George F. Carter

New Evidence for the Antiquity of Man in North America Deduced from Aspartic Acid Racemization

Ages of several Californzia Paleo-Indlian skeletons have been deduced from the extent of aspartic acid racemization. These dates suggest that man was present in North America at least 50,000 years before the present.

Cultigens in Prehistoric Eastern North America: Changing Paradigms [and Comments and Replies]

The widely accepted view that eastern North America was a separate center of plant domestication has resulted in an increasingly isolationist perspective on the regions culture history and a neglect of research on the diffusion into it of tropical cultigens. New data on archaeobotanical macromorphologies, the chemical and chromosomal composition of archaeobotanical specimens, and the geographical distribution of archaeobotanical remains challenge old paradigms. In particular, the diffusion of tropical cultigens across the Caribbean must now be seriously considered. This paper reports on current research suggesting alternatives to existing paradigms in relation to four plants (maize, tobacco, beans, and chenopods) and stresses prehistoric eastern North Americas relationship to, instead of isolation from, Mesoamerica nd South America.

Interglacial Artifacts from the San Diego Area

ARCHAEOLOGICAL WORK in southern California beginning in 1930 has led to ever widening studies aimed at gaining a better time perspective concerning the age of man in America. In the summers of 1947, 1948, and 1950 studies were made of the relationships between soils and terraces in hope of establishing a time scale from soil-ageing phenomena that would be applicable to archaeology.1 This led to examination of both ocean front (sea) terraces and river terraces, and the working out of geological sequences. A paper on one Pleistocene landform containing artifacts has previously been published.2 In 1947, artifacts were unexpectedly found in a terrace that is probably of third interglacial age. More were found in 1950. These are illustrated and the circumstances reported here.

Archaeological Notes on a Midden at Point Sal

pOINT SAL is 50 miles north of Santa Barbara, and represents a seaward projection of the Casmalia Hills. Two and a half miles inland from the sea, at an elevation of 1100 feet, there occurs a large flowing spring. On the bench below this spring there is an extensive shell midden of the general type described by D. B. Rogers for the area south of here.2 Excavation on this site was limited to four small test pits and to the removal of a group of burials from the upper level. The test pits showed a maximum depth of 10 feet near the

Pre-Columbian Old World Coins in America: An Examination of the Evidence [and Comments and Reply]

Does the occasional find of a Roman, Greek, or Hebrew coin in America indicate ancient transoceanic contact? In this study, 40 reports of such coins are analyzed in order to determine whether any can support the diffusionist position. Discovery dates, minting periods, geographical distribution, and the absence of prehistoric context all suggest that the coins were lost very recently. For those who argue that coins found in fields and farmyards may have special significance, an examination of counterfeits reveals that frauds and their prototypes have similar distributions. The data indicate also that Roman coins are far from rare in the United States today and that they are lost frequently. A number of well-publiced claims are given careful scrutiny and in all cases found to be highly suspect if not downright fraudulent. It is concluded, therefore, that as of this writing no single report of a classical-period coin in America can be used as evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic contact.

Evidence for Pleistocene Man in Southern California

IT IS well known that the sea margin was a superior location for primitive man. In an area so situated that it has remained near the shore despite fluctuations of level, one might expect to find a relatively long and complete record of early man. At LaJolla, Calif, there is such a site. Vertical fluctuations of 300 feet would move the shore line only a small distance laterally-not more than three-quarters of a mile. At the base of the 300-foot scarp of the Linda Vista Mesa is an alluvial fan, now being actively destroyed by wave attack. Exposed in its truncated seaward face, 20 to 30 feet high, is evidence that man lived at La Jolla throughout most, if not all, of the period when the fan was being built.

Clark Wissler, 1870–1947

T 4 aHE death of Dr. Clark Wissler in New York City on August 25, 1947, was a loss not only to American anthropology but also to American geography. Wissler had long given special attention to two problems of importance to human geography. These were the nature of the relation of man and culture to physical environment, and the related question of the discovery and delimiting of cultural areas or, in geographical parlance, regions. Wisslers major works attracted considerable geographic attention. An article describing the importance to geographers of his concepts and definitions of regions, together with full-page reproductions of his maps of Food Areas of the New World and Culture Areas of the American Indian, was printed in The Geographical Review, Volume 10, 1920. Herein the importance of Wisslers work for human geography was so well stated that it is quoted below in excerpts.

On Mundkur on Diffusion

exerts over his people and thus his ability to extract a surplus of social production (such as wives) will vary with the possibility of nomadism, the relative advantage of controlling women, population stress, and environmental resource depletion. 15. Thus the combined forces of population pressure and political centralisation conspire to cause a gross shift in the system of production towards increased output but with increased intensity of labour-in other words, to start a Neolithic Revolution. Therefore, one possible answer to the question why hunters and gatherers stopped limiting their families and began to plant seeds now to harvest later lies in a situation developing along lines similar to those postulated above: They began to have more children in order to make their lineage more powerful than rivals in the changing situation which had made women more valuable; they planted in order to feed their increased numbers and to meet their social obligations to their chiefs. The history of the Neolithic Revolution is long and complex, and the transition to agriculture took place independently in different places. There is no reason to suppose that this or any other single model is applicable to all of these areas. Further, it may well be useful to consider elements in the Neolithic Revolution such as the domestication of animals and the development of pottery as analytically separate from the domestication of plants. The above model appears to fit the Meso-American evidence better than that for the Near East in that the domestication of animals preceded cultivation in the latter area (see Bender 1977: chaps. 6 and 7). If, however, the domestication of plants and of animals can be looked at as alternative responses to declining productivity in hunting, their simultaneous development in the Near East becomes explicable. The model developed here merely requires a shift in the relative productivity of men as opposed to women, not necessarily a decline in the absolute level of hunting efficiency, to trigger the move towards agriculture. A variety of other factors could be built into the model of developing political centralisation, among them the control of strategic sites with access to a variety of natural resources.7 The

The Origin of Races

This paper examines the controversy surrounding anthropologist Carleton S. Coon’s 1962 book, The Origin of Races. Coon maintained that the human sspecies was divided into five races before it had evolved into Homo sapiens and that the races evolved into sapiens at different times. Coon’s thesis was used by segregationists in the United States as proof that African Americans were “junior” to white Americans and hence unfit for full participation in American society. The paper examines the interactions among Coon, segregationist Carleton Putnam, geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, and anthropologist Sherwood Washburn. The paper concludes that Coon actively aided the segregationist cause in violation of his own standards for scientific objectivity.

Historic Implications of Chromosome Distributions of North American Indian Maize

R A. E. LONGLEY1 has used the United States Department of Agricultures unique collection of American Indian maize for genetic study. Although his purpose was to find genetic material of possible use to plant breeders, his results are of interest to anthropologists, for they are suggestive of times and routes of diffusion of maize agriculture within the United States. However, some of Longleys tribal designations are confusing or in error. The growing interest in the origin of maize varieties both for horticultural and anthropological reasons makes desirable the clarification of these tribal data.2 Discussion of some of Longleys terms and the probable sources of confusion together with a re-grouping of the tribes in terms of their chromosome types is therefore presented here. Longley utilized data from 400 or more plants from thirty-three tribal groups. He was aided in differentiating strains by the occurrence of knobs on the chromosomes of the maize plants. His data allowed him to make a basic division between the maize of the Southwest and that of the rest of the United States for which he had data. Most of his data outside the Southwest came from tribes of the Great Plains. In the Great Plains he found he could differentiate successfully between that of the Northern and the Southern tribes because of the near absence of knobs in the northern maize as opposed to the low frequency of knobs in the southern maize. Longley pointed out that the Cherokee was the only good representative of Southeastern maize included in his material. He rather assumed, however, that the difference between the northern and southern Plains was valid for the East