When in the past I have listened to writers of scientific reports bewailing the fact that their writings have been misunderstood or misinterpeted, I have been inclined to pass severe judgment: An author should be able to express what he thinks in a clear manner—no reader can be expected to read with the report in one hand and a crystal ball zeroed in on the author's mind in the other. Consequently when, on re-reading Wauchope's recent (1950) stimulating attempt at coordinating the welter of data on Mesoamerican ceramics, I find myself in the unhappy situation of having been misunderstood, I cannot but feel embarrassed. Wauchope obviously cannot be blamed for not being able to guess what I had been thinking while writing on the stratigraphy of Tres Zapotes pottery. It seems important to clarify the matter in order to avoid perpetuation of my error.

During the summer field seasons of 1948 and 1950, excavations were conducted at several village sites located on the shores of Moses Lake, Washington, which lies within the reservoir area of the O'Sullivan Dam (Fig. 111). The 1948 field project was jointly sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution River Basin Surveys and the University of Washington. The excavation undertaken in 1950 was a cooperative project between the River Basin Surveys and the State College of Washington. Both projects were under the field direction of the writer.

Based on the results of an archaeological survey of O'Sullivan Reservoir by Francis A. Riddell and the writer in July of 1947, several sites were selected for further investigation. A large village site, designated 45GR27, received the full attention of the 1948 party, while a similar site, 45GR30, located approximately one mile north of the former, was partially excavated in 1950.

Several significant pre-Eskimo finds related to early aboriginal occupations in North America were made north of the Arctic Circle during the 1950 season in Alaska. These discoveries were made within and just bordering the northern side of the Brooks Range mountain province. Two of the more important finds were made by Milton C. Lachenbruch and Robert J. Hackman of the U.S. Geological Survey. Another important find was made by Irving, a student at the University of Alaska (Giddings, 1950, p. 20). Lachenbruch's and Hackman's specimens were submitted to the writer for study and are described summarily in this paper. It is reported that Irving found lithic cultural remains similar to those found by Hackman not far from the latter's station near Anaktuvuk Pass.

In a letter dated Jan. 12, 1951, James B. Griffin informed me of a radiocarbon date on the Davis site, received from W. F. Libby of the Institute for Nuclear Studies, University of Chicago. An age of 1553 ± 175 years was obtained on charred corn cobs from a floor pit of feature 31, a large circular house outline in the submound village. According to the published interpretation, feature 31 belongs to phase 1 of the Alto focus, had most of the pottery types of this focus on its floor, and probably did not antedate the initial temple-mound construction by many years.

When we look at modern works of art we too often talk of the aesthetic taste of the individual artist without taking into consideration his place in a national culture, or an economic group. Towards “primitive” art we take a completely opposite viewpoint. Even when considering such a highly sophisticated art as that of pre-Columbian America, we are prone to give it an archaeological label and call a work of art an “interesting specimen.”

In the summer of 1947, Levoshin (1950) found a group of objects on a terrace of the Yakitikiveem River in the central part of the Chukchi (Chukotski) Peninsula (approximately 66° N., 175° W.), which forms the Asiatic shore of Bering Strait. These objects are as interesting for their typology as for their geographic location. The announcement of the find had been foreshadowed by Beregovaya (1948), where reference was made to an oral report by Okladnikov. In this report, Okladnikov had referred to a Neolithic station in the valley of the Amguema River in the Chukchi Peninsula. Shimkin (1949), in a recent review of Soviet anthropology, has made note of the discussion to that point. Now, the brief communication by Levoshin, and a further comment by Okladnikov (1950) himself help to bring the information on these finds up to date. It is almost certain that the Amguema Valley reference is the same as the Yakitikiveem River site reference. Yet, while existing maps show the Amguema River as emptying into the Arctic Ocean in the Chukchi Peninsula, the Yakitikiveem River is not reported on any known map or chart.

A metallographic study was made of certain large native copper implements to determine the methods of manufacture. Metallurgical knowledge of the diffusion of oxygen into copper, the recrystallization of copper, and the working characteristics of copper are used in this analysis. The artifacts analyzed are listed below. The Wisconsin Historical Museum catalog numbers of each specimen is also given.

Not long ago at Tonto National Monument, Arizona, I discussed with Erik Reed and Lloyd Pierson, National Park Service archaeologists, the grooved stone “arrowstraightener” or “arrow-smoother” and its presumed uses. At that time I held serious doubts that this well-known object had ever had any place in the making of arrows. As a fletcher of some 20 years' experience, I had taken particular note of Pima fletchers and the manner in which they worked their shafts, and was impressed by the ease with which they took rather crooked sticks and made them straight and serviceable as arrows. These sticks were always of arrow weed, or specifically Pluchea sericea. Salt River Valley had almost no reed cane (carrizo; Phragmites), and I never saw it used. I note also the fact that no grooved stone was used in straightening Pima arrows.

In November, 1949, a fluted point was found in possession of a family at San Joaquin in Baja California. It was not possible to procure the point or photograph it, but a drawing was made. The drawing is accurate as to scale, form, and extent of fluting. The individual flake scars are illustrative rather than an attempt at exact representation. The point seemed to be made of very fine grained, almost glassy, basalt and the flake scars are considerably worn (Fig. 86).

One of the most encouraging signs that progress is actually being made in Southwestern archaeology is the appearance of several papers in which approximately the same answers have been reached by workers approaching the problem from different angles. The specific relationships of the modern Pueblo peoples to the various groups of the prehistoric past constitute one of the oldest queries for this region. It is now indeed satisfying to find that the theory of Pueblo origins with which Fred Eggan concludes his ethnological study, Social Organisation of the Western Pueblos (1950), largely aligns itself with Erik K. Reed's hypothesis, based on a broad summary of material traits (Reed, 1946, 1948, 1949a, 1949b, 1950), and my own suggestions, which parallel Reed's in the main, based on correlations of prehistoric and modern Pueblo kiva types and uses, related social organisations and pottery (Hawley, 1937, 1950a, 1950b,, 1951). Anthropologists are learning to work both ends against the middle!

Although fluted points are not very numerous in New York, it was there that they were first recognized as a distinct type under the name of “Seneca River Points” (Beauchamp, 1897, p. 21, Fig. 13, 14).

The majority of the New York finds have been in the central section of the state and along the shores of Lake Champlain and Lake George. A search of the literature, and correspondence with both professional and amateur archaeologists, has revealed no known finds of fluted points closer to the coastal area than one at Colonie in Albany County, New York. This was of an exotic quartz (Ritchie, 1951, personal communication). Therefore the finding of a fluted point in eastern Long Island extends the known range of the type.

Despite a firm conviction that statistical analyses have a definite place in archaeological interpretations, I want to register a protest against the Coefficient of Agreement proposed by W. S. Robinson (American Antiquity, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp. 293-301, 1951). Robinson's coefficient is offered as a measure of the degree of similarity between two collections of sherd material. It is arrived at by adding the differences between the percentages of each type of sherd in the two collections and subtracting this sum from 200.

In 1903 C. V. Hartman excavated archaeological materials in Costa Rica for Carnegie Museum and also purchased several local collections. In June 1950 the unpacking of a portion of the collection not reported by Hartman (1907), disclosed a fluted projectile point of dull black flint (Figs. 88, 89) with these measurements: length, A to B, 58 mm.; width, C to D, 32 mm.; maximum thickness, 5 mm. The point was made from a curved flake so that one face exhibits the fluting while the other retains the smooth, unworked original surface. The sides of both faces exhibit carefully controlled secondary chipping. The basal edge and the edges from C and D toward the base have been smoothed, either by intentional grinding or by the wear of successive rehaftings. Basal thinning is pronounced on both faces.