NEW WORLD PREHISTORY — ^WILLEY 559 



attention to the larger question of the origins of the New World food- 

 collecting patterns and peoples in general. There are three logical 

 possibilities: (i) food-collecting societies and cultures were deriva- 

 tive, arising from the earlier food gatherers; (ii) members of such 

 societies were the descendants of big-game hunters who were forced 

 by the changing climatic conditions that followed the end of the Wis- 

 consin glaciation to make readjustments; or (iii) they were more re- 

 cent arrivals from the Old World by way of the Bering Strait. It 

 seems quite likely that all three explanations may be useful, according 

 to the particular geographical areas involved, and I have already 

 mentioned the first two. The third explanation, that new arrivals 

 from Asia played a part, is very probably correct insofar as the de- 

 velopment of food-collecting cultures in northern North America is 

 concerned. I have in mind particularly the northeastern woodlands, 

 the northwest Pacific coast, and the subarctic and arctic. Elsewhere 

 Asiatic influences were almost certainly of less direct account. 



There are several major food-collecting patterns in the New World, 

 and we can only skim over these very briefly. I have referred to 

 what has been called a Desert pattern [21]. The long depositional 

 histories at Danger Cave, Utah [9], Leonard Rock Shelter, Nevada 

 [7, pp. 120-192; 22], and Fort Eock Cave, western Oregon [7, p. 184; 

 23] are representative, and the basketry and crude milling stones 

 found at these sites testify to a seed-collecting and seed-grinding sub- 

 sistence. A similar story is recorded in the Cochise culture of south- 

 ern Arizona-New Mexico [24], and there are evidences of this Desert 

 pattern in Mexico as well [25]. 



In the woodlands of eastern North America there is another col- 

 lecting pattern that sliows an adaptation to forest and riverine con- 

 ditions in hunting, utilization of wild plants, fishing, and catching 

 shellfish. Such sites as the Graham Cave, in Missouri [26], suggest 

 that there was a transition in the eastern woodlands area, at about 

 7000 B.C., from big-game hunting to food collecting. In the ensuing 

 millennia these Eastern Woodland collecting cultures, subsimied 

 under the name Archaic in much of the literature [27], underwent 

 progressive adaptations to regional conditions. By 3000 B.C. they 

 were characterized not only by rough grinding stones and specialized 

 projectile points but by numerous items of polished stone, such as 

 vessels, celts, weights for throwing sticks, and various ornamental 

 or ceremonial objects. The Indian Knoll, Kentucky [2, p. 116; 28], 

 and Lamoka, New York [2, pp. 116-117; 29], phases are typical of 

 their particular regions. Many of the Archaic sites are huge heaps of 

 shells situated along rivers or on the Atlantic coast. Such locations 

 were undoubtedly suitable for a semisedentary, or even sedentary, 

 existence. 



