The advantages of aerial photography to the archaeologist have been expertly described in the literature, especially by O. G. S. Crawford (1928, 1954), the English pioneer in this field. Wessex from the Air, by Crawford and Keiller (1928), is still a classic study in aerial archaeological photography. An aerial view of an archaeological site, especially before excavation, will furnish invaluable leads to the appraisal of the site. A good aerial photograph tells the story at a glance. With its added intelligence the archaeologist can better apportion his work. The purpose of this paper is to show the interested archaeologist how to get good aerial photographs himself at little cost.

The cucurbit materials identified and discussed in this report were excavated in 1954 by the third author from 3 caves in the Sierra Madre near Ocampo, Tamaulipas, 5000 feet above sea level (see Fig. 1). These caves were excavated by an expedition under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Botanical Museum of Harvard University, and the National Museum of Canada.

The possibility of the contemporaneity of man and the mastodon in America has been a vexing one for more than a hundred years. In 1839 Albert C. Koch first reported that he had found evidence to support such a claim (Montagu 1942); and the situation today remains much as it was then, confused and without absolute certainty. It would, perhaps, be worthwhile at the outset to make explicit the distinction between the mammoth and the mastodon. Mammoths are fossil elephants, family Elephantide, which were restricted in the New World to North America.

In order to appreciate a given culture or phase of culture at one point in time it is important to have a knowledge of the possibilities that are open to its bearers through the environment. An awareness of the environment and its changes is even more important in order to understand the dynamics of the culture history of any area. It is with this objective, a more complete knowledge of the climate of a particular region with an attempt at understanding its culture history, that this paper has been written.

Under the auspices of the University of Florida Anthropology Laboratory the writer devoted the second and third weeks of June, 1955, to a survey of the Bimini Islands, Bahamas, the primary objective being an archaeological site reconnaissance of the group. Although archaeological findings were few, there were significant features meriting the observations presented in this report.

In 1955 an archaeological field party from the State Historical Society of North Dakota recovered 2 perforated elk teeth from a village site, 32SI4, on the Missouri River in North Dakota. The excavations at this site were directed by Alan R. Woolworth and the writer. In an attempt to determine the significance of these specimens the writer searched the literature for data on their distribution in archaeological and ethnographic contexts and hints as to their function among socio-linguistic groups.

Jamestown, site of the first permanent English settlement in the New World, furnishes an interesting example of the use of archaeological techniques to put factual meat on abstract or theoretical bones. For over half a century, off and on, a succession of historians, architects, engineers, and archaeologists have sought physical evidence in the earth to identify the location of vaguely defined landholdings and buildings, the first fort built in 1607 by the first contingent of settlers, and clues to everyday living habits as shown by utensils and implements.

At the former habitation sites of aboriginal Indians considerable animal refuse must have been discarded close to their tents or houses. This material would have been largely composed of animal and bird bones, fish remains, and so on, rich in phosphorous. Accumulations of these wastes would have been left behind after abandoning the place, to slowly decay and percolate into the soil by rainwater.

In the humid regions, the visible evidence of such remains may have long since disappeared on an old campsite; however, the soil must have been enriched in phosphorus, and this enrichment might still be ascertainable by soil analysis.

There has recently been increased attention paid to the nature of the settlement pattern of Classic Maya civilization. It now seems likely that Classic Maya “cities“ were not secular, urban communities in which large numbers of people were grouped together in close proximity. On the other hand, if these were merely ceremonial centers in which the populace gathered for certain rituals, then the political and religious organization of these centers, and the actual socio-political structure of the entire Maya area, are as yet undetermined.

The problem of the technique whereby the Maya, Aztec, and other peoples accomplished the cutting of wood in the vast quantities needed for construction, and particularly for lime burning has long been a matter of speculation (Morris, Chariot, and Morris 1931). Wood cutting might have required comparatively little effort if metal tools had'been available, but this was apparently not the case.

As far as can be learned from a study of the scientific contributions of Yoder (1950), Foshag (1945), and others who have dealt with the jade-jadeite problem, it appears that, although the presence of one or the other mineral has been reported from a considerable list of widely separated localities in both the Old and the New World, the exact conditions leading to their development have been subject to controversy, partly because occurrence in situ is extremely rare. The passing references to places from which the Mayans secured their supplies of raw material are in general vague, based on hearsay or traditional accounts, combined with inferences relating to the abundant artifacts unearthed at classical sites.

In the recent discussion of finds of paleo-Indian type at El Jobo, Venezuela, comparisons were made with other material in the Caribbean region and in North America (Cruxent and Rouse 1956). Turning in the opposite direction, to the rest of South America, we find that the El Jobo projectile points show a rather marked resemblance to those of the Ayampitín site in central Argentina, if we may judge from the drawings published by Rex González (1952, Pl. 13). The Ayampitín points, like those of El Jobo, are predominantly leaf shaped, but with a minority of stemmed forms. The two are relatively crudely rechipped on both surfaces, finely retouched along the edges, and in some cases serrated. The Ayampitín points are of quartz; the El Jobo specimens, of quartzite.

The University of Arizona Archaeological Field School under the joint auspices of the Arizona State Museum and the Department of Anthropology has been in operation for over 10 years. During the course of this longterm archaeological program several reports concerning Point of Pines archaeology have appeared. As a result of work since the publication of these reports, certain changes are justified in the phase sequence and in the terminology as it applies to textured pottery types. Making these changes known in abbreviated form reflects the current status of these 2 subjects. The changes and the resulting implications will be considered in detail in dissertations being prepared individually by the authors.

The Marksville site lies about a mile to the east of the small town of that name, in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana. Its earthworks, which were first described by Gerard Fowke (1928: 405–34), belong to several distinct components: the Nick site, the Greenhouse site, and the Marksville site proper (Ford 1951: 13–14). The latter component — the oldest of the three — consists of Fowke's “Enclosure A” (Fig. 1), a group of 5 mounds situated on the edge of a steep, eastward-facing bluff and enclosed on the west by a semicircular earthen rampart 4 to 7 feet high and more than half a mile long. Just to the south of this enclosure lies a circular embankment which may be of comparable age. Further south lies the Nick site (Fowke's “Mound 1“) which is known to be younger than the structures of Enclosure A.

Laboratory and library research, undertaken in the course of preparing a report on the Manakaway site of the East River aspect, Greenwich, Connecticut, have caused me to entertain doubts about some of the interpretations and divisions set forth by Smith in his Archaeology of Coastal New York (1950). This paper will air these doubts in the hope of soliciting comment and of stimulating interest in the unworked areas of this region, so that workers in the future will have more accurate data on which to build their conclusions.

A few weeks prior to the bulldozing of a segment of the Schurz site (Lopez 1955), in the southeast corner of the Bronx, within the city limits of New York, a salvage dig was conducted by Harry Trowbridge, George Younkheere, Stanley Wisniewski, Theodore Kazimiroff, and Wayne Arnold under the writer's direction.

One of the items found was a polished birdstone frag’ ment (Fig. 1) which deserves special mention since so few effigies of this sort have been discovered hereabouts.