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The authors investigate the origins of the earliest script of the Cherokees, using inscriptions in the Red Bird River Shelter. Their analysis suggests that the engravings in the cave show the experimental creation of a syllabary (alphabet of signs). This in turn offers support for the historical notion that this writing system was not an ancestral practice preserved through missionaries, but an invention of the early nineteenth century; one that should be credited to the Native American pioneer scholar, Sequoyah.

The principal skarn deposits are west of Radersburg and at Diamond Hill; titaniferous magnetite has been mined west of Radersburg. Perhaps as much as half the ore mined from the several types of vein deposits has been oxidized or partly oxidized; only a few veins have been profitably mined below the zone of oxidation. Despite extensive mining and prospecting, the area is considered favorable for discovery of additional mi.peral deposits. For example, auriferous py.rite veins or ancient gold •placers might be concealed beneath the relatively thin Cenozoic deposits south of the Keating and Ohio Keating mines near Radersburg, and the untested outwash gravels along and near Cold Springs Gulch would seem to warrant testing for gold. l L 1SEDIMENTARY ROCKS

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Rock-art research offers to archaeology a problem-oriented approach. A case study is presented on the interpretation of rock-art from informed ethnographic and formal archaeological perspectives regarding the origins of the Midewiwin, or ‘Grand Medicine Society’. The evidence is twofold. First, some of the rock-paintings that are found over a wide range of the southern Canadian Shield appear to be representative of the Midewiwin. Second, the most probable age estimation of those rock-paintings indicates that the antiquity of Midewiwin is greater than generally presumed by the key anthropological reference literature of the region. Rather than a relatively recent ‘revitalization movement’, the origins of the Midewiwin began in remote antiquity. Broad theoretical and methodological issues of cognitive archaeology and the crisis of representation are addressed, particularly classification, colonialism and cultural linguistics.