The recent publication in Lima of a detailed, house-to-house 16th-century census of the Huanuco region in the Andean highlands, suggests the possibility of an archaeological investigation retracing the 1562 survey. The archaeological expressions of the several ethnic groups should be identified. The degree and nature of the Inca influences in a peasant area could be revealed. Eventually it should be possible to clarify archaeologically a variety of moot points in Inca social organization.

The Hopewellian Santa Rosa-Swift Creek culture, on the Florida Gulf Coast, includes seven or more burial mounds. Analysis of the individual complexes demonstrates that these mounds occupy points on a cultural continuum, with some clustering into two mortuary or ceremonial complexes. The earlier Yent complex, with the Pierce, Crystal River, and Yent mounds is in the Deptford time period. Some of the pottery has Tchefuncte characteristics, and there are Hopewell artifacts. The later, Green Point complex includes the Huckleberry Landing and Green Point mounds, with mostly complicated-stamped pottery and a few Hopewellian traits. The latest mounds, also placed in the Green Point complex, are Andersons Bayou and Alligator Bayou, which have Troyville or Troyville-like pottery associated with complicated-stamped pottery in an east-side deposit, a characteristic of the following Weeden Island period. The continuum originates in a Deptford-Tchefuncte period, in which there are direct Ohio-Illinois contacts, and ends in the Troyville period with Lower Mississippi Valley rather than midwest contacts. The inferred time span is from approximately 200 B.C. to A.D. 800.

A recent find at Uruapan, Michoacán, disclosed two metalworking techniques commonly associated with South America but not with Mexico or the intervening area: hammering or pressing a series of identical sheet-gold ornaments over a pattern or model carved in high relief and making decorative spirals of worked (as opposed to cast) gold wire. The objects and the probable methods of manufacture are considered.

A stylistic analysis of the incised patterns executed on the shoulders of the pottery of five Central and Northern Plains village groups yields two broad pattern types. The configurations of these types and their variants in time and space conform to what is now known of the development of the five historic socio-linguistic groups considered: Pawnee, Arikara, Cheyenne, Crow, and Mandan-Hidatsa. The spread of a distinctive triangular pattern, the “Alternating Triangle,” from its inception along the eastern boundary of the Central Plains, provides a test of the hypothesis that incised Plains pottery shoulder patterns derive in large part from stimuli from Mississippian groups to the east. Subsequent history of the incised patterns is that of a strong collective tradition over-riding earlier patterns in the Northern Plains. This incised tradition is related to historic data on skin and robe painting and to the concept of a general art style of the area, as well as to fundamental problems in the field of art.

A striking correspondence between linguistic and archaeological data suggests: (1) that the Virgin branch Anasazi people were the proto-Plateau Shoshoneans; and (2) that the Fremont and Sevier peoples, whose cultures are considered northern expansions of the Virgin culture, are represented historically by the Ute-Southern Paiute and Shoshone-Comanche respectively, while the Virgin branch people themselves are represented by the Northern Paiute.

Two coastal sites on Long Island, the Stony Brook site and the Baxter site, are examined in the light of Fairbridge's data on sea level fluctuations during the last 7000 years. In each case, the coastline at the time of occupation is reconstructed, and inferences are made about the ecological setting. Archaeological data pertaining to subsistence pattern are then reviewed in the light of the probable local environment at the time of occupation. Orient culture occupations at both sites date from about 2900 B.P., when sea level is believed to have been about 10 feet below the present level. The Orient component midden at Stony Brook contains more oyster shell than any other species of mollusk, while that at the Baxter site contains a large percentage of clam shell and almost no oyster. This difference cannot be explained on cultural grounds, but can be shown to reflect local environmental factors existing under conditions of lowered sea level. The midden contents at other times of occupation are found to be consistent with the corresponding sea levels.

Reconstruction of the subsistence relationship existing between prehistoric man and his environment has been handicapped by the difficulty of ascribing reasonably precise function to many of his tools. This study began as an attempt to interpret the function of the enigmatic celt; it developed into a field experiment which included the testing of a series of stone hoes in an effort to prove or disprove the existence of prehistoric implements with the hoe function. Inherent difficulties and limitations in the functional approach to implement testing and interpretation are indicated.

The fact that Northwest Coast Indians obtained iron for tool making at least 175 years ago makes it unlikely that any literate person ever saw stone edge tools in use in this area, or even talked with an Indian who had seen them in use. Thus, interpretation of the function of stone tools in southeast Alaska is based on an estimate of the type of tools needed for the known aboriginal industries, experimental use of the tools, and Indian tradition. The use of 25 stone artifact types is discussed, including adzes and similar tools, mauls and hammers, mortars and pestles, lamps and pipes, clubs and fighting tools, projectile points, and ornaments.

Analysis of phosphorus content of three “hearth” samples and two control samples does not support the claim that the Texas Street “hearths” are the result of man's activity. In fact, the absence of high phosphorus content of the “hearths” is considered to be strong evidence that the site was not occupied by man.

Two points raised in a review of Indian Life in the Upper Great Lakes are discussed. The points questioned were statements about Winnebago social organization and the late glacial and early postglacial vegetation of the Upper Great Lakes. A review of the available evidence suggests that the Winnebago had an Omaha type of kinship system and that the late glacial and early post-glacial vegetation included spruce and fir or spruce and deciduous trees with coeval differences of vegetation being due to factors of soil, drainage, light, elevation, and pioneering ability instead of climate.

A chert point, found about 1910 on a farm near Parkman, Geauga County, Ohio, was discovered in an archaeological collection recently donated to the Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. The point exhibits all the features of the classic Sandias from New Mexico, including the single shoulder, stem and basal grinding, and basal thinning.

The western, eastern, and northern limits of the main area of Adena occupation are rather well determined, but the southern limits are less precisely known. Typical Adena Plain sherds and wide, flat-base, stemmed projectile points and other artifacts from village midden material near a low conical mound in southwestern Madison County, Kentucky, indicate that the Adena cultural manifestation, at least in a late phase, extended south of the Kentucky River and about 30 miles farther south than has been previously reported.

A recently located dugout canoe and a similar specimen reported by Kidd may be distinguished typologically from the few other dugouts known for Ontario, suggesting that they may be of some antiquity.

A group of small middens has yielded cultural materials that are characteristic of Cape Cod. A Middle Woodland stage having grit-tempered, dentate- and rocker-stamped pottery, stemmed and side-notched points was followed by a Late Woodland 1 stage using course shell-tempered, straight-sided vessels, and large triangular points. A late Woodland 2, or final, stage had fine shell-tempered, globular pots, to some extent suggestive of late Windsor pottery of the coastal section west of Cape Cod.

The precise definition of “floor” as a building unit involving a lime aggregate or mortar (usually called fill) covered by a plaster (usually what is called the floor) the surface of which is treated by a wash coat makes possible detailed study of techniques of floor construction and the correlation of these with various cultural changes. A preliminary study of floors in Structures A–V, A–XVIII, B–XII at Uaxactún indicates that (1) floors improved in quality from Chicanel to Tepeu times, (2) post-Chicanel plasters were treated with a wash coat, especially the painted ones, and (3) the use of many small chips in Tzakol and Tepeu plasters implies extensive stone carving, because it is unlikely that stone would have been broken into such small pieces just for floor construction.