The statistical technique of this paper is based upon the empirically established fact that over the course of time pottery types come into and go out of general use by a given group of people. It is further based upon the established fact that in cultures where chronology has been determined the differential use of types takes on a form illustrated in Figure 89. The data of this diagram are hypothetical, the purpose being merely to illustrate the present discussion.

The article which precedes this one describes a statistical technique for the chronological placement of archaeological artifact collections. The purposes of this paper are first to describe the rationale of archaeological analysis under which the data and problem as presented to Robinson were formulated, and upon which the validity of his solution therefore depends, and second to describe analytic and interpretive work which I have based upon his results.

During the summer seasons of 1947, 1948, and 1949 the University of Chicago and the Illinois State Museum co-sponsored archaeological excavations in LaSalle county, northern Illinois. In 1947 the site on top of Starved Rock (known as LS 12) was sampled by means of several test pits. In 1948 intensive excavation was carried out at LS 12. In 1949 LS 12 was again intensively excavated by a small crew of students under the writer's direction. As of January, 1950 approximately one-quarter of the total surface of the Rock has been excavated, including excavation carried out in 1949 by Richard S. Hagen for the state of Illinois.

The Morton Focus of the Central Basin Phase, or simply Central Basin, is a Woodland assemblage found in central Illinois. There has been a good deal of controversy concerning the relationship of Central Basin and Hopewell since the two were described (Cole and Deuel, 1937, pp. 222-3). Some believed the two were so much alike that perhaps they were the same thing, Central Basin being a poor Hopewellian village group; others believed there was no overlap, but a clean break between them. Most of this controversy was based on ceramic material and the absence of Hopewellian burial mound traits in association with Central Basin pottery. Cole and Deuel (1937, p. 203) said

In the spring of 1791 a soldier in the army of Major General Arthur St. Clair, pausing on his march through western Pennsylvania to view a prehistoric earthwork along the Monongahela, wrote in his journal

The study of the so-called juegos o corrales de los indios comprises one of the most interesting aspects of West Indian archaeology. The Archaeological Research Center of the University of Puerto Rico has devoted special attention to their study in the belief that these juegos stand in intimate relation with a number of problems of Caribbean archaeology, the solution of which cannot but lead to a clearer and more exact view of the aboriginal culture.

During a field trip to British Honduras in the summer of 1950, the carved representation of a serpent sketched in Figure 116 was seen in the private collection of Mr. Eustace Evans of Belize. Esthetically, the piece is designed and executed with a skill that makes it an outstanding example of aboriginal art. The specimen is also deserving of description because it is stylistically unusual for the Maya area, being quite different from the traditional Maya artifacts.

Rowe (1950) in his review of Andean Culture History by W. C. Bennett and J. B. Bird, 1949, makes certain critical observations on the use of the horizon style concept as a unifying device in the reconstruction of Peru-Bolivian prehistory. Not only Bennett but Kroeber (1944) and I (Willey, 1948) are included in these analytical criticisms. As this is a subject of general importance to Andean archaeology, and in view of my stand on it, I would like to call attention to some of my previously expressed ideas.

In a recent note Baerreis (1950) has given critical amplification to the question of possible cultural relations between the southeastern United States Archaic and the archaeologically known culture, or cultures, of the lower Parana River, Argentina. A paper of my own (Willey, 1949), on which Baerreis centers his discussion, focused attention on the Caribbean area and the north of the South American continent, giving only brief mention to interesting southeastern resemblances which may be found along the Parana and in the Sambaquis of southern Brazil. I agree that Baerreis has strengthened the case for cultural connections over and beyond the casual comments which I or others have offered.

In the early literature, especially that relating to the prairies, there are numerous brief references to the extraction of oil or grease from bones by boiling. For instance, W. R. Gerard in his article on pemmican in Bulletin 30 of the Bureau of American Ethnology says: “Sweet pemmican is a superior kind of pemmican in which the fat used is obtained from marrow by boiling broken bones in water.” Wissler in his paper on the Material Culture of trte Blackfoot Indians says: “Marrow fat was obtained by boiling cracked bones and skimming the floating fat from the top of the kettle with a dipper made of horn.” A still earlier reference to the same process is found in Schoolcraft's History, Condition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes (Vol. 4, p. 107) in which he says: “The men break bones, which are boiled in water to extract the marrow to be used for frying and for other culinary purposes. The oil is then poured into the bladder of the animal, which contains when filled about twelve pounds, being the yield of the marrow bones of two buffaloes.”

Wendell C. Bennett was kind enough to call attention to an error in my recent review of his and Bird's Andean Culture History (American Antiquity, Vol. 16, No. 2, October, 1950, pp. 170-172) which I would like to correct. In discussing the spatial division of the Central Andes I tried to reconstruct the sequence of Bennett's ideas on the subject and made the assumption that order of publication reflected order of composition. This assumption is always dangerous and, in making it in this case, I overlooked the preface date of the work under review. The fact of the matter is that the manuscript of Andean Culture History was completed and submitted to the American Museum of Natural History before the Viking Fund symposium of July, 1947 was held. Hence, Bennett's contributions to the symposium volume (SAA-M No. 4, 1948) represent a later and not an earlier stage in the development of his ideas. Herewith my public apology for the misrepresentation.