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American Anthropologist

[60, 19581

Arizona State Museum rather than to the Department of Anthropology of the University of Arizona (p. 131). As we have come to expect in Martins reports, the data are ably and systematically presented. Mechanically the report is clean, therefore easy to work with, and the illustrations are excellent. Taken with the other monographs previously issued by the Chicago Natural History Museum on its work in western New Mexico, this one and those still projected add up to the kind of archeological coverage of an area that goes a long way toward satisfying ones curiosity about local prehistory and makes easy the task of comparative studies.

Excavations at Chuplcuaro, Guanajualo, Mexico. MURIELNO$ PORTER. (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 46, Part 5.) Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1956. pp. 515-637, 27 plates, 19 tables, 10 plans, 2 figures, 3 maps, appendix. $1.75. Reviewed by RENS MILLON,University of California, Berkeley
Private collections of thousands of vessels from the Chupfcuaro area of north-central Mexico, accumulated during the 1930s and 1940s, have demonstrated that an extraordinarily rich ceramic complex existed in that region in ancient times. This complex, while possessing a distinctive character of its own, is clearly related to the late Formative ceramic complexes of the Valley of Mexico, but precisely how has never been determined. The present report summarizes the data from excavations conducted in the Chupicuaro area in 1946 and 1947. A total of 390 burials were uncovered. (Fifty skull burials were found, many apparently of individuals who had been decapitated.) The offerings with these burials were particularly rich; more than 1300 whole pottery vessels were found, as well as more than 1000 figurines and other artifacts. No structures or middens were found. The presence of sherds a t Cerro del Tepalcate indistinguishable from Chupicuaro types and the relative scarcity of filleted slant-eyed figurines (Vaillants type H-4) in the Valley of Mexico and their great abundance at Chupicuaro, taken in conjunction with the absencc of negative anti fresco painting in Chupicuaro, leads Porter to conclude that Chupicuaro styles influenced Valley of Mexico styles but not vice versa. This may be true, but it remains to be proved conclusively. H-4 figurines, for example, have recently been found iii great quantities a t Cuanalan, a late Formative site a t the southern end of the Valley of Teotihuacan. I n the absence of stratigraphic evidence, Porter has attempted to classify the Chupicuaro material into periods on stylistic grounds. On the basis of differences in figurine type and certain variations in painted wares, she distinguishes Early and Late phases of occupation. Where elements of both were found in a single grave, she classifies it as transitional. (The grave lots on which this classification is based are not included in the monograph.) While her evaluations may well prove to be valid, the evidence she presents for the Late phase (and therefore for the Transitional as well) is quantitatively and otherwise unconvincing. For example, fewer thin 40 of the 390 burials contain vessels and/or figurines stylistically classified as Late. The Early phase Porter dates as late Formative, equating it with Ticonizn 111, Cuicui!co, Cerro del Tepalcate, and Teotihuacan I. The Late phise is equated with Teotihuacan 11.