Practically all of the aboriginal inhabitants of Canada, including the Eskimo, made and used pottery. The only people who do not seem to have used it are the Indians of the coast and interior of British Columbia; in fact, according to Wissler, “practically the whole Pacific belt … is without pottery.“

As can be seen from the map (Fig. 7), pottery is fairly well distributed over the southern part of Canada, but even here our knowledge of its occurrence is far from complete, owing to the lack of archaeological exploration. There are vast areas elsewhere in Canada from which no pottery has been reported, including southern Ungava, northern Ontario, northern Manitoba, northern and western Alberta, and the Northwest Territories.

Additional details of a unique burial custom, practiced on the Delmarva Peninsula, have recently come to light. This practice involved preliminary treatment of the remains by bone-scraping and mummification and temporary incarceration in a temple or bone house and, secondarily, the use of an ossuary dug in the earth for the final and permanent disposal of the skeletons. The practice is reported on the Virginia and Maryland mainland and in the Carolinas by early writers. MacLeod has written a comprehensive account of the complex, and Willoughby discusses it in a paper on the Virginia Indians. From the viewpoint of archaeology, Bushnell and Stewart5 have made leading contributions in recording locations and excavations of ossuaries.

This paper deals with the. archaeology of the northeastern region of Lower California and the southeastern portion of California. Evidence derived from these aboriginal remains indicates two possible cultural horizons, late prehistoric Yuman pottery making groups and an earlier non-ceramic group.

Most of the data have been derived from Baja California, because the area north of the International Boundary line has been so severely pot-hunted that sites fail to yield data in sufficient quantities for analysis. The area covered in this report comprises some nine hundred square miles, bounded by the Coast or Peninsular Ranges, the Superstition Mountains, and the Sierra de los Cocopas, and including the southwestern part of Imperial Valley and the northern half of Laguna Salada in Baja California.

Although the conventional design appearing on aboriginal American ceramics has been used successfully as a diagnostic feature in archaeological pottery classification, there has been little analytical and comparative work done on this mass of material. Much of the design, despite the simplicity and wide distribution of its elements, is complicated and richly variable. This apparent complexity has been a stumbling clock in the way of its study.

The purpose of this paper is to present a generally applicable, objective terminology for a classification of conventional design. The terminology is based on symmetry of arrangement, which we have found more useful than any other scheme in elucidating complex designs.

Many unusual and decorative pipes of the early Indians have been discovered in the Northwest, but, as far as it is ascertainable, only one pipe of considerable antiquity has ever been found enclosed in a wooden case especially designed to fit the pipe. Such a pipe and case, which the writer fortunately was able to acquire at a later date, were found in 1934. Considering the exceptional rarity of such a “find” it would seem that these specimens are worthy of some consideration.

Moses Coulee is a great chasm formed by the ice and waters of bygone ages; it is about forty miles in length, approximately one mile wide, and from six hundred to one thousand feet deep, entering the Columbia River valley about twenty miles below the city of Wenatchee, Washington. This district is well known for the abundance of the archaeological material and particularly for the fine craftsmanship of the majority of artifacts.

It seems apparent from Julian Steward's latest statement on The Direct Historical Approach to Archaeology that he still conceives of a basic conflict, or at least an inherent competition, between the direct historical and midwestern taxonomic methods, in spite of his initial statement to the contrary. He manifests a conviction that the latter is being overemphasized at the expense of the former. If his fears are well founded (and there are instances of malpractice which might be cited in support of his position), I should be among the first to join his crusade in defense of the direct historical “approach.” However, in that case, his criticism should be directed against the culprits who are misusing methods rather than against any given method itself. Instead, Steward adopts the tone of one who sets out to compare the respective values of two conflicting methods, to the glorification of one and the general degradation of the other.

In the last issue of the Minnesota Archaeologist(Vol. 8, No. 2, April, 1942) Mr. B. W. Thayer has contributed four articles on art analysis of the erstwhile Arapaho and Cheyenne of the Minnesota prairie-woodland area and the still resident Ojibwa and Red River Cree, which bid fair to challenge attention of those who were impressed, favorably or unfavorably, with some points brought out in Dr. Steward's recent article in this journal on the historical approach to archaeology. It has for some time been an open question in the opinions of students of design in the northern sweep, from the Great Lakes to the Rockies, in how far certain distinctive traits of Plains Algonkian culture might have been carried over from older woodland residence. Mr. Thayer deals with some characteristics, interpretable by him as signs of the same, present in the moccasin structure and designing of figures in historic beadwork.

This pipe was found in a field east of the old Hoccanum Road in Hadley, Massachusetts, by William Lamb of South Hadley Falls, after the spring freshet of 1936.

It is a most unusual type even for New England territory. It seemingly is of Iroquoian- Mohawk production and bears the decorative motifs used by them in their Champlain Valley home district near the mouth of the Winooski River in Vermont. It might well be considered that it was produced within the territory where it was found, for the clay and graphite mixture of which the pipe is made, the implements used in making this pipe, as well as the stylus markings are characteristic of the work of the Indians of the Connecticut Valley.

The recovery of skeletal material for museum display quite often presents an engineering problem that is not appreciated by the archaeologist until after damage has been done. In too many cases, the archaeologist upon finding such a burial will immediately attempt to remove it, using whatever equipment happens to be at hand, without considering the cohesive properties of the matrix in which the skeleton lies or the stresses that the method about to be applied will exert. No matter how hard or solid the matrix may seem, its tensile strength will almost certainly be extremely low. Consequently, in under cutting any part, provisions must be made for its support. The method about to be described provides for this support and at the same time requires only a small amount of equipment usually obtainable at very little cost.