Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881), the “Father of American Anthropology,” was one of the most distinguished scientists of the nineteenth century. After graduating from Union College in 1840 he studied law, practising this profession in Rochester until 1862 when he gave it up to devote himself to scientific labors. His first work in anthropology was with the Iroquois. His The League of the Iroquois,” the first scientific account of an Indian tribe ever given to the world,” appeared in 1851. This was followed by years of exhaustive research in the field of kinship and social organization, culminating in his monumental Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871). His greatest work, Ancient Society, appeared in 1877. Translated into virtually all the languages of Europe and into Chinese and Japanese, this work has exerted a profound and enduring influence upon social science throughout the world. Morgan's last work, Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines, was published in 1881, shortly before his death.

Nearly sixty years ago, the wife of a territorial governor of New Mexico was among the first to recognize that ruins of the Southwest represented, not a vanished and mysterious race, but the ancestors of the living Pueblo Indians, and added: .“from the sameness of the remains I infer that no important facts are to reward the search of dreaming pilgrim or patient student.”

In the half-century since, patient students have ferreted out many facts of interest and possibly of importance, and have found that the sameness of the remains is not complete. The gradual recognition of successive periods of sequential development, their confirmation through stratigraphic studies, and the working out of temporal classification or horizontal segmentation, culminating in the Pecos-Roberts classification, is a familiar story.

The principal aim of archaeology is the reconstruction of history. How archaeology plays this part is usually not very clearly thought out, although Rouse has made a good attempt. In the reconstruction of history, we deal with human social units. These social units are composed of animals which reproduce their kind, inherit biological traits, mutate, evolve, take in food, give off waste products, react to their environment, die, and, in so doing, behave fundamentally like other animals. Moreover, the animals have a language, form part of a social pattern, have ideas of the supernatural and what we can call religion, and can manufacture certain objects in a certain way. These animals are grouped into families composed of mother, father, and children. They are further grouped into extended families, sibs, or clans made up of real or fancied relatives. A number of extended families under the leadership of one man or a group of men forms a political group.

The problem of the functional identification of the distinctive grooved wooden clubs from the early archaeological horizons of the Southwest, and of their possible connection with the modern rabbitsticks of certain Southwestern and southern Californian tribes has never been set forth in proper form. Similarity in form does not necessarily signify identity in function. Nowhere should this caution be followed more closely than in the allocation of use by the archaeologist to archaeological specimens. Thus, a disagreement on the identification of a highly specialized form of implement suggests that we may perhaps profitably inquire into the problems presented by the difference in opinion.

Kirk Bryan and A. P. Butler, Jr., reported finding, in 1938, artifacts of glassy andesite on the northwestern part of the Taos Plateau in New Mexico. They concluded: “non-Pueblo peoples having Great Plains affinities appear to have used the material.” Knowing that we were to be in New Mexico, Bryan suggested that we investigate a small cave at Tres Piedras where, in 1940, he had found flakes of the andesite in association with coal. The week of July 7, 1941, was spent at the site.

Tres Piedras is located in the extreme north central part of New Mexico, about twenty-five miles south of the Colorado state line. The site is about two miles south of the town on land owned by Mr. Claire Hawkins, who very kindly gave us permission to excavate.

Upper Blanco and Largo Canyons in Rio Arriba and Sandoval Counties, northern New Mexico (Fig. 5), are in an area known to modern Navaho Indians as dinetah, “Navaho country,” “Navaho homeland place,” and is recognized by them as the homeland of their ancestors. A number of Spanish records also refer to it as Navaho country. Anthropologists have, therefore, turned to the region as a source for data on the early Navahos. Surveys and some excavations of sites have been made.

Circular or sub-rectangular stone structures, often with dry-laid masonry walls and characteristically built in prominent locations, have been reported from sites ranging from the Plains across New Mexico and Arizona as far as California. West of the Rocky Mountains they have been reported from the Paradox Valley east of the La Sal Mountains, and several writers have noted comparable structures in northeastern Utah, sometimes standing alone and sometimes in supposed association with Puebloid remains.

Recent survey by the Colorado Museum of Natural History has shown the occurrence of hogan-like structures falling in this same classification, in the Rockies from the San Luis Valley on the south, where one site already had been reported but classed with tipi rings, across the Gunnison and Colorado drainages as far north as the headwaters of the White River.

Archaeological reconnaissance during the summer of 1941 at Canyon de Chelly National Monument disclosed the location of two groups of Navaho hogans built in 1758, 1766, and 1770. The significance of these dwellings lies in the fact that they definitely establish Navaho occupation of the area west of the Chuska Mountains in the middle of the eighteenth century. In addition to the early dates and the architectural details, the sites produced a large series of Navaho painted sherds and several glass trade beads.

Canyon de Chelly is located in the approximate center of the Navaho Reservation, on the West side of the Defiance Plateau, in northeastern Arizona. The first group of hogans, the Spider Rock hogans, lay at a distance of 2.7 miles from the Chinle-Defiance road, along the small spur going to the Spider Rock Overlook; the second group was situated further along this by-road at a distance of 3.3 miles from the road.

In early publications on the archaeology of central and western New York, references may be found to “dolls” and “effigies carved to represent the human figure.” The presence of these small, human effigies carved from bone and antler, in the graves of infants from early contact Cayuga and Seneca interments, excited the curiosity of early writers. It is not surprising, therefore, to find almost as many diverse and sundry opinions concerning their probable use and significance as there were figurines or writers. Unfortunately, but few figurines were excavated in a scientific manner, and only scattered records are left with which to work. Several amateur archaeologists, however, did keep accurate notes, and combining these with notes recorded on museum excavations, a small amount of data has been compiled from which conclusions may be drawn. In all, nearly a hundred figurines were located by my search in museums and private collections, and possibly many more exist.

Relief from several years of pain came to Vladimir J. Fewkes in the University Hospital, Philadelphia, December 11, 1941. His outstanding personality is missed by his colleagues and associates who, however, rejoice that his sufferings are over. He is survived by his widow, Berenice B. Fewkes of Philadelphia.

Dr. Fewkes was born in Nymburk, Czechoslovakia, March 23, 1901. His family was old and prominent in Bohemia; his father was a member of the first Senate of the Czech republic and a close friend of Masaryk. After four years of service in the first World War, Dr. Fewkes came, as a practically penniless immigrant, speaking no English, in 1921, to Philadelphia. His great adaptability is evidenced by the fact that those who met him first a few years later seldom suspected his foreign birth; he had no trace of an accent and was in all respects typically American.

It is well known that the term slip, as used among archaeologists, has no uniform connotation; nor has it been defined satisfactorily either by archaeologists or by technologists. The loose and indiscriminate practice of subjective “slip reckoning” has produced numerous fallacies and untenable “classifications” in literature. The purpose of this note is to consider the properties and functions of a slip with respect to archaeological pottery. Any concern with historical retrospects of cogent nomenclature, or with individual instances illustrating misconceptions and confusions, lies outside my present scope. Nor is it my intention to settle any “problem.”

The westernmost of the great Pueblo IV sites of the Jeddito Valley is Awatovi, occupied through the exploration and mission periods to 1700. The next upstream is Kawaika-a, inhabited, on the basis of archaeological evidence, at least to the end of the fifteenth century: a tree-ring date of A.D. 1495. Historical evidence has been thought to indicate sixteenth-century occupation of Kawaika-a, and destruction by Tovar in 1540. It has even been taken to show that Kawaika-a was sparsely repopulated by 1583, and finally deserted only between that date and 1598.

Shortly after the original article on the Susanville atlatl appeared in American Antiquity, Mr. M. R. Harrington, Curator of the Southwest Museum, wrote us that he had information which would probably clear up the problems presented by this unusual specimen. In the first place, it appears that Charlie Paiute was not the principal in the case, but rather his son-in-law, George Evans, husband of Charlie's daughter, Orrie Evans. Secondly, the evidence is incontrovertible that the origin of the Susanville atlatl was due to stimulation, by a professional archaeologist, of a native Indian workman. This possibility was recognized by us where we stated“ . . . Charlie Paiute may have learned the use of the atlatl in recent times from someone who was familiar with the San Juan archaeological specimens.”

In recent years there has been a lamentable tendency on the part of academic archaeologists to professionalize their field, with a consequently growing distinction between “amateurs” and “professionals.” That this distinction is a false one has been demonstrated by the work of such “amateurs” as Lemley of Arkansas, Langford of Illinois, and many others. The boundary between these two classes of excavators has been one of attachment or non-attachment to an academic institution, without regard to the real issue: techniques. This distinction is happily undergoing process of change, as the very existence of American Antiquity bears witness. Founded as an outlet for both amateur and professional work, it has done much to allay hostilities and opposition on both sides.