Archaeological models of increasing sociopolitical complexity have over-privileged processes of centralization in comparison to decentralization. In western Burkina Faso, ethnologists have long been intrigued by several “village societies,” with complex communities characterized by heterogeneous populations (in kin and ethnicity), endogamous socioeconomic specialist groups, diverse ritual systems, and strong village autonomy. Rather than structured by a hierarchical sociopolitical organization, these multifaceted communities are defined by village communalism and an intricate horizontal organization. This paper presents the developmental trajectory of a community ancestral to a modern “village society,” through an exploration of the dynamic political strategies of multifamily houses at the Iron Age archaeological site of Kirikongo, located in Burkina Faso (ca. A.D. 100–1700). Extensions of power by Kirikongo’s founding house in the 1st millennium A.D. led gradually to increasing inequalities and a subversion of common descent. However, in the early 2nd millennium A.D. these developments were rejected through an egalitarian revolution that transformed the identity of the house, leading to an increased importance of the village community and civic institutions. In addition to exclusionary power strategies, I stress the transformative role of egalitarian behaviors in shaping the nature of power and leadership, particularly when derived from collective action by the community.

Using lithic and faunal data from 33 Cody complex (10,000–8600 14C years B.P.) components from the northern Great Plains, this study explores how Paleoindian land use and foraging strategies varied in relation to resource structure at the regional scale. The analysis of regional-scale faunal and lithic data was undertaken to demonstrate how disparate but related datasets must be considered together to develop a more complete understanding of hunter-gatherer lifeways. Empirical observations from the Cody archaeological record were compared to an optimal foraging theory and temporal resource predictability theory-inspired land-use model. The model predicts, and the data support, a pattern whereby Cody groups in the resource-rich foothill-mountain zone employed a regionally restricted land-use strategy for a protracted portion of the year, made spatially limited movements during which they relied on local toolstone, and expanded diet breadth by hunting a mixture of dispersed bison herds and small-bodied animals. In the comparatively resource-poor plains grasslands and adjacent alluvial valleys, the model predicts and the data indicate that Cody groups employed a nonregionally restricted land-use strategy in which they rapidly moved through regions, relied on nonlocal toolstone sources, made many residential moves over vast areas, and relied on a narrow range ofbiotic resources (primarily bison).

Early Holocene cultural material at Gerstle River, central Alaska, provides excellent contextual controls for examining variability in radiocarbon dating. Over 4,000 bone and teeth fragments are directly associated with over 7,000 lithic artifacts and 10 discrete charcoal-rich hearths in a thin occupation layer (∼10 cm vertical thickness) within well-stratified loess deposits. Radiocarbon dating of the hearth features indicates overlapping ages at 2σ, suggesting contemporaneity. This study uses the high level of resolution at Gerstle River to evaluate systematic radiocarbon variation due to different materials (collagen and charcoal), different pretreatments of collagen (regular and ultrafiltered), and interlaboratory variation through paired bone and hearth charcoal dates, split samples, and cross-checks. Accurately dating bone collagen is important given the closer association of dated samples with human activities (e.g., butchering) compared with charcoal fragments in certain contexts (e.g., driftwood, paleosols, or alluvial deposits). This study demonstrates the efficacy of bone collagen dating with ultrafiltration to counter potential site-specific contamination. These results also indicate that even in high-resolution situations with little evidence for old-wood effect and contamination, considerable variability can exist among cross-check and even split samples from single pieces of charcoal from short-lived species.

Studies of relationships between archeology and biology in the south-central North America can enhance interpretations of social interactions between foraging and farming groups. The present report analyzes the adult dentition of hunter-gatherer populations from what is now Texas and compares them with adjacent samples of agriculturalists. These agriculturallist samples represent the Southwestern (Mimbres-Mogollon) and Southeastern (Caddo) cultural spheres. Nonmetric dental traits provide a useful means for evaluating the biological similarities between different populations. Mahalanobis distance analysis of these traits, drawn from 902 individuals, reveal relatively little morphological similarity between hunter-gatherer and farming groups. Except for a sample of Archaic foragers from the gulf coastal plain, hunter-gatherer samples are more similar to each other than to adjacent agriculturalists. Results suggest that Archaic populations were morphologically diverse, while there was relatively little gene flow between hunter-gatherer and farming populations during the Late Prehistoric period. The overall dissimilarity between hunter-gatherer, Mimbres, and Caddo samples suggests that each may have arisen from a relatively distant common ancestry.

Late Pleistocene large mammal extinctions in North America have been attributed to a number of factors or combination of factors, primarily climate change and human hunting, but the relative roles of these factors remain much debated. Clo-vis-period hunters exploited species such as mammoth, but many now extinct species such as camels were seemingly not hunted. Archaeological evidence from the Wally’s Beach site in southern Canada, including stone tools and butchered bone, provide the first evidence that Clovis people hunted North American camels. Archaeologists generally dismiss human hunting as a significant contributor to Pleistocene extinctions in North America, but Wally’s Beach demonstrates that human hunting was more inclusive than assumed and we must continue to consider hunting as a factor in Pleistocene extinctions.

Recent literature on Paleoarchaic and Early Archaic strategies in the arid west of North America has characterized the shift from the earlier to later period as constituting an adaptive discontinuity. The empirical bases for this conclusion are shifts in mobility, subsistence, and technology. Paleoarchaic peoples are described as highly mobile, focused on a diversity of animal resources, including birds and small game, and using more exotic toolstone, an aspect of mobility. In contrast, Early Archaic strategies are less mobile, yet more focused on large game, using more local toolstone, and adopting grinding tools presumably to process small seeds. Accompanying this transition is the shift from stemmed to notched projectile points. Data bearing on this transition on the Colorado Plateau have been scarce. Excavations of finely stratified deposits at North Creek Shelter on the Colorado Plateau in southern Utah have yielded support for the adaptive discontinuity position, although qualitative differences between the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau are apparent in mobility and faunal use.

Grimstead (2010) develops a transport model that appears to demonstrate that distant patch hunting is energetically efficient at distances of well over 350 km. However, a close examination of her assumptions raises questions concerning the validity of her approach. Here, we examine the effects of using more ecologically justifiable parameters and consider the cost of time spent away from camp on her model’s outcomes. We find that under revised constraints the model yields much shorter maximum transport distances and argue, therefore, that distant patch hunting may be calorically economical in some cases, but not in others.

Signaling theory has much to offer anthropology and archaeology, which is in part why there is an increasing number of applications and healthy debates surrounding how best to apply it. One of those debates surrounds whether big game hunting is a costly signal or simply an aspect of efficient foraging. Grimstead (2010) contributed to this debate by showing that long-distance big-game hunting (greater than 100 km roundtrip) produces higher caloric return rates than does local small-game hunting, despite increased costs of travel and transport for the former. Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue) present a model that also suggests long-distance big-game hunting produces higher economic returns than local foraging but only up to about 50 km. This paper provides further details on the tenets of the Grimstead (2010) paper in response to criticisms by Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue), and then uses a previously published central place foraging model (Cannon 2003) to show that another model also shows long-distance big-game hunting over a distance greater than 100 kilometers roundtrip produces higher returns than local foraging.

In their recent paper “In Pursuit of Mobile Prey,” Bird, Bliege-Bird, and Codding (2009) identify a negative relationship between body size and post-encounter returns among Martu prey in western Australia, attributing the phenomena to the greater mobility of large animals and associated risk of hunting failure. While this phenomenon has implications for archaeological applications of foraging models that assume body size and on-encounter returns are positively correlated, the Martu data may be less exceptional than they appear. Here we outline the reasons for our skepticism, point out areas in which we are in agreement, and build upon their findings by exploring the trade-offs between foraging to maximize efficiency and immediate returns and foraging for purposes other than immediate provisioning.

We recently demonstrated that prey size is not a reliable predictor of post-encounter return rates for resources Martu hunters regularly handle in Australia’s Western Desert (Bird et al. 2009). Ugan and Simms are skeptical of our calculations of these returns, especially in our inclusion of tracking as pursuit time. Here we review how these variables were recorded and calculated, update the analysis with more data, and clarify the importance of prey mobility and pursuit failures for understanding the contexts of hunting decisions and their archaeological implications.