As is well known, one of the most serious handicaps to archaeology along the Atlantic Seaboard is the scarcity of deep stratified sites. Shallow sites are numerous, but if these ever contained superimposed cultures, the evidence in most cases seems to have been destroyed by the plow. Furthermore, as the result of an intense population, the most likely Indian sites are now covered by cities, towns and farms. These factors coupled with a humid climate, so destructive to all but non-perishable artifacts, have combined to present us with most difficult problems.

It must not be supposed that the case is hopeless, but it is obvious that unless some unforeseen good fortune should bring to light exceptional sites, progress toward the eventual understanding of the chronological aspects of the archaeology of the region will be made only through a most laborious process.

In the study of a material culture, it appears that the rarer, more striking or more elaborate objects are often given undue weight while the more common and hence more widely used articles are too frequently neglected. Although the bone point of the type to be considered is by far the most common artifact found in the shell-heaps of Maine and Nova Scotia, only casual and incomplete descriptions are available. There is no general recognition of it as a distinct type, and the interpretations of its usage which are offered are made without serious consideration of available evidence.

Evidences of prehistoric textiles are sporadically encountered in the course of archaeological investigations in the Mississippi drainage area. Because of their paucity, they have been given little or no place in the consideration of the archaeological problems of this region. Distinctions in weaving techniques have already proven of value in indicating the cultural connections of ethnic groups. Enough scattered textile materials have been accumulated to merit a study of their distinctive value in the complexes of traits of which they are a part. With this the major objective of the study, the development of terminology becomes a basic necessity, making the function of this work twofold.

Archaeological interest has existed in Jersey County for a long period of time. As early as 1875, and up to about 1890, Mr. William McAdams was actively interested in collecting and excavating in Jersey, Calhoun, and Madison counties. His work was quite extensive, but unfortunately no detailed report of his Jersey County activities was made. The vast amount of material that he gathered has been widely scattered, except for a few thousand pieces which are in the Museum of the Monticello Seminary at Godfrey, Illinois. Mr. Charles A. Ruebel of Grafton has been collecting for sixty years. About one-half of his material is from Jersey County and the remainder from Calhoun County across the Illinois River. About fifty per cent of his collection was lost in a fire in 1912, and since that time the remainder has been stored and is not available for study at this time.

Delicate artifacts or small clusters of specimens whose proper excavation in situ would take a great deal of time can be dealt with by a method much used in paleontology but seldom in archaeological work. The material is taken out in a block of the original dirt in which the specimens are imbedded. This block is then shipped to the laboratory where it can be explored at leisure with better facilities for preservation and cleaning of artifacts than usually obtain in the field.

The object or group of objects to be removed in this way should be carefully exposed by loosening and brushing away the earth until the whole surface is visible. After the specimens are photographed, the surrounding earth is then dug away, leaving generous margins, until the undisturbed artifacts rest on a sort of pedestal. This pedestal of earth should be undercut several inches all around.

It is a very bold individual indeed who will suggest ideas concerning descriptive methods pointing toward a system for the simplification of classifications for archaeological artifacts. The chief difficulty in the way of arriving at simplified classifications lies in the great diversity of irregular forms. Consequently, the problem becomes so intricate, so full of pitfalls, that one is apt to become lost in a maze of detail out of which there is but slight possiblity of gathering together and properly grouping the essentials.

Whether the subject be axes, celts, gorgets, projectile points or any one of the many groups of artifacts, we must recognize at the very start that there are certain forms which almost defy description.

Since 1929 Southwestern archaeology has stood on a much surer footing than at any other time in the history of its development. This stabilization is due to the research of Dr. A. E. Douglass of Tucson, Arizona, whose inquiries into the reaction of trees to weather, from an astronomic standpoint, led, as a ramification, to the use of the annual growth rings in trees in dating the pre-Spanish remains of man in the Southwest. From the standpoint of the archaeologist, the most significant progress date in Dr. Douglass' study was June 22, 1929. On that day ended a long search for a particular sequence of rings needed to complete the ring record. This sequence was found in a log in the Showlow ruin, and united two chronologies then extant, the one a floating series of five hundred and eighty years, the other an historic series extending from 1929 to about 1280 A.D.

This is the thirteenth of a series of annual statements covering field activities in North American archaeology, assembled by the Committee on State Archaeological Surveys of the Division of Anthropology and Psychology, National Research Council. The first eleven statements were published each year in the American Anthropologist. The twelfth statement, for the year 1933, appeared in planograph form as Circular Series No. 18, issued by the Committee. The present article is a compilation of brief reports, arranged alphabetically by states, sent to the Committee for this specific use by the representatives of most of the institutions and organizations supporting such field work on this continent. Its purpose is to record briefly the work done and the results obtained during the past calendar year. Space restrictions require the exclusion from this compilation of statements of field work done under private auspices, as well as reports upon laborator, museum, and educational undertakings, and the publications resulting therefrom.

During years of painstaking work in the California Desert certain types of flint implements seem to have occurred again and again. Our work is now carried on with two main objectives: one to cover all likely areas where sites might be found, the other to try to discover if cultural groups follow certain geologic formations and if so, to place these types in their proper sequence, all of which is no very simple task. With these two main objectives in view, it is proposed to scour the more arid region of southern California, with the idea that any solution of the problems connected with this territory may prove a possible clew towards unraveling the story of prehistoric man in wider portions of the Great Basin, which we hope to explore in the future.

A wide and interesting field for coöperation by metallurgists and archaeologists is the metallographic study of primitive metal work. The present paper is an elementary exposition of techniques which are familiar to every metallurgist but which may be simply applied by archaeologists in any metallurgical laboratory. The typical copper artifacts examined (Plate 11) were kindly given by H. C. Shetrone of the Ohio State Museum, W. C. McKern of the Milwaukee Public Museum, and C. E. Brown of the Wisconsin Archaeological Society. All the specimens are Lake Superior native copper, but they show different kinds of working. Several unworked copper nuggets from the Wisconsin mounds were treated in the laboratory for comparison with the native artifacts.

Mason begins his classical paper on the Cradles of the American Aborigines by stating that many questions in anthropology, depend for their answers on a correct knowledge of the manner in which the child passes the first year of its life. He points out that the cradle might modify the shape of the child's head and, indeed, of its whole frame. Apparently, then, the study of cradles should contribute equally as much to our knowledge of culture relations as it would to that of physical anthropology, especially since tradition is supposed to linger long in customs affecting the child. Again, the study should increase our understanding of the ecology of the cradle maker. In this connection, I fear, we often fail to consider the fact that the art of the particular people being studied reflects their attempts to make a living within their own environment. The cradle-board, as Mason also shows, is the child of geography and meteorology.

Trait manifestations for the Hopewellian, or according to the more recently accepted terminology, the Central Basin cultural phase, have for several years been known to exist in eastern Wisconsin, but the occurrence of this phase with a residentiary cultural group in the eastern part of the state has had no positive indication until recently when a typical Central Basin mound burial was discovered in the Big Bend region of Waukesha County.

The burial was partially unearthed by Mr. Henry J. Peterson while grading a portion of his land fronting on the south bank of Fox River in the N.W. ¼ of the N.W. ¼ of Section 25, Vernon Township. Mr. Peterson immediately notified the Milwaukee Public Museum of his find and kindly invited members of the staff to investigate the site. Mr. Peterson should here be commended for his foresight which made possible the gathering and preservation of data which otherwise might have been lost forever.

In December 1933, under the Civil Works Administration, a number of archaeological projects were organized with the primary purpose of reducing unemployment. The scientific direction of these particular emergency measures was given to the Smithsonian Institution which, since its founding in 1846, has carried on much important prehistoric research for the National Government. In the nature of the case it was the primary purpose of the C.W.A. to set a large number of unemployed persons to work with the least possible delay, while it was the duty and desire of the Smithsonian Institution to see that the scientific results attained might be as extensive and complete as the unusual opportunity warranted. The present article aims to sum up briefly the nature and results of these particular projects and their bearing on the wider problems of scientific archaeology as a channel for relief employment.