A model of carrying capacity as a dynamic equilibrium system is generated and made operational in order to test a series of hypotheses relating population and settlement patterns. The development of populations in marginal resource zones is shown to be a function of optimal zone exploitation in the Hay Hollow Valley. MacArthur's deviation amplifying model is presented as an alternative to the model's diminishing resource curves as a possible explanation of the extinction of Hay Hollow population by A.D. 1400. Finally, the effects of population excess disequilibriums as defined by the model are examined in relationship to the settlement pattern variables of population aggregation, spatial aggregation and residential area.

The nature of the connections between coastal and highland Peru is a largely unresolved problem. Seasonal transhumance in the sierra zone, suspected in preceramic times, may bear on the beginnings of Andean agriculture. The preceramic occupation of the upper Santa Valley spans a wide range of environments and types of sites, which probably represent related facies of a single cultural cycle. The sites include high elevation hunting camps, workshops, open air river terrace sites, and a dry cave in which plant remains are well preserved. It is thought that preceramic hunter-gatherers migrated regularly from one elevation and environmental zone to another, and that this should be systematically reflected in the frequencies of various classes of artifacts in the stone tool industries.

Statistical and microscopic studies of ethnographic Australian Aboriginal stone tools reveal patterns which correlate significantly with the known uses, techniques of manufacture, and native classification of these tools. Statistically, the most significant correlation occurs between the angle of the working edge of the tool and the classification and function of the tool. Steep-edge flakes are classified as purpunpa and serve as woodworking scrapers, while flakes with acute edge-angles are classed as tjimari and are used as knives for cutting skin and tendons. Microscopic study has further revealed that woodworking scrapers show a distinctive pattern of use-wear. Some trial comparisons are also attempted between ethnographic Aboriginal woodworking scrapers and Quina-type scrapers of Bordes' Quina-Ferrassie facies of the Mousterian in order to suggest the value of comparing ethnographically known tools with archaeological specimens.

An isolated burial was excavated from the bank of a tributary of Gordon Creek, Roosevelt National Forest, northern Colorado. A preliminary report was prepared (D. Anderson 1966, 1967) but further analysis of the skeletal material and newly obtained cultural information add significantly to the documentation of the burial.

The body of a woman, aged 25-30 years, was given primary interment in a pit coated with red ocher. The body was placed on its left side with the head to the north, was tightly flexed, and was also coated with red ocher. Burial accompaniments include a large precussion flaked biface or preform, a small biface used as a scraping tool, a hammerstone, an end scraper, a preform with fire pocks, cut and incised animal ribs, and a perforated elk incisor. A radiocarbon assay of bone material from the left ilium produced an age of 9700± 250 radiocarbon years: 7750 B.C. (GX-0530).

No indications of habitation which might be associated with the burial were located in its immediate vicinity.

A reconstruction of the burial ritual is attempted, and the skeletal remains are compared to other early human remains from North America.

A summary of this paper was given at the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, May 3, 1969, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

In recent studies of heavily worn teeth of California Indian skeletal remains, considerable difference was seen in types and degree of wear. This variation in dental attrition was related to factors of sex, age, tooth position, and, in some cases, dental caries. The relative importance of each of these variables was considered.

The sex of the individual was found to be a major factor in tooth wear and a higher degree of attrition was found among females. As would be expected, the older individuals had the most heavily worn teeth but this relationship was not constant and some differences were seen. Tooth position was also an important variable in determining the degree of wear. The upper teeth were worn more heavily than the lower and alveolar abcesses or carious teeth probably were the causes of regional differences in wear.

The identification of these factors and description of their effect on dental attrition patterns is another step towards understanding human tooth wear. Plotting the frequency of the occurrence of degree and type of wear for each tooth by age group and sex aided in the analysis of this skeletal population. Application of this method of analysis to other groups can provide the means for interpreting the relationships between dental attrition and cultural variables.

This is an expanded version of a paper read at the 1969 annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.

Ekholm's (1962) discovery that problematical U-shaped objects served as finger-loops for prehistoric atlatls permits two problematical objects from the La Playa site, Sonora, Mexico, to be properly identified as finger-loops. Similar attributes of the three, known, Sonoran finger-loops may indicate a Sonoran variety of this artifact.

The cruciform object is another problematical object found at La Playa. A search of the literature produced suggestive evidence that this artifact also may have been attached to prehistoric atlatls. The evidence which led to the formation of the hypothesis that cruciform objects were attached to atlatls, and some test implications of the hypothesis are presented.

Hitherto unrecognized Middle Archaic cultures of southern New England are defined and dated on the basis of a preliminary analysis of an excavated collection from the Neville site in southern New Hampshire. The Neville and Stark complexes show significant relationships to the Stanly and Morrow Mountain complexes of North Carolina, and are shown to be of equivalent ages. Some implications of these new data and of the Late Archaic sequence from the site are suggested.

Flakes having superimposed positive and negative bulbs of percussion may be produced in two ways: by being struck from a core from which a primary flake has previously been struck, or by being produced simultaneously with the primary flake. Conditions are defined under which those produced in the latter fashion can occur by natural agency, and thus need not be diagnostic of human industry.

A mummy, or rather, a dessicated body, from Salts Cave, Kentucky, has been subjected to a comprehensive analysis. Radiocarbon analysis of internal body tissue placed the individual in the Woodland cultural period. A careful dissection of the body cavity revealed the presence of all internal organs but, due to dehydration, in a collapsed form. The diet of the individual, and indirectly of the population, was determined from the contents of the fecal material in the lower intestine and colon. Examination of the external side of the body revealed the individual to be a male, and radiographic and dental evidence indicated that he was around nine years of age. Blood group studies are still somewhat inconclusive, but tests are being conducted to clarify that problem. This paper was originally presented at the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Museo Nacional de Antropologia, Mexico, D.F.

Irwin and Wormington (1970) employ cumulative curves to assess overall similarity between artifact complexes of the Great Plains. Properly applied, ogives are relevant only to R-mode phenomena. Numerical taxonomic aids are advanced as procedures more ef ficacious for such Q-mode analyses. Numerical taxonomy and computer techniques in general are currently within the reach of every archaeologist.

Floor area and population data from three geographical areas are given. The value of recording the use of each floor area is demonstrated. Because of the large variances among floor areas it is suggested that caution be used in applying this relationship.

In a recent note, Salwen challenges Emery and Edwards, who earlier reiterated a suggestion by Byers and others that absence of marine shells in low levels of some Atlantic Coast middens might record “failure of the local inhabitants to learn to eat marine mollusks.” Salwen's “environmental” explanation for this phenomenon is challenged in turn. Further, in a list of drowned and near-drowned sites in the Northeast that he curiously says “can be considerably expanded,” his most recent citation is 14 years old, and he ignores more recent work. Finally, his belief that peat layers may protect artifact assemblages and preserve drowned coastal sites in “relatively undisturbed” condition is questioned.

Recently, an article appeared in American Antiquity that attempted to correct and supplement Don E. Crabtree's ethnohistoric discussion of obsidian blade making. Unfortunately, this article did not probe as deeply as was possible into the available source material. As a supplement to a supplement, this note traces the antecedents of the sources given and provides relevant portions of those earlier texts.

The Maya habit of abandoning a hut after the occupant's death and the readiness with which they moved communal sites may seriously affect archaeological estimates of population.

A comparison of the efficiency of a stone axe and steel axe showed that the stone axe takes over six times as long and requires over five times as much energy to accomplish the same work as does the steel axe.

Documentary data of the sixteenth century indicate the manufacture of ceramic vessels for salt-making and trade. Texcoco Fabric-marked pottery is the archaeological manifestation of these vessels. Use of a special ware is related to increased salt-making in the Aztec period. Implications of this for the economic integration of Central Mexico are mentioned.