For reasons best known to him, McGregor has included in his recent book on Southwestern archaeology a brief statement regarding the midwestern taxonomic method, although this method is not used in the Southwest. The statement is in error on several fundamental points, and it seems important to publish a correction just to keep the record straight.

First: the interpretation of “diagnostic culture traits” as traits which are standard for a culture complex in all cultural comparisons (p. 61) is not in accord with the usual concept as employed in midwestern terminology. As originally proposed by Ritchie, and as previously pointed out in my review of Cole's and Deuel's Rediscovering Illinois, the diagnostic trait is determined by a specific comparison of two culture complexes, and applies only to a culture in that comparison. A trait which is diagnostic in one comparison may appear as a link trait in another, and so can not be generally diagnostic for a given culture complex in all comparisons.