This study, like others which would derive Peruvian civilization from Mesoamerican origins, is methodologically weak because it treats traits out of their archaeological context and because it assumes diffusion without considering alternative explanations of similarities.

The maize design on a bottle from Kotosh is unusual for its time and place in its choice of subject matter and mode of depiction, and a previous statement that the motif might be of Olmec origin is defended. Lanning's attack on past arguments for early diffusion from Mesoamerica to Peru is countered by questioning (a) the role of the Intermediate area and lowland South America as alternative sources for the observed similarities, (b) the nature of unpublished data, (c) the age of the architectural complex at Las Haldas, (d) the likelihood of establishing final “proofs” or full chronological contexts, and (e) the reasoning of the “wait-until-all-the-facts-are-in” school. It is proposed that hypotheses are not assumptions but concepts subject to change which are ever attempting to explain large bodies of data. Such a hypothesis is that which originates New World civilization on the Gulf Coast of Mexico, and a revision of this hypothesis is made which accounts for the Chavin civilization as the result of a fusion of intrusive Olmec art and religion with an older, native-Peruvian tradition based on fabric construction and the worship of the condor and serpent.

Reinvestigation of terraces first reported by Haury and Cubillos indicates that they were made by man, although some natural formations exist that resemble terraces. The terraces near Tocancipá and Facatativá are probably prehistoric, but those at the Chocontá, Tunja, and Soacha localities are of a different type, consisting of ridges designed to carry drainage ditches. Such ditchridges have been built in recent years and thus far have no prehistoric associations.

Late survival of the Shasta ground sloth, Nothrotherium shastense, an assumption partially based on excellent preservation of a specimen from the Aden Crater, New Mexico, can no longer be supported, at least on the basis of this specimen. Two radiocarbon dates, one derived from desiccated tissues and the other from an associated coprolite (9840 ± 160 and 11,080 ± 200 B.P.), place the specimen within the temporal span of other dated ground-sloth finds. The discrepancy of over 1000 years in these two dates can be explained by alcohol contamination of the tissue sample.

Public Law 87-543 passed by Congress in 1962 provides a five-year program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). This is very similar to the PWA-WPA programs of the 1930's. Since 1961, when this was a pilot program, small AFDC crews have been used in West Virginia to excavate archaeological sites. Other archaeologists with a labor problem may want to investigate this potential source of manpower.

Pictographs in southern California, while spectacular, are of little interpretive value to the archaeologist unless they can be assigned a date and a cultural affiliation. The nature of most pictograph sites has precluded any normal archaeological dating, such as through portable art found in stratified cave fill. A sandstone slab recovered from a historic Chumash site in 1961 bears recognizable pictographs which make it possible to assign at least some of the cave pictographs to the Chumash during the late 18th century. Although it is still not possible to determine the function of pictographic art in Chumash culture, its presence in villages suggests a somewhat different distribution of these paintings than was formerly suspected.

In the Nathan Cummings collection, Chicago, is a copper knife from Peru with an incised design depicting the Mochica-style cat headdress often shown in vase paintings and on modeled figure jars. The knife is similar in form to weapons carried by warriors shown in vase paintings; these weapons are probably knives rather than axes.

A statistical examination of Paleo-Indian projectile points and bases from the Holcombe (Michigan) and Scharbauer (Texas) sites shows that basal modification, thinning to fluting, is distributed throughout the range of thickness. It is possible that fluted points were considerably thicker before fluting, but this is untestable and, since the present populations have a normal distribution, seems unlikely.

McKusick and Warren defined culture complexes on San Clemente Island as distinct collections of artifacts, spatially isolated, and representative of a local cultural adaptation. In doing so, they were reticent about interpreting each of their three culture complexes as culturally distinct and gave several alternative interpretations. Townsend misinterpreted this definition of culture complexes and considered the alternative interpretations as contradictory statements and the qualifying statement as disclaimers. Furthermore, Townsend overemphasized the importance of disturbance in the sites tested by McKusick and Warren and the importance of steatite on San Clemente Island. A more studied analysis by Townsend could have resulted in more constructive criticism.

Recent excavations of fireplace hearths at the Revolutionary campsites of General Washington's army at the National Historical Park at Morristown, New Jersey, and at the State Park at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, have been responsible for the recovery of a quantity of bones of food animals (Bos taurus). These remains are discussed and compared with the dietary reports made by soldiers of the time. A crudely made strap-iron grill, used by the men at Morristown in 1778, is figured.

This site, which is on a low bluff overlooking Lake Assawompsett in southeastern Massachusetts, has yielded both fluted and Archaic projectile points, as well as other artifacts. The stratigraphy is complex, and a mixture of Paleo-Indian and Archaic artifacts is indicated. Two charcoal samples have been radiocarbon-dated at 1948 B.C. ± 100 years and 2758 ± 140 years B.C. These dates agree with the age of similar Archaic sites in the area.

The Torrington skeletal material owes its suspected antiquity to its osteologic similarity to Minnesota Man. A recent study of the Torrington remains, based on laboratory analysis and grave artifacts, indicates that these burials are of late prehistoric age. These results reveal the danger of using morphological comparison, without supporting evidence, to establish chronological relationships.