556 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1960 



the north of Nuclear America is western North America, divided 

 into the Southwest culture area and the adjacent Great Basin area. 

 Under "Southern South America" are columns headed "South An- 

 des" and "Pampas-Patagonia." Figure 2 is a cross section for an 

 area extending from the Intermediate area of Nuclear America east- 

 ward across Venezuela, then southeastward to the Amazon drainage 

 basin and eastern Brazil, and finally south to the Pampas-Patagonia 

 region. In figure 3 the "Middle America" column is repeated under 

 "Nuclear America," and the cross section is extended to include the 

 North American eastern woodlands and plains areas. The charts 

 are highly schematic, and only a small number of archeological cul- 

 tures, or phase names, have been entered in the columns for various 

 areas. (These names appear in small letters.) 



The point should be made that the diagonal and curving lines which 

 mark off the major subsistence and settlement types on the charts 

 are not impermeable ones [1, fig. 6]. Influences and traits crossed 

 these lines, frequently moving outward from areas of cultural com- 

 plexity and intensity into areas of simpler cultures. Such traits were 

 often assimilated by the receiving groups without effecting basic 

 changes in subsistence or settlement. In some instances suspected 

 diffusions of this kind are indicated on the charts by means of arrows. 



PLEISTOCENE FOOD GATHERING (?) 



There are scattered finds in the Americas which suggest by their 

 typology and chronological position that they may be the remains 

 of early food-gathering societies [2, pp. 82-86; 6]. These artifacts 

 include rough, percussion-chipped flint choppers, scrapers, and pos- 

 sibly knives or points, and occasional worked bone splinters. In some 

 places, such as Tule Springs, Nev., or Friesenhahn Cave, Tex., these 

 crude weapons and tools have been found associated with the bones 

 of extinct Pleistocene mammals, so it is likely that some hunting, even 

 of large game, was practiced [7, pp. 197, 218]. In general, however, 

 the technological aspects of the implements show a lack of specializa- 

 tion toward himting or toward any other particular means of obtain- 

 ing food. In this the artifacts, and the inferences made from them, 

 are analogous to those for the food-gathering cultures of the Old 

 World lower and middle Paleolithic [8]. 



In age and geological placement, such putative early food gatherers 

 in the Americas are not, however, comparable to those of Asia or any 

 part of the Old World. At Tule Springs, a radiocarbon date (22,000 

 B.C.) indicates a context in the early substages of the Wisconsin 

 glaciation, but in other localities, such as the lowest levels of Danger 

 Cave, Utah [7, pp. 193-195; 9], or Fishbone Cave, Nev. [7, pp. 192- 

 193; 10], the assemblage can be no older than the final Wisconsin 



