Hunter-gatherer adaptations to long-term fluctuations in regional resource structure require mechanisms to cope with periodic subsistence stresses. Among documented groups, a common response to such stress is temporary movement into adjacent occupied areas-moving in with "relatives" when things go wrong. However, in the case of early (ca. 12,000-10,000 B.P.) Paleoindian groups in the Americas, the availability of neighboring groups with a detailed knowledge of local resource geography could not be relied upon. Post-Pleistocene environmental changes and the low initial population of the New World are important factors conditioning a lifeway characterized by a dependence on hunting (though not exclusively of megafauna), and by high residential, logistical, and range (territorial) mobility. Early Paleoindian groups had to adopt a subsistence technology that could be employed regardless of the specific resource microstructure. In some regards, Paleoindians seem to have behaved like tropical foragers while in others like arctic collectors. Use of high quality lithic raw materials from large quarry sources, reliance on a bifacial technology, limited use of caves and rockshelters, and a low level of processing of food products for storage all may be indicative of such a subsistence technology, which would have been unlike that of any modern hunter-gatherers.

Archaeologists interpreting the patterns of prehistory in the American Southwest have been influenced dramatically by the obtrusiveness of certain kinds of archaeological remains and by the remarkable record of continuity they suggest. Low-visibility archaeological remains and discontinuous developmental sequences have been accorded only minor significance in southwestern prehistory, in spite of the fact that occupational "discontinuities" are evident in the archaeological record of many regions. In this paper, two examples are presented to show how low-visibility archaeological remains support a discontinuous model of cultural development on the Colorado Plateaus.

Surveys and excavations conducted within the Savannah River watershed in recent years have yielded a wealth of information about organization and adaptive strategies of Early Archaic populations, both within the drainage and across the region. Specifically, excavations at Rucker's Bottom (9EB91) and the G. S. Lewis site (38AK228) have yielded large, complementary assemblages indicating watershed-extensive adaptation employing a mixed collector-forager strategy. Comparative analyses with assemblages from the surrounding region document an extensive use of expedient technologies, instead of the more formalized technologies thought to characterize the period. Analyses of local and regional resource structure, theoretical arguments about biocultural needs of hunter-gatherer populations, and evidence from the archaeological record, suggest that large drainage systems served subsistence/resource needs, while biocultural interaction (i.e., information and mating networks) operated both along and across watershed boundaries. A model of Early Archaic settlement is proposed, based on band/macroband mobility and interaction, that is thought to partially account for the variation from this period found on the South Atlantic Slope.

In the light of the recent excavations of the Templo Mayor in downtown Mexico City, we explore the problem of the role of astronomy, calendar, and the landscape in the design and orientation of the building and of the city in general. We employ ethnohistoric data relating to the foundation myth of Tenochtitlan as a means of generating hypotheses concerning astronomical orientation that can be tested by reference to the archaeological record. We find that eastward-looking observations (implied in dismantling and reconstructing the myth) that took place around the time of the equinox may have been related to an attempt to transform a true east orientation from the natural environment into the architecture via a line that passed through the center of the Temple of Huitzilopochtli (the more southerly temple of the pair constituting the top of the Templo Mayor). It also is possible that the notch between the twin temples served a calendrical/orientational function. Evidence is presented to support the view that the mountain cult of Tlaloc, represented in the environment on the periphery of the Valley of Mexico by Mount Tlaloc, also may have directly influenced the orientation of the building and that it was part of a scheme for marking out days of the calendar by reference to the position of the rising sun at intervals of 20 days from the spring equinox. In this regard, we discuss the connection between the Templo Mayor and an enclosure containing offertory chambers atop Mount Tlaloc, which is located on a line extended to the visible horizon 44 km east of the ceremonial center. The ethnohistoric record implies that this place had been used for sacrifices to the rain god after whom the other of the twin temples of the Templo Mayor was named.

Recent key federal and tribal legislation often has proved inadequate for dealing with human remains. Because of this the Navajo Nation, in cooperation with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has developed a policy establishing a working set of procedures for cultural resource managers and developers to follow in the identification, verification, and ultimate disposition of human remains on Navajo Tribal Trust land. These procedures attempt to address legal and human concerns of next of kin, local residents, the Navajo Tribe as a whole, and the federal government. The policy does not expressly advocate the scientific study of human remains prior to or instead of reburial, but this alternative is allowable under the policy, given the acquisition of appropriate consent. This paper discusses the procedures (formally adopted by Navajo Tribal Resolution) along with suggestions for their modification for use elsewhere and under other circumstances.

Previous studies have demonstrated that stable carbon- and nitrogen-isotope ratios of bone collagen can be used to distinguish marine and terrestrial components of prehistoric human diet. However, when this method was first applied to prehistoric Bahamians, their bone-collagen nitrogen-isotope ratios were found to be outside the ranges observed for other coastal populations that ate substantial quantities of marine foods. This study examines in detail the distributions of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in Bahamian food chains. Our results indicate that the unique isotopic signature in bone collagen of prehistoric Bahamians reflects the enrichment of 13C and the depletion of 15N in seagrass and coral-reef communities relative to other oceanic environments. The results also demonstrate that bone-collagen 13C/12C ratios can be used to distinguish marine from terrestrial contributions in the prehistoric Lucayan Taino diet, and that 15N/14N ratios serve to identify the use of certain marine food groups. This approach should prove useful for the study of consumption practices in other tropical coral-reef environments and as a method for evaluating theoretically predicted optimal diets.

The Codex Vergara and the Codice de Santa Maria Asuncion are the most comprehensive census-cadastral native pictorial manuscripts that have survived from Central Mexico. Research reported here establishes that the documents record the household composition and landholdings of 17 localities in an area presently corresponding to identifiable barrios in and around the village of Tepetlaoztoc, located northeast of Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. Drawn within a generation of the Conquest, probably A.D. 1539-1543, these codices present a virtually unique quantitative record for the period and provide a firm basis for interpretation of Late Horizon archaeological remains in the zone. Decipherment has revealed the first examples from Central Mexico of the use of positional notation in numerical expression, the use of the "zero" concept, and derivation and recording of field areas as well as perimeter measurements. The archaeological and ethnohistorical importance of the codices is enhanced greatly now that their spatial context is known.

Civic-ceremonial plaza planning is analyzed at Tenam Rosario, the capital center of a small Late/Terminal Classic period (A.D. 700-950) Maya polity, to shed light on political organization. When the capital's civic-ceremonial layout is compared with settlement patterns in its hinterland, the polity's hierarchical and territorial political arrangements appear to be reproduced in microcosm within the capital"s civic-ceremonial zone. Possible political microcosms of this kind at other mesoamerican capital sites are discussed, along with correlates of this variant of political organization.

Charlie Lake Cave (HbRf 39) is a stratified site in northeastern British Columbia, Canada, containing a fluted-point component at the base of the excavated deposits. The small artifact assemblage includes a fluted point, stone bead, core tool, and retouched flake. A diverse associated fauna includes fish, birds, and mammals, indicating a more open environment than exists today. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the artifact assemblage was deposited about 10,500 years ago.

The symbolic variant of the Maya glyph for north is claimed to be a phonetic construction xa-ma-n(a) generating the Yucatec term xaman, "north." The reading supports the notion that Maya directional symbolism was related to the horizon and disagrees with recent revisionist theory that such symbolism was related to the path of the sun across the sky and through the underworld.

The recently discovered Tomb 12 at Rio Azul contains some evidence in support of my "zenith" reading for one of the collocations Closs reads as xaman, "north." A positionally literal reading of the astronomical glyphs associated with the directional collocations on the walls of that tomb is consistent with a directional system based on zenith and nadir, but not one based on north and south. Furthermore, Closs's reading does not account for the demonstrable na reading for the prefix in that collocation. On the other hand, his evidence for reading the second collocation as xaman is compelling, and the polyvalency of T566 seems well established.

This paper acknowledges the validity of Closs's phonetic reading of north as xaman in the Classic Mayan inscriptions, while not accepting his separation of north from up and the zenith direction.

Coggins and Bricker have accepted my phonetic reading of one version of the north glyph as xaman, "north." Nevertheless, they maintain that the traditional north-south axis in Maya directional symbolism pertains more properly to a zenith-nadir axis. In my response I argue against that position and provide evidence that the cardinal directions played a fundamental role in mesoamerican cosmology. These directions are interpreted in a relatively loose sense as sectors on the horizon and not as cardinal points. In particular, the north direction is viewed as a sector on the horizon centered at a point which is approximately 14 degrees east of north. The evidence includes three independent proofs of the cardinal direction hypothesis. These proofs specifically implicate the four Maya directional glyphs as symbols of the four cardinal directions.