GUATEMALA—KIDDER Som 
America, but although they are more generalized than those of the 
Classic Period they nevertheless exhibit distinct local differences that 
seem to have evolved so-to-speak in situ. Furthermore, they are 
unlike any culture at present known from south of Panama. This 
problem of the early agricultural-pottery-making peoples is one of the 
most baffling which confronts the student of Mesoamerican prehistory. 
Guatemala should be a particularly favorable area for research on this 
important question because elements of the so-called ‘Q-complex”’ 
which, as Lothrop and Vaillant have pointed out, appear to underlie, 
or at least to have played some part in the evolution of the more 
southerly Archaic manifestations, are to be seen in both Miraflores 
and Saleaja materials. Search should accordingly be made for any 
culture of simpler type than Miraflores and Salcaja. If the Lothrop- 
Vaillant hypothesis is correct such a culture should contain an even 
higher percentage of ‘‘Q”’ traits. 
It is, of course, to be hoped that the postulated early remains may be 
found in stratigraphic position below those of a recognized Archaic 
culture. That would definitely settle the matter of relative age. 
But enough work has been done at Kaminaljuyu to make it reasonably 
certain that at that site nothing older lies below Miraflores and two 
other closely related but slightly earlier Archaic phases known as Las 
Charcas and Sacatepequez; and, although the Salcaja deposits have 
been less carefully studied, there are no indications that they overlie 
anything more ancient. Both Kaminaljuyu and Salcaja, however, are 
in areas heavily blanketed by volcanic ash, the upper layers of which 
may be of sufficiently recent date to have rendered those localities 
unsuitable for agriculture during pre-Archaic times. It would there- 
fore be well to investigate country upon which little or no ash has 
fallen. The northwestern slopes of the Cuchumatanes fulfill this 
requirement and they should certainly be explored, not only because 
of absence of ash but also because that region sustains an exceptionally 
luxuriant growth of teocinte, a plant which, whether one regards it 
as an ancestor or a bastard offspring of maize, is in some way con- 
nected with maize. Maize having been without question one of the 
very important food crops of Archaic times, and therefore presumably 
of pre-Archaic times, any area in which it might have been brought 
under domestication becomes important in our search for the origins 
of New World civilization. 
With the opening of the Archaic Period we at last find ourselves on 
more solid ground, in that materials are abundant and their assign- 
ment to a pre-Classic era can be made not only on typological grounds, 
but on the incontrovertible evidence of stratigraphy. In Guatemala, 
as has been said, the Archaic is represented by Las Charcas, Sacate- 
pequez, Miraflores, and Salcaja. Further work can be counted 
upon to reveal other Archaic cultures in the highlands and on the 
