In recent years a new approach in archaeology, the "processual school," has been developed. The processualists suggest that method and theory in archaeology be in various important ways altered and reoriented. A number of the school's basic axioms are defined, illustrated, and discussed. Included is a consideration of such notions as "adaptation," "system," and "explanation." It is argued that various of the components of the processualist position themselves require some modification.

Brazil can be divided into two geographical areas: the Coastal Strip and the Amazon Basin. Coordinated systematic survey and testing on the Coastal Strip between 1965-68 shows the Preceramic period to have lasted until about A.D. 500 except in an enclave on the Bahia Coast, where the Periperi ceramic tradition dates from the ninth century B.C. Although a variety of preceramic complexes has been recognized, particularly in the south, primary attention has been placed on the ceramic period. Seven regional ceramic traditions have been identified, and these appear to be generally contemporary with the area-wide Tupiguarani tradition. The latter is divisible into three subtraditions: the earliest emphasizes painted decoration; the second, corrugation; and the most recent, brushing. Subsequent to European contact, a Neo-Brazilian ceramic tradition developed, in which aboriginal and European traits are amalgamated.

Although the archaeology of the Amazon Basin is more poorly known, none of the existing data shows any evidence of contact with the occupants of the Coastal Strip, or vice versa. The strength of the ecological barrier between the two areas is reflected in the affiliation of complexes on the upper Rio Xingú, on the ecological border, with the Amazonian Incised and Punctate tradition, and in the total lack of any features suggesting contact with cultures of the Coastal Strip.

We argue that the development and use of law-like statements by archaeologists to explain characteristics of the archaeological record has been and should continue to be one of the most important goals of archaeological research. Using a model for explanation developed by the philosophers of science, Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, we indicate the role of such statements in archaeological classification. However, in archaeology such statements are found to be implicit, untested, and extremely general in referent.

We further argue that the testing of potential laws requires a shift from an inductive procedure, or from one in which undirected data collection forms the first and the "abstraction" of laws from data forms the last research step, to a deductive procedure in which the explicit formulation of potential laws and their empirical consequences precedes and directs the collection of data.

Archaeologists would agree that the cultural debris lying on the surface of a site in some way reflects what is buried below. However, few attempts have been made to discover just how closely one can predict from detailed knowledge of surface distributions what he will find if he digs.

In October and November, 1968, surface collections based on statistical sampling techniques were made at two mounds in Diyarbakir Vilayet, Turkey. The tabulated data were put into the form of contour maps. We find that study of these maps, singly or in combination as overlays, suggests numerous hypotheses that can be formulated much more precisely than those deriving from the usual intuitive method based on simple inspection of the site surface. Soundings were made to test some of the major hypotheses. The results of the soundings plus subsequent statistical analyses suggest that intensive, systematic surface collection is an extremely useful technique for determining where to dig. It is also highly productive of testable hypotheses relevant to the total interpretation of the site.

As a result of five field seasons in the Campo del Pucará, Prov. of Catamarca, the Alamito culture, dated in the fourth century A.D., is one of the best known archaeological cultures of the Valliserrana subarea of northwestern Argentina. The 50 sites excavated show only slight variation in subsistence (essentially agricultural), technology, ceremonial structures, burial pattern, settlement pattern, and inferred social organization. Close affiliations are evident with the Ciénaga, Condorhuasi, and possibly Tafí cultures of Argentina; further afield, similarities can be observed with the Megalithic culture of Bolivia, Chiripa and Titicaca Basin complexes, and more remotely with Peru.

Information concerning tool types and other artifacts of seven major early complexes is presented. Thirty-four principal types are defined. These are then used to contrast and compare the assemblages and to show major changes in the period of approximately 9000 through 6000 B.C. Quantitative data are presented by means of percentages of major groups and cumulative graphs of all of the types.

The proposition is advanced that archaeologists are not justified in considering pollen analysis a technique of investigation restricted to the biological or earth scientist. This is shown not to be true in theory because of the nature of the technique itself. Comparison of pollen studies of samples from archaeological proveniences on the Colorado Plateau serves to illustrate the fact that research designs in pollen analysis do actually allow collection of cultural data and directly serve the purposes of cultural reconstruction. The comparison also serves to summarize the nature of the archaeological and nonarchaeological pollen research carried on to date in this region. A second portion of the paper synthesizes much of the available information for the presentation of a reconstruction of effective moisture variation on the Colorado Plateau over the past 1,500 years. This reconstruction was designed to serve the purposes of archaeological chronology and cultural ecology in the region. It also illustrates the flexibility of pollen analytic research as a technique of archaeology.

A cache of flint artifacts has been discovered near Anadarko in southwestern Oklahoma. It is made up of 4 core chopping tools, 2 discoidal chopping tools, and 26 prismatic blades. Two of the core chopping tools were used to produce blades. One of the discoidal chopping tools and one of the core chopping tools are made of alibates flint, common to the Panhandle area of Texas; the remaining tools are made of grey-white flint. The cache provides interesting insights into prehistoric blade manufacturing. On the basis of similar blades found in dated deposits at Clovis, New Mexico, it is suggested that the cache is of the Paleo-Indian period. However, the manufacture of blades is by no means confined to the Paleo-Indian period. The association of prismatic blades with chopping tools of various sizes leads one to the suggestion that the whole assemblage was intended for use as a butchering kit for large animals.

The Hohokam grew maize as early as 300 B.C. Common beans were introduced by Estrella phase (100 B.C.-A.D. 100) and cotton was cultivated by the following phase (A.D. 100-300). Sahuaro and mesquite seeds supplemented agricultural products especially when crops failed. The Hohokam apparently harvested two plantings per year. Opuntia seeds were eaten when crops failed and sedge seeds were consumed during optimal conditions for growth of all local vegetation. Pollen analysis suggests cholla buds were eaten and that there was continual expansion of agricultural land from Sweetwater through Gila Butte phases. Coniferous timbers were incorporated into houses during the last phase (Sacaton, A.D. 1100-1200) of the occupation of Snaketown.

This paper attempts to show that a reexamination of the ecological zones along the Peruvian coast can prove extremely helpful in understanding the subsistence patterns of preceramic populations. The phenomenon of the periodic El Niño Countercurrent and its drastic effects on both sea and land resources are discussed in detail, with particular reference to lomas sites. An attempt is made to distinguish seasonal food resources from those available all year round, and to examine the possible factors limiting both types of resources. Vital problems concerning human adaptation to the coastal niche in preceramic times are stressed in hopes that they will serve as focal points for future research.

A recent settlement pattern survey in central Mexico offers a useful perspective from which to view the first part of an ethnohistoric document–the Codice Xolotl–which deals with the same area. Regional settlement patterns from the Early Postclassic period seem to correspond most reasonably with events depicted in the Codice. It is suggested that the first part of the Codice Xolotl is most useful to anthropologists when considered within a framework of relevant archaeological information.

Since a large number of dog remains have been unearthed in the last few years in the Southwest, a review of the material is important. An attempt has been made to record dogs as to time and space as well as noting anatomical deviations such as the presence or absence of the first premolar on the lower jaw, and the presence or absence of large dogs and their distribution.

Student members of the Arizona State University Walnut Creek Archaeological Field Camp excavated six pit houses and located several more at Walnut Creek Village, located 10 mi. southeast of Young, Arizona, during the summer of 1967. Three of the pit houses were Hohokam and three were Anasazi; one of the latter was a subcircular kiva with sipapu-resonator complex of distinctive western Pueblo style. The occurrence, during the ninth century, of these two archaeological groups, side-by-side, in an ecological setting which is unusual for the Hohokam contributes to our knowledge of them and permits inferences concerning the Hohokam community at Roosevelt:9:6, 30 mi. away. Additionally, hypotheses concerning Hohokam ceremonial and communal houses at other sites can be evaluated.

Seriation as a scaling technique produces a formal arrangement of units, the significance of which must be inferred. Arrangement per se is a statistical matter, while the inference of significance is archaeological method. Here seriation as an archaeological method for inferring relative chronology is reviewed in terms of its assumptions and the conditions under which it is applicable. From this examination it is concluded that seriations may be inferred to be chronologies when and only when: (1) the comparisons are conducted using historical classes; (2) the units ordered are of comparable duration; (3) the units ordered are from the same cultural tradition; and (4) when the order is repeated through several independent seriations. The means of assessing whether or not a given seriation meets these conditions is considered in detail. Within specifiable limits seriations can be inferred to be chronologies, but these limits are more restricted than generally appreciated.

Application of the type-variety analytical procedure to Preclassic ceramic material excavated from mound-fill deposits at Chalchuapa, El Salvador, has provided important indications of possible ceramic relationships between this site-zone and the Maya Lowlands. Of the five ceramic complexes, the earliest (the Tok ceramic complex) seems related to the Early Preclassic (Cuadros phase) of south coastal Guatemala and Mexico. Pottery of the early Middle Preclassic (the Colos and Kal ceramic complexes) appears to involve certain direct type-variety relationships with the Lowland Maya Xe and Mamom ceramic spheres. Late Middle Preclassic pottery (the Chul ceramic complex) is evidently almost exclusively affiliated with Highland Guatemala (the Providencia phase at Kaminaljuyu). Pottery of the Late Preclassic and "Protoclassic" (the Caynac ceramic complex) at Chalchuapa continues to reflect these ties (now with the Miraflores, Arenal, and Santa Clara phases at Kaminaljuyu). Apart from such ties, however, there are also significant indications of renewed ceramic connections with the Maya Lowlands during this time interval that we believe might have been of some consequence for the development of the Classic Lowland Maya. The implications of these ceramic relationships for the problem of the initial occupation of the east-central Maya Lowlands and the later intrusive Floral Park ceramic sphere at Barton Ramie are discussed. The paper also considers the implications of this evidence for the type-variety analytic procedure and proposes a tentative outline of Preclassic ceramic relationships in the Maya area.

In 1967, a mound at San Pablo, Morelos, was partially excavated for salvage reasons. The mound had at one time contained an estimated 150-250 burials, all associated with ceramics identical to certain vessels found at Tlatilco. In addition to being one of the earliest known mounds in central Mexico, the site is believed to be a burial mound, rare at any time period in Mesoamerica. Analysis of the burial ceramics in comparison to assemblages from other Middle Preclassic sites suggests that Tlatilco and other sites of its type are not one-period sites, but exhibit at least two phases, the earlier phase related to highland Olmec, the later to a localization of styles. The San Pablo Pantheon mound appears to represent only the later phase.

Thirty Hopi Indians of both sexes and all ages were killed, crudely dismembered, violently mutilated, and probably cannibalized about 370 years ago. This massacre occurred on the left bank of Polacca Wash ten miles south of the Hopi villages. The location of, dismemberment of bodies in, and radiocarbon age of this mass burial suggest the bodies were once the few live villagers, taken captive by other Hopi warriors, referred to in the legendary account of the destruction of Awatobi pueblo that occurred ten to twelve generations ago.

The widely differing interpretations of the function of certain artifactual materials associated with the shaft-tomb complex of western Mexico are utilized to illustrate certain problems in the analysis of nonhistoric archaeological materials thought to be of religious significance. It is suggested that in the absence of some new model specifically designed to deal with the religious sub-system of nonhistoric societies and in the absence of interpretative data derived from relatively secure historical contexts, the only approach which seems justified, in light of our present level of knowledge, is to operate on the level of broad generalized statements of probability.