The Lucy site in the Estancia Valley of central New Mexico promises to be an important locality for Early Man. Excavations were conducted there in the summer of 1954 as part of the University of New Mexico Field Sessions, directed by Frank C. Hibben. Much of the field work was done by Thomas B. Hughes and William B. Roosa, who acted as foreman. Other students who worked at the site are Erica Child, George Hopkins, Charles McNutt, Stewart Peckham, Octavio Romano, Russell Schorsch, and Gretchen Steiner.

The Lucy site was discovered by K. W. (Sambo) Kendall of Willard. It consists of a series of sand blowout areas south of Lucy. The site is in the head of a broad valley well above the shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Estanc'a and appears to have been a series of former ponds or springs. The Estancia Valley, especially around Willard, has a great many blowouts which contain early types of projectile points.

Through the kindness of H. R. Crane and the Radiocarbon Laboratory, Michigan Memorial, Phoenix Project, ages of 2 samples of charcoal submitted by us have been determined. The samples in question were secured by us at the Smith Farm, Ellsworth Falls, Maine, during the summers of 1949 and 1950. Sample M89 was run twice and assays at 4150±450, and 3800±400, average 3959 ±310 or 2005 B.C. Sample M90 assays at 3350 + 400 or 1400 B.C.

These samples were gathered and brought in under circumstances that would be frowned on today. Pieces of charcoal were put in cloth specimen bags which had been used several times and laundered in a washing machine. Workers had not at that time received instructions regarding methods and containers, and it is certain that some of the pieces were brought in in sandwich bags. Whatever the method of collecting, results are consistent with other radiocarbon dates for comparable horizons in the northeast.

Speculations concerning the origin of the American Indian began almost as soon as it became known that America Septentrional was inhabited. Most current theories favor an Asiatic origin, with migration through northern Kamchatka and Alaska. This is supported by rather plentiful evidence. A few anthropologists postulate an island-hopping trans-Pacific migration at relatively low latitudes. This theory is supported by conclusive modern proof that such voyages are possible. Other proposed origins include Palestine (“The Lost Tribes of Israel”), Argentina (Ameghino's “Hombre Terciaro”), various lost continents (such as James Churchward's Mu), and other planets, some no longer extant. These latter theories are based either on misinterpreted evidence (such as the Hombre Terciaro), or overactive imagination (such as Mu), and merit no further consideration here.

Although the theory of Asiatic origin of the American Indian is the most widely accepted today, its first proposal seems quite difficult to locate, particularly as Columbus and his crewmen believed that the inhabitants of the New World were Asiatics.

From several sites within the John H. Kerr (Buggs Island) Reservoir area of Mecklenburg County, southern Virginia, a number of stone artifacts have been identified as burins or gravers. (The term “burin” will be used rather than “graver” as the latter term implies a limited use for such tools as engraving implements rather than for other purposes as well.) Associated with these burins are various types of projectile points, scrapers, borers or perforators, choppers, and a few cleavers or “coups-de-poing” comparable in chipping traditions to Old World examples. These burins occur not only on lamellar but on rough percussion flakes of chert.

While in Europe such tools occur chiefly in upper Paleolithic industries, Burkitt (1933: 59) considers: “For a tool to be classed as a graver it is necessary that it should have at least one graver facet… . When secondary work is done on a blade or flake as, for example, when an edge is trimmed, vertical blows are dealt on the edge, the flake or blade itself being held horizontally.

Libby and Arnold (1952:86) published 3 dates for samples from Lovelock Cave, Nevada. This material was collected by R. F. Heizer especially for this purpose. The sample numbers of Libby and Arnold are 277, 278, and 276.

“The Denbigh Flint Complex is Not Yet Dated,” (American Antiquity, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 375-6) by J. L. Giddings raises a number of general questions concerning the collection of samples and the listings and use of radiocarbon dates which are not confined to the Denbigh material. Giddings says he is a “little worried about our use of ‘lists’ of radiocarbon dates in view of the recent treatment of some dates from Cape Denbigh.” The publication of lists of dates has proved to be of considerable value to anyone who is interested in chronological problems. Primarily the lists facilitate reference. If the more than 2000 determinations were scattered in archaeological, geological, botanical, palaeobotanical and physical literature, it would be practically impossible to find them. For example, an archaeologist might never learn that a date on a level correlative with the Mesolithic but identified by pollen analysis had ever been determined.