Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/300

 <

288 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

light on the hitherto mooted question of the ancestry of Southwestern pottery. It was claimed by Gushing and Holmes many years ago that corrugated or coiled pottery, so typical of the Southwest, was the direct descendant of coiled basketry; this view was generally accepted and has often been quoted in works on the development of technology. The fallacy of this idea was pointed out by Mr. Morris (Amer. Anthrop. N.S., vol. 19, pp. 24-29); and the reviewers, working independently, reached the same conclusion (Bull. 65, B.A.E. p. 141). Technologically, then, Southwestern pottery is probably not descended from basketry; but, on the other hand, we now seem to have evidence that on the artistic side the earliest pottery may owe something to basketry. It should be remembered, in this connection, that the "Basket-makers," the oldest Southwestern people of which we so far have knowledge, had apparently no pottery, but made excellent and well decorated baskets; furthermore, they, like the Long Hollow people (whose pottery designs seem to us to suggest basketry prototypes), did not practise skull deformation. Some connection between the two cultures may be suspected.

While the above is, of course, more or less speculative, it is susceptible of proof or refutation by continued field-work on the lines along which Mr. Morris has made so promising a beginning. The origin and develop- ment of the Pueblo culture form the one problem in North American archaeology which, because of abundant remains and favorable climate, we have reasonable hope of tracing out clearly in all its technological details. The present paper gives us a wealth of data on one of its most obscure phases. It is to be hoped that Mr. Morris, whose knowledge of the archaeology of the San Juan is unrivaled, may be enabled to continue his most fruitful researches.

A. V. KIDDER, S. J. GUERNSEY

SOME NEW PUBLICATIONS

Aranzadi, Telesforo de. El Tetraedro facial. (Facultad de Ciencias de la Universitad.de Barcelona: Publicaciones de la Seccion de Ciencias Naturales, 1918, pp. 57-62.)

. El Indice de Altura del Triangulo facial. (Boletin de la

Real Sociedad Espanola de Historia Natural, vol. xvm, 1918, pp. 67-73.) i fig.

. El Triangulo facial de los craneos vascos. (Memorias de la

Real Sociedad Espanol de Historia Natural, vol. x, pp. 359-404.) Mad- rid, 1917. 14 figs., I pi.

�� �