[Various (1971)] The continental validity of the concept has taken increasing hold on anthropology and if the key words used in the literature were ranked in the order of the number of times they appear, "Archaic" would certainly lead the list. Like all great ideas, it was immediately convincing, once it had been articulated. But in those days archaeology was hung up on Ales Hrdlicka and Herbert Spinden and when a modest marker was put up in the 30's by the State of New York at the Lamoka Lake Site with Dr. Ritchie's guess as to its age, his colleagues snickered and gave each other the nudge. Dr. Ritchie’s estimate was 1000 B.C. No reader of this publication has to be told that the Lamoka Lake Site is now firmly C-14 dated at 4,500 years ago or 2650 B.C. It is not too much to say that without the concept of the Archaic neither New York nor American prehistory could have achieved a synthesis and a system of chronological-anthr opological order. It would have been a dreary reiteration of site reports and compositions of trait lists. Had this editor been asked by Dr. Ritchie for his preference for a valedictory article from the Ritchie typewriter it would have been the statement on The Archaic that follows, which is in effect a description of the robust growth and flowering of a seminal idea he implanted forty years ago and lived to his prime to see it in its prime. L.A.B. 2 THE BULLETIN THE ARCHAIC IN NEW YORK 1 William A.