344 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1951 



immediately to the east. In that connection it may be pointed out 

 that the fire pit with a date of 4,283 ±250 years at Folsom was roughly 

 contemporaneous with the second stage of the Cochise in Arizona and 

 the Early Horizon culture in California. In the same category is a 

 fire pit in the secondary channel fill at the Lindenmeier site with its 

 5,020 ±300. Furthermore, the date falls in the same general horizon 

 as some of the Archaic remains in the eastern part of the United 

 States, as that of the site of the much-debated Tepexpan Man in 

 Mexico with its 4,118 ±300, and of the Huaca Prieta Mound No. 3 in 

 Peru with 4,044 ±300. 



Bat Cave in Catron County, N. Mex., with dates from 5,931 ±310 

 to 1,762 ±250, falls into this same general period. In some ways the 

 archeological material from it may not be as important as that found 

 at other sites, but there is an excellent sequence of artifact types char- 

 acteristic of different geographical areas and several projectile points 

 similar to the second stage of the Cochise were found there. The main 

 significance of Bat Cave is in the light that it throws on the botani/al 

 problem of the development of maize or Indian corn. From the six 

 feet of accumulated refuse in the cave a series of shelled cobs, loose 

 kernels, and various fragments of husks, leaf sheaths, and tassels was 

 recovered. The specimens from the bottom level to the top show a 

 distinct evolutionary sequence. The corn from the bottom level is a 

 primitive variety which was both a popcorn and a form of pod corn, 

 while that at the top is an essentially modern form. The evolutionary 

 period required for such changes thus appears to be far shorter than 

 previously supposed. The sequence also indicates that there were im- 

 portant factors bearing on the evolutionary process; namely, that 

 there was a marked reduction in the pressure of natural selection, 

 that there were mutations from the more to the less extreme forms of 

 pod corn, that contamination by teosinte modified the corn, and that 

 crossing produced a high degree of hybridity (Mangelsdorf, 1950). 



In the eastern United States the Archaic at Frontenac Island, N. Y., 

 gave a date of 4,930 ±260. A site at Lamoka Lake, N. Y., produced 

 charcoal which tested 5,383 ±250, while shell mounds in Kentucky 

 yielded dates from 4,900 ±250 to 5,149 ±300. Geological determina- 

 tions have not played a particularly important part in the studies of 

 those sites, although such investigations as were made there would in- 

 dicate that there was some expectation of reasonable antiquity. Prob- 

 ably somewhat younger but still falling within that period is the 

 fishweir at Boston where peat from the Boylston Street site gave a 

 carbon-14 date of 5,7l7±500 for the lower peat underlying the weir. 

 A second date was obtained from a fragment of coniferous wood which 

 was taken from marine silt overlying the lower peat and the weir. It 

 was 3,851 ±390. The weir itself presumably should be younger than 

 the oldest date but older than the later one. On the basis of climatolog- 



