New World Prehistory

Abstract

A PAMPHLET entitled "Cross Sections of New World Prehistory: a Brief Report on the Work of the Institute of Andean Research, 1941–42", by Wm. Duncan Strong, professor of anthropology at Columbia University, has been issued (Smithsonian Misc. Collections, 104, No. 2). The fields covered by the various investigators include eastern and western Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela and the West Indies, Colombia, Ecuador, various districts in Peru and the northern coast of Chile. Naturally the information from such a wide area of the Americas that can be given in some 42 pages accompanied by 33 plates is not very extensive; but a general survey like this is of value, and the large relative chronological chart from A.D. 100 to A.D. 1500 will doubtless prove useful to students more interested in the general prehistory of Central and South America than in its details. There is also a map showing the general location of the excavations undertaken by the Institute.