The principle that the objects accompanying a burial are in most cases things which were in use at the same time was first stated by J. J. A. Worsaae in 1843. This principle rests on several assumptions, among them that it was customary to place objects beside the dead only at the time of burial, and that the objects so placed were ones owned or used by the occupant or his friends at the time of his death. There is at least one area, the Andean sierra, where we have historical evidence for the renewal of offerings in tombs, and in some cases renewal may have continued periodically for as much as 200 years. In the light of this example it is clearly necessary to determine the burial customs prevailing in the area and period concerned before using grave associations as evidence for contemporaneity. There is also a number of special circumstances which may produce exceptions to the conditions assumed in Worsaae's Law, and to cover the possibility of such exceptions the archaeologist must work with a sufficient number of grave lots so that he can establish rules of consistent association and identify exceptions to them.

Worsaae's Law may be extended to state that the objects accompanying a burial were in most cases not only used at the same time but made within a few years of one another. Heirlooms and antiques, the kinds of objects which would not conform to this statement, can be expected to be rare enough so that they would be recognized as exceptions to the prevailing pattern of associations.

The evidence of contemporaneity which grave associations provide can be used in two ways. If no stylistic sequence has yet been established for an area, grave associations can serve to check hypothetical sequences suggested on the basis of external evidence. Grave associations provide no evidence of sequence as such, but they do provide a means of testing the validity of the stylistic units or phases which any sequence implies. If a stylistic sequence is already established, the evidence of grave lots can be used to extend it to kinds of materials not included in the original sequence. Fuller utilization of burial associations for both purposes could lead to the solution of many problems in archaeological dating.

The recent publication in Lima of a detailed, house-to-house 16th-century census of the Huanuco region in the Andean highlands, suggests the possibility of an archaeological investigation retracing the 1562 survey. The archaeological expressions of the several ethnic groups should be identified. The degree and nature of the Inca influences in a peasant area could be revealed. Eventually it should be possible to clarify archaeologically a variety of moot points in Inca social organization.

Intensive archaeological survey on Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park disclosed remains of soil and water conservation devices built and used by the Pueblo II and III inhabitants. Low stone masonry check-dams across intermittent drainages formed farming terraces, while associated seasonal field houses sheltered their tillers. Larger dams near clusters of house sites stored water for domestic use. Water from the extensive collection system for the largest of these, Mummy Lake, was subsequently led through the long Far View Ditch to the late Pueblo III Cliff-Fewkes Canyon cliff dwelling group. These various adaptations to an undependable environment may be symptomatic of the underlying causes for the ultimate abandonment of the Mesa Verde.

Within the River Basin Surveys, Smithsonian Institution, administration and scientific research are closely integrated but separate efforts. The one depends upon the other and vice versa, throughout, yet they require different kinds of orientation. This basic principle of simultaneous integration and separation can and should be applied to all anthropological research. Problems that must be met in administration are those of finance and the fiscal year, personnel procedures, supply and equipment, geography and logistics, coordination of scientific needs and available funds, and finally specimen and record processing. All of these have their special aspects in the River Basin Surveys but apply in general to all phases of anthropological research.

J. A. Ford has recently (1959) offered a revision of the traditional view on Canadian Thule culture origins. He suggests that Canadian Thule is not derived directly from Birnirk, but that the eastern Thule migrants were contemporaries of the post-Birnirk Nunagiak stage. The further revised hypotheses of this paper are based on data generally unavailable for Ford's analysis. These hypotheses state that: (a) by A.D. 900 Birnirk existed as far east as Amundsen Gulf, (b) a Nunagiak-like culture was carried to Victoria Island, (c) the Birnirk-Nunagiak development occurred generally along these coasts, (d) a proto-Thule stage existed about A.D. 900-1100 between Birnirk and Nunagiak, and (e) this proto-Thule, developing into Canadian Thule in transit, spread across the eastern Arctic, entering Greenland by A.D. 1100.

Nearly all writers on the antiquity of man in America assume that the oldest archaeological sites contain chipped-stone projectile points and therefore cannot exceed an age of some 12,000 to 15,000 years, the estimates usually given to such projectile-point types as Sandia and Clovis. Suggestions of older sites, with radiocarbon dates ranging from some 21,000 years to as much as “greater than 37,000 years,” with simpler artifacts and an absence of stone projectile points, are generally viewed with suspicion if not abhorrence.

A recent paper by E. H. Sellards considers seven localities in the western United States and Baja California which, because of geological position and radiocarbon dates, are probably too old to contain stone projectile points. The writer agrees with Sellards that these localities are archaeological (except for that at Texas Street in San Diego, California), but disagrees that those in coastal locations are different from those in inland locations for “ecological” reasons such as food supply and availability of stone. The differences may be explained in that those sites on the shores of extinct lakes were never covered by overburden, whereas those which were covered by alluvium or sand are known to us now only by varying amounts of exposure by erosion or excavation (or both).

Contract emergency research is seen as sharing essentially the same limitations as other emergency work. These are: the pressure of time; an arbitrary restriction of geographic area of study; the obligation to sample adequately the full range of cultures represented; and the possible problem of dealing with a large volume of data. The contract also carries with it a stipulated deadline for the completion of an acceptable report. All of these limitations are seen as advantageous.

The Hopewellian Santa Rosa-Swift Creek culture, on the Florida Gulf Coast, includes seven or more burial mounds. Analysis of the individual complexes demonstrates that these mounds occupy points on a cultural continuum, with some clustering into two mortuary or ceremonial complexes. The earlier Yent complex, with the Pierce, Crystal River, and Yent mounds is in the Deptford time period. Some of the pottery has Tchefuncte characteristics, and there are Hopewell artifacts. The later, Green Point complex includes the Huckleberry Landing and Green Point mounds, with mostly complicated-stamped pottery and a few Hopewellian traits. The latest mounds, also placed in the Green Point complex, are Andersons Bayou and Alligator Bayou, which have Troyville or Troyville-like pottery associated with complicated-stamped pottery in an east-side deposit, a characteristic of the following Weeden Island period. The continuum originates in a Deptford-Tchefuncte period, in which there are direct Ohio-Illinois contacts, and ends in the Troyville period with Lower Mississippi Valley rather than midwest contacts. The inferred time span is from approximately 200 B.C. to A.D. 800.

The hypothesis of an Intermontane Western tradition is advanced as a conceptual framework within which it is possible to achieve a greater understanding of the cultural histories of the Plateau, Great Basin, and Southwest culture areas, including broad and specific relationships and also the developing differences.

Geographically, the Intermontane Western tradition extended throughout the intermontane region between the Cascade-Sierra Nevada ranges on the west, and the Rocky Mountains on the east, and from southern British Columbia on the north to northern Mexico on the south. Temporally, the Intermontane Western tradition existed throughout the post-glacial period.

Within the major tradition, the Southwest Agricultural, Desert, and Northwest Riverine Areal traditions are seen developing, partly in response to environmental changes.

Excavations by the University of Arizona Archaeological Field School in the summer of 1962 indicate that this small site in the Sulphur Spring valley was occupied from A.D. 1250 to 1325. Architectural remains consist of the two adobe-walled room-plaza complexes. Burials were extended inhumations and primary cremations. The artifact inventory is characterized by its simplicity and lack of elaboration. Locally made pottery was primarily plain red and brown with both smudging and texturing. Most of the painted pottery was traded into the site from the surrounding Chihuahua, White Mountain, Tonto Basin, and Tucson areas. The site apparently represents an essentially Mogollon complex with strong contacts with the Babicora phase in Chihuahua and additions from the general Western Pueblo sphere of influence. A Ringo phase, A.D. 1250-1350, is tentatively defined.

A recent find at Uruapan, Michoacán, disclosed two metalworking techniques commonly associated with South America but not with Mexico or the intervening area: hammering or pressing a series of identical sheet-gold ornaments over a pattern or model carved in high relief and making decorative spirals of worked (as opposed to cast) gold wire. The objects and the probable methods of manufacture are considered.

There has not been an adequate development of systematic programs of salvage archaeology on privately financed construction work. As a consequence, the great majority of building projects are undertaken without any effort being made to save the historic and scientific resources that may be destroyed during the course of construction. Salvage archaeology on privately financed projects is largely restricted to public lands. Because of a favorable industrial and public attitude toward salvage archaeology, this would appear to be an appropriate time to initiate a major campaign to extend salvage programs to other construction operations, particularly those on nonpublic lands. Four specific steps are proposed to expand salvage archaeology into the major unprotected areas.

The major problem in studying Early Man in northwestern America would appear to be the definition of adequate criteria for the identification of cultures. What is needed is recognition of cultures rather than technological tool-making traditions. A useful approach is to establish a model of relationships between environments and cultures. A basic assumption is that both environment and culture are continuous and that present environments permit recognition of past cultures. The identification of multiple environments in northwestern America permits the deduction that there were also multiple early cultures. Some proof of the models is to be seen in the presence of archaeological continuums rather than in layer-cake sequences. In the Northwest the layer-cake sequences should be expressive of intercultural relationships, and such relationships should occur on the margins of environmental areas. As a consequence of the models, three basic early cultures have been defined, with one potential culture as yet undefined. These are: (1) Old Cordilleran culture, (2) Mountain-Plains culture, and (3) Bitterroot culture, which may have been antecedent to the Desert culture. All three cultures are virtually equal in geologic time, though not necessarily in absolute time. A number of problems remain, but the approach is suggested as a means of recognizing that there are cultures probably equivalent in time to any previously recognized elsewhere in the New World.

Botany, which once bred the belief that the two oceans surrounding the New World formed a complete barrier for pre-Columbian voyagers, now demonstrates that some form of trans-oceanic contact has taken place. A reappraisal of contact areas seems warranted. Current geographic misconceptions concerning feasible aboriginal sea routes are examined. It is erroneous to believe that hypothetical voyagers from, for example, southern China to Peru can make a short-cut by way of the Pacific equator. The route between these two antipodes is a complete semicircle of equal length in dead miles whether we go by way of the middle Pacific, by way of Hawaii, or even by way of the Aleutian Islands. In traveling distance and time the route north of Hawaii is far shorter due to the flow of the main currents. A true traveling distance is not measurable unless we know the ratio between the surface speed respectively of the vessel and the current. Thus, an aboriginal craft plowing the ocean surface with a speed of 40 miles per day will have to cross about 1000 miles of surface water to get from Peru to the Marquesas Islands, but 7000 miles to get from the Marquesas to Peru.

Three feasible routes of aboriginal oversea arrivals to the New World, and two of departure, are suggested and named after European voyagers who initiated the route in historic times.

A survey of previously unknown Nankoweap Canyon, in the extreme northeast section of Grand Canyon National Park, revealed 48 archaeological sites. These included sherd areas, cliff granaries, petroglyphs, rock alignments for water control purposes, and house outlines, the latter constituting the majority of the sites. The 34 house areas ranged from one to more than seven rooms, and from a single, simple, rectangular outline to complex multi-roomed units with adjacent kiva depressions. As has been found elsewhere on the north side of the Colorado River within Grand Canyon, the temporal range of the sites was quite short, with the occupation concentration occurring between A.D. 1050 and 1150. An attempt to arrive at some idea of the population change during the period of occupation resulted in a curve with a sharp increase prior to A.D. 1100, and a sharp decrease thereafter. A reconstruction of the culture history of this section of the canyon is added to serve as a hypothetical guide for further research in this and adjacent areas.

A stylistic analysis of the incised patterns executed on the shoulders of the pottery of five Central and Northern Plains village groups yields two broad pattern types. The configurations of these types and their variants in time and space conform to what is now known of the development of the five historic socio-linguistic groups considered: Pawnee, Arikara, Cheyenne, Crow, and Mandan-Hidatsa. The spread of a distinctive triangular pattern, the “Alternating Triangle,” from its inception along the eastern boundary of the Central Plains, provides a test of the hypothesis that incised Plains pottery shoulder patterns derive in large part from stimuli from Mississippian groups to the east. Subsequent history of the incised patterns is that of a strong collective tradition over-riding earlier patterns in the Northern Plains. This incised tradition is related to historic data on skin and robe painting and to the concept of a general art style of the area, as well as to fundamental problems in the field of art.

In this paper the results of several pollen analyses and related invertebrate studies are utilized in an attempt to reconstruct the nature of the Great Plains environment prior to and during the advent of man. A large sample of Early Man sites is then examined and conclusions are drawn concerning man's use of this environment. Specific problems considered include: the types of sites, where the sites are located, the types of animals hunted, hunting techniques, butchering techniques, and tool manufacture. It is concluded that the environment consisted of a savanna grassland with abundant ponds and streams bordered on the north and west by pine and occasional spruce trees. The stream valleys sheltered galleries of junipers and oaks. On this grassland lived large herds of Pleistocene animals now extinct. Climatic indicators suggest that the summers were cooler than today, with winters warmer than at present. A Paleo-Indian cultural tradition adapted to the utilization of this environment, primarily through big game hunting, was practiced on the Great Plains during the time interval represented by the Llano, Folsom, and Parallel Flaked horizons. During this entire interval, the type of sites, site situations utilized, hunting techniques, butchering techniques, and most of the tool inventory remained constant.

The problem of relationships between the Sevier and Fremont cultures and the Virgin Branch of the Kayenta Anasazi culture is approached by comparison of the representative plain pottery types. Statistical comparison of modes of technique shows markedly more similarity between Snake Valley Gray (Sevier) and North Creek Gray (Virgin Branch) than between Turner Gray, Emery Variety (Fremont) and North Creek Gray.

Six sites attributable to the Coalescent tradition in the Fort Randall and Big Bend reservoir areas of South Dakota are arranged in a seriation indicative of their temporal relationships on the basis of the popularities of certain pottery types and the presence or absence of European trade goods. Three sites fall within the prehistoric segment of the continuum, ca. A.D. 1500-1700, and three in the protohistoric segment, ca, 1700-1750. It is postulated that the sites were occupied by Arikara prior to their movement upriver to join others of the same tribal affiliation after invasion of the region by the Dakota. Certain ceramic types are proposed as time markers and sequences are revised in the light of new data.

A striking correspondence between linguistic and archaeological data suggests: (1) that the Virgin branch Anasazi people were the proto-Plateau Shoshoneans; and (2) that the Fremont and Sevier peoples, whose cultures are considered northern expansions of the Virgin culture, are represented historically by the Ute-Southern Paiute and Shoshone-Comanche respectively, while the Virgin branch people themselves are represented by the Northern Paiute.