Gross parallels in patterns of development of early civilizations have long invited closer inspection. Attempts to formulate these processes of growth into a single general statement of cause and effect have been out of fashion in anthropology for many years now, but interest has remained high in the general problem of comparison. Leaving aside studies concerned particularly with progressive changes in styles or technologies, the greatest promise seems to attach currently to studies focused on the growing network of formal, supra-kin institutions which characterized each of the early civilizations for which archaeological or historic documentation exists.

The approach taken here has much in common with that of V. Gordon Childe (1942, 1952), and certainly leans heavily on the rich store of archaeological insight he has made available for the Old World.

Two distinctive types of wooden drinking vessels, known as keros and pacchas, were manufactured in Peru both before and after the Spanish conquest. Thus they exemplify the transition from archaeology to history and ethnology. Each has counterparts in pottery, metal, or stone, but the majority are of wood, usually decorated with colored motifs produced by paint with a lacquer base. This also was used on a few unique vessels of eccentric shapes (Fig. 64 b). Keros are fairly common; pacchas exceedingly rare. Little has been written about either group.

It seems appropriate, particularly in the light of the recent radiocarbon dates for an Old Copper site, that the accumulated information about the Old Copper complex be summarized for the use of those interested in the prehistory of the Northeast. While some of the data presented here have been previously published in greater descriptive detail, they are briefly reviewed because they represent the factual basis for the definition of the complex as a local cultural variant in the Archaic period. The radiocarbon dates and certain new data add materially to the basis for the interpretation of the remains of these early inhabitants of Wisconsin. We use the term “Archaic” to refer to a time period rather than a cultural assemblage, although we shall discuss the cultural traits that appear to fit into this time period in the locale under discussion.

The Churchill area of Manitoba is a meeting place of Eskimos and Chipewyans. It is also the boundary of the northern forest and the barren grounds. My field trip in the summer of 1953 to this part of the western margin of Hudson Bay had to do with both of these facts, for I intended to collect samples of timberline spruce for treering dating, and I hoped to find flint sites comparable to those of northern Alaska. The archaeological site that did turn up on the North Knife River was gratifying beyond expectations, because its flints fall into a very precise relationship with artifacts of early Alaskan and early Greenland sites.

Upon first reaching Churchill by rail on the ninth of July, I inquired of several people as to their knowledge of arrowheads or other flints. Two or three reports of flint finds pointed either to remote places in the interior or to Dorset-culture sites in the northern part of Hudson Bay.

The Department of Anthropology of the University of Alaska has for many years solicited information concerning archaeological sites in Athabaskan as well as Eskimo territory from trappers, prospectors, casual travelers, and residents. One of the more likely reports, received from B. A. Stone of Medfra, Alaska, concerned the Lake Telida region. Lake Telida is located about 1/2 mile from the McKinley Fork, called the Tatlathno River in early accounts (Herron 1901), of the Upper Kuskokwim drainage. It is about 100 miles southwest of Lake Minchumina and is northwest of Mt. McKinley National Park (see Fig. 82).

During the summer of 1949 2 students of the University of Alaska, Leona Neubarth Lowery and George Schumann, and the author conducted a field trip into this area. This trip was made possible by the author's appointment to the Margaret Snell Graduate Fellowship of the American Association of University Women, to which I should like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude.

This, the third article of the series, describes sites visited, or on which test excavations were made, during the fall of 1949 and spring of 1950. No extensive excavations were undertaken due to the press of other duties. The sites at Satohama and Daigi (Miyagi Prefecture) have been partially excavated by Japanese archaeologists, but no English language data are available. The remainder of the sites reported herein have not previously been reported.

In recent years the Okhotsk Sea region has become of increasing interest to students of New World cultural origins and relationships, particularly with regard to the problem of the Aleutians as a diffusion channel. But any real attack on this problem has been hampered by the gross inadequacy of the data. The few available sources in western languages are far from satisfactory; and attempts to augment these by utilizing illustrations from Japanese publications, divorced from the explanatory text, are fraught with danger.

The writer has therefore undertaken a systematic survey of the rather considerable field work done in this region by Japanese archaeologists in prewar years. Reports on this have been published exclusively in the Japanese language, which has placed them effectively beyond the reach of American archaeologists, although certain ones have been cited in American works for their illustrations.

Nearly all the artifacts used by prehistoric peoples of the Southwest have been carefully considered, their use determined, in many cases reproduced, and the duplicates found serviceable for the purpose indicated. Replicas of stone axes, textiles, and pottery have been made by ancient methods. There is one exception, however. The tools of the bow and arrow maker have been taken more or less for granted, and after being named by somebody, simply left that way. The projectile point is the only such artifact that has been copied and used.

Having had long experience in the making and shooting of bows and arrows. I am naturally interested in all archaeological finds of that nature. More than that, these finds have been more or less of a challenge. Just how would a workman used to modern tools and machines proceed with only stone and bone as adjuncts to arrow making? The careful observations of Doctor Saxton Pope (1923) from his association with the Yahi Indian, Ishi, were of some help, as were my own rather scanty mental notes on Pima, Apache, and Papago workmen of modern times.

Shell gorgets in the shape of a human face are well-known artifacts of the North American archaeological complex often termed the “Southern Cult.” These gorgets were usually made of a pear-shaped section of the outer whorl of the shell of the whelk (Busycon perversum). Though the whelk is found only on the South Atlantic and Gulf Coasts of the United States, gorgets of this material have been found as far north as Manitoba and Saskatchewan (Montgomery 1908).

Recently the writer, in reading ethnographic accounts of the Kansa, was surprised to find descriptions, together with one native drawing, of what are very likely Southern Cult gorgets, used in Kansa war-bundle ceremonies as late as 1883. Since no one, so far as is known, has pointed out the persistence of th's archaeological trait in historic Kansa culture, a few notes are perhaps appropriate.

The earlier of the 2 accounts, and one which is liable to be overlooked by most anthropologists, is J. Owen Dorsey's “Mourning and War Customs of the Kansas” (1885).

During the analysis of the cremated remains from 4 Ohio Hopewellian sites, burial associations, including utilitarian tools and ornaments, were recorded with 52 of 128 burials. Approximately half of the artifacts were burned with the deceased, while the remainder were placed with the calcined remains at the time of interment (Baby 1954:3).

The cremated remains from a “shell-grave” burial (No. 13) on the floor of Mound Seven of the Mound City group, Ross County, Ohio, excavated by William C. Mills in 1921 (Mills 1922: 491), contained, in addition to other objects, fragments of an artifact fashioned from a human skull.

All the archaeological specimens from the Dodd (39ST30) and Phillips Ranch (39ST14) sites, Oahe Reservoir, South Dakota, were transferred recently by the River Basin Surveys, Bureau of American Ethnology, to the United States National Museum for accessioning into the permanent study collection of the Division of Archeology. During the processing of the material it was necessary to handle each object, to check its field number with the catalogs, the feature sheets, and the published reports, and to prepare brief descriptions, measurements, and observations for the permanent catalog of the United States National Museum. While handling the specimens certain discrepancies between the artifacts actually present and those described in the published report (Lehmer 1954 [see review in this issue]) were discovered. These mistakes included the omission of individual objects as well as of several groups of distinctive artifacts, and erroneous descriptions and identifications.

The Lucy site in the Estancia Valley of central New Mexico promises to be an important locality for Early Man. Excavations were conducted there in the summer of 1954 as part of the University of New Mexico Field Sessions, directed by Frank C. Hibben. Much of the field work was done by Thomas B. Hughes and William B. Roosa, who acted as foreman. Other students who worked at the site are Erica Child, George Hopkins, Charles McNutt, Stewart Peckham, Octavio Romano, Russell Schorsch, and Gretchen Steiner.

The Lucy site was discovered by K. W. (Sambo) Kendall of Willard. It consists of a series of sand blowout areas south of Lucy. The site is in the head of a broad valley well above the shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Estanc'a and appears to have been a series of former ponds or springs. The Estancia Valley, especially around Willard, has a great many blowouts which contain early types of projectile points.

From several sites within the John H. Kerr (Buggs Island) Reservoir area of Mecklenburg County, southern Virginia, a number of stone artifacts have been identified as burins or gravers. (The term “burin” will be used rather than “graver” as the latter term implies a limited use for such tools as engraving implements rather than for other purposes as well.) Associated with these burins are various types of projectile points, scrapers, borers or perforators, choppers, and a few cleavers or “coups-de-poing” comparable in chipping traditions to Old World examples. These burins occur not only on lamellar but on rough percussion flakes of chert.

While in Europe such tools occur chiefly in upper Paleolithic industries, Burkitt (1933: 59) considers: “For a tool to be classed as a graver it is necessary that it should have at least one graver facet… . When secondary work is done on a blade or flake as, for example, when an edge is trimmed, vertical blows are dealt on the edge, the flake or blade itself being held horizontally.

Libby and Arnold (1952:86) published 3 dates for samples from Lovelock Cave, Nevada. This material was collected by R. F. Heizer especially for this purpose. The sample numbers of Libby and Arnold are 277, 278, and 276.

“The Denbigh Flint Complex is Not Yet Dated,” (American Antiquity, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 375-6) by J. L. Giddings raises a number of general questions concerning the collection of samples and the listings and use of radiocarbon dates which are not confined to the Denbigh material. Giddings says he is a “little worried about our use of ‘lists’ of radiocarbon dates in view of the recent treatment of some dates from Cape Denbigh.” The publication of lists of dates has proved to be of considerable value to anyone who is interested in chronological problems. Primarily the lists facilitate reference. If the more than 2000 determinations were scattered in archaeological, geological, botanical, palaeobotanical and physical literature, it would be practically impossible to find them. For example, an archaeologist might never learn that a date on a level correlative with the Mesolithic but identified by pollen analysis had ever been determined.