In recent years considerable attention has been given to theoretical statements and to concrete applications of what is called the “taxonomic method“ in archaeology. Although this method is not necessarily in conflict with the direct historical approach to archaeology, a growing preoccupation with the former has definitely been at the expense of the latter. The direct historical approach, although employed more or less for many years, has not received formulation comparable to that of the taxonomic method, nor have its potentialities for planned research programs and its possible integration with recent types of historical ethnographic research received full recognition. Even, therefore, if it is unnecessary to argue its value, it seems timely to attempt a statement that may help clarify its procedures and research possibilities.

For many years the Adena aspect has been one of the best known prehistoric cultures in the Ohio Valley. The type site was excavated by Dr. W. C. Mills of the Ohio State Museum at the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time, however, it was thought to be a burial place of Fort Ancient peoples. This opinion was not outmoded until the publication of the results of the excavation of the Westenhaver mound by Dr. Mills in which he, for the first time, set forth the concept of an Adena culture as distinct from both Hopewell and Fort Ancient. A list of traits distinctive of the Adena culture was published by Mr. H. C. Shetrone in which no mention was made of the pottery associated with the culture. In a more comprehensive publication by the same author, little attention was paid to the ceramic remains because of the paucity of data. The last statement regarding the presence or absence of pottery in Adena is that of Dr. E. F. Greenman : complete pottery vessels and pottery sherds are here considered as separate cultural items and are placed in Table C, containing traits not characteristic of the Adena culture.

In early colonial times the Manchester region was, at certain periods each year, the home of Passaconaway, chief of the Pennacook tribe and the head of the Pennacook Confederacy. This confederacy includes such tribes as the Agawam, Wamesit, Nashua, Souhegan, Pennacook, Winnepesaukee and Namaoskeag (Amoskeag). When the first settlers arrived in the Manchester region, they found a number of villages in which lived a large native population. Not only the Pennacooks lived here but other friendly tribes came to Amoskeag Falls at the proper season to take advantage of the excellent fishing. That this situation had existed for some time is evidenced by the large number of village sites and by the fact that even now, after large quantities of artifacts have been collected, specimens may still be found in the ground.

In connection with a reconnaissance of southwestern Campeche and Tabasco undertaken for the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the writer was able to make a brief visit to the ruins of Piedras Negras in the Department of Peten, Guatemala, in January, 1940. At the time of this visit, he encountered a fragment with hieroglyphic text on the raised basal terrace at the corner of Structure K-5, close to but not in direct association with the fragments of Stela 38. As the fragment was unfamiliar, it was photographed on the offchance of being previously unrecorded. However, no measurements or drawings were made.

The essentially surface nature of Eastern Woodlands sites has invited the accumulation of private collections. Likewise, in densely populated areas such as New Jersey and adjacent states, many sites have either been destroyed by building operations or have been subjected to repeated cultivation. As a result, an enormous quantity of archaeological material has been lost to scientific excavation. While archaeologists have realized that intensive collecting by private individuals has always followed the plow, little has been done but deplore and ignore this activity. In consequence of this attitude, there is a tendency to assume that the contents of excavated sites represent the range of aboriginal culture, especially when cultivation has not been practiced for several decades. Furthermore, the enormous quantity of material in collections has not been utilized to supplement the archaeological data obtained from excavations.

The word “Jicaque” or “Xicaque” appears repeatedly in the literature of Honduras. It is a term that came into being through the Spanish use of Mexican interpreters. The Mexicans, both those brought to Honduras by Cortez and his followers, and those whom the Spaniards found colonizing the country, spoke some form of their own language which the Spaniards, freshly arrived from Mexico, understood. The Central American speech, on the other hand, naturally was foreign. The word “Xicaque” or “Jicaque” in Mexican means the “former inhabitants” and was applied to the people upon whom the Mexican colonists were encroaching or whom the newly arrived Spaniards were conquering.

This paper represents an attempt to correlate, as far as is now possible, the ceramic sequence of the southern Maya area with that established in the Guatemalan Peten. The southern Maya region includes the Republic of El Salvador from its western border east to the lower Lempa River and the Republic of Honduras from its western border east to an arbitrary line slightly beyond the Ulua River and Lake Yojoa. Generally speaking, there have been defined in this region two principal ceramic phases, one stratigraphically below the other. The lower phase contains monochrome and bichrome wares and handmodeled figurines. The upper horizon consists of the polchrome pottery typical of the region, plus mould-made figurines and whistles.

A recent paper by Neil M. Judd in the Swanton Anniversary Volume, Essays in Historical Anthropology of North America revives an idea that should be corrected. This has to do with what has been done and what is being done concerning the archaeology of the Colorado River Valley and adjacent desert areas of western Arizona and southeastern California. Judd writes on page 434: “Although this region has long been inhabited by Yuman and Mohave groups, it is still terra incognita to archaeologists.” He mentions the woric of the Gladwins, of Hargrave, and of Cotton but fails to make any reference to other important papers that contain material on the region. Some of these are listed in the brief bibliography accompanying this note.

Interest in the evidence of early scalping in aboriginal America was stimulated by Georg K. Neumann in an article which appeared in American Antiquity. Since then, another specimen coming from prehistoric Middle Mississippi horizons a t Mound State Monument, has been described.

It came to my attention, quite accidentally, that a specimen from the Earth Mound Ruins, Nebraska, described by HrdliCka, presents such a markedly similar appearance to that found at Moundville, that a comparison of the two is in order.

Recently, two fluted points from Wisconsin were brought to the writer's attention by W. F. Spengler, a student at Phillips Academy. They are the property of his father, Mr. S. L. Spengler of Menasha, Wisconsin, who very kindly sent them to Andover for the writer's inspection. Both finds were surface finds, but in spite of this fact it seems worth recording them, since both are known to have come from the vicinity of Madison. The smaller of the two (PI. XXXVII, Fig. 2, a-a′.) is from the farm of TomHalverson and was found on a field close to the inlet of the Yahara River on the west shore of Lake Kegonsa. Its base, as is shown by the photographs, has the slight prominence characteristic of the type illustrated in Roberts' Fig. 3a and Plates 5b and 6b. Fine retouching has been used to finish the base. The channel flake., which is an extremely shallow one, runs to the tip without hinge fracture.

A promising field for sites of ancient man lies in the region of the Estancia Valley, central New Mexico. This area was covered by the vast, extinct Pleistocene Lake Estancia, estimated by Antevs to have been at its height 15,000 years ago. The lake covered approximately 450 square miles and had a maximum depth of about 150 feet. Today, evidence of the lake remains in the form of beach terraces and gravels. Some 160 miles to the east are the Clovis sites excavated by Howard, while about thirty miles to the west is Sandia Cave, a site of ancient man excavated by the University of New Mexico.

In 1937, while exploring a series of rock shelters in the southern extremity of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, a copper ornament was found in association with shell tempered potsherds and flint artifacts. Due to the composition of the article, its construction and embellishments, a careful check was made as to its possible origin. Data and conclusions are given in the following.

In Etnologiska Studier 8, 1939, Helen Palmatary analyzes former Tapajó pottery from Santarem, Brazil. On pages 122–123, she gives a tabulated list of thirty-five structural and stylistic pottery traits from eleven South and North American areas. These areas, she says, are “generalized somewhat,” and they are not defined. Her symbols in the table are 3, 2, 1 for frequent, less frequent, rare; p for probably present; a for probably absent; n for no data.

In recent reports on work done in the area in southern Arizona occupied by the Salado people during the Classic period, a term new to the literature has been introduced, and a feature described which has hitherto not been mentioned by workers in the field. The term “plaster mixing bowls” or “caliche mixing bowls” is self-explanatory, but a description of the feature may be of interest to other workers in archaeology.

The Salado people, successors to the Hohokam in the Salt and Gila River Valleys, introduced the use of caliche, a limy material native to the region, in building, and erected many great structures of it, quarrying the caliche, pulverizing, mixing and puddling it in courses to form massive walls. Basins lined with caliche are very plentiful about these sites, in all levels, and associated with all wall construction.

With the publication, in this issue of American Antiquity, of a review of the Hibben-Bryan report on evidence of early occupation in Sandia cave and its correlation with the glacial chronology, there will doubtless come to the minds of many readers the interchanges which have occurred in these pages from time to time since the publication of “A Chronological Problem Presented by Sandia Cave” by Wesley L. Bliss, V. 5, p. 200, this series. The reviewer is not acquainted with the facts and circumstances that gave rise to this controversy, and he and the Editor have deemed it wise that he judge only the published report without knowledge of events which might lead to a biased review. Accordingly, these paragraphs will attempt to explain occurrences that might lead some persons to consider the site as so tainted that its evidence must be taken with a grain of salt.