North American Cooking Pots

Abstract

It seems to be a general rule that sciences begin their development with the study of the unusual. They have to develop considerable sophistication before they interest themselves in the commonplace. American archaeology has been no exception. It began with digging in mounds and the collecting of choice objects and has now progressed to the excavation of camp sites and the delimitation of culture complexes as wholes. Nevertheless, there is still a tendency to underrate the importance of simple utilitarian artifacts of types which are widely distributed in space and time. This may be justifiable as long as the archaeologist's interest is centered on foci and aspects, but such types become of extreme importance as soon as one attempts to broaden the frame of reference. Thus the fact that certain stone artifact types seem to be present throughout most of the area east of the Rockies, from Folsom on, becomes highly significant when we contrast this area with others in the New and Old Worlds.

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