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The first series of radiocarbon dating measurements made at the British Museum Research Laboratory are reported in the following list. The report covers a period during which two instances of radioactive contamination occurred to interrupt dating work, and is consequently a short one.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Geographical Review. ECAUSE of the aridity of the environment, the desert coast of Peru might seem to be an unusual setting for a ridged field system. Ridged fields in lowlands are generally associated with areas of poor drainage or seasonal inundation. Many valleys along the Peruvian coast with irrigation contain agricultural features like canals as well as sunken gardens and flood-control embankments that are associated with a high water table or inundation. ' In almost every instance, these features are located near the coastline only a few meters above sea level. Serious drainage problems exist at the mouths of many of these valleys, and accumulation of salt from hundreds of years of irrigation has rendered substantial acreage useless for agriculture.2 Poorly drained areas exist at the mouths of other coastal rivers of Peru, but the Casma Valley is unique in having ridged fields rather than sunken gardens, which are the most common feature on the high water-table regions of the coast.The best-preserved remains of ridged fields in the Casma Valley are located approximately 2 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean almost 3 kilometers south of the Casma River (Fig. 1). The area has an east-west dimension of 2.9 kilometers and a north-south one of 0.8 kilometer. There are approximately 200 hectares of well-preserved fields. The fields are situated in a fossil bay that extends almost 4 kilometers inland to Hacienda San Diego. This bay measures 6.7 kilometers along its north-south axis. The fossil bay is bordered on the south by large granitic and basaltic hills that prevent easy access to the ocean. To the north, low granitic hills are interspersed with sandy plains. The field area is bounded on the east by more low granitic hills, sandy plains, the * The National Science Foundation and the O'Neil Research Fund of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History provided funds for research on the ridged fields. The Instituto Nacional de Cultura of Peru granted permission to investigate the Casma ridged fields. George Plafker observed the ridged fields on NASA infrared aerial photographs in 1971. Thomas Dillehay made the same observation in 1974 and later that year guided Thomas and Shelia Pozorski on an inspection of the fields.

Settlement pattern research was introduced to Peruvian archaeology by Gordon R. Willey 2 decades ago. A critical review of this pioneering work points up a basic problem in the structure of analysis. The problem is generated by the use of a simple site taxonomy that is insensitive to the range of human activities that went on at different settlements. Examination of the subsequent course of settlement pattern research shows that this fundamental problem has not been recognized or dealt with in a constructive manner. The small site methodology is introduced as one possible means of treating sites in terms of the different activity patterns they housed.