The type-variety system of ceramic classification has been criticized on a number of theoretical points concerning typology in general; yet it remains very popular among archaeologists. This paper adds a methodological criticism to the debate: ceramic data presented according to the highest standards of type-variety analysis simply cannot be used for independent reanalysis. An attempt to reanalyze some data presented according to the type-variety system [Formative period ceramics from the site of Barton Ramie, Belize] is described, and shortcomings of type-variety data presentation are pointed out. These findings are in direct opposition to claims made by type-variety practitioners as to the adequacy of their format of ceramic description and illustration.

The analysis of 975 burials indicates that the inhumations of the Point of Pines region conformed to the flexed Mogollon pattern prior to A.D. 1000. Subsequently, extended burials appeared concurrently with a complex of traits diffused from areas to the north. At the same time, cremation became established as a part of the mortuary complex as a result of contact with Hohokam peoples to the south. Additional evidence of this contact consists of Hohokam material culture items and a ball court. Ceremonial killing of the crematory vessels was extensively practiced and included a new method, notch-killing. The variability of forms and methods of disposal suggests rapidly changing patterns and alternatives in burial practices.

At five Little River focus village sites in Rice and McPherson counties, Kansas, so-called council circles are probably the most notable features present. Each consists of a low central mound surrounded by a ditch or a series of depressions (borrow pits) or both. No village site has more than a single circle. At the only one yet excavated (Tobias site), elongate house pits arranged around a patio within the ditched zone formed a structural complex which is apparently unique in Plains archaeology. The houses were built of poles and grass, earth-covered wholly or in part, and had evidently been destroyed by fire. The covering fill contained numerous large boulders and scattered human bones, some fire-blackened. From their plan and contents, it is suggested that these house complexes were special-purpose structures; from their demonstrated orientation, it is further suggested that one of their functions may have been to record solstitial sunrise (and sunset?) points on the horizon.

The course of Maya archaeology has been characterized for the most part by an intensive interest in large ceremonial centers, and justifiably so in view of their clearly rich and rewarding content. Yet the nature of these excavations has necessarily restricted knowledge of preconquest developments in this region to a highly hierarchic level, as witnessed by work in such sites as Kaminaljuyu, Copan, Uaxactun, and Piedras Negras. Remarkably little is known of conditions on a less spectacular level, but a recent trend in this direction is evident in the house-mound and population studies by Carnegie at Mayapan and by Gordon Willey in British Honduras. And we hope that Nohoch Ek, about as insignificant as Maya sites of this type come, may help to illustrate the evolution and workings of an obviously minor ceremonial center.

Prehistoric agricultural landforms at Chilca, Peru have been traditionally identified as sunken fields, excavated basins designed to provide planting surfaces close to the natural water table. Analysis of the morphology, physical context, and recent use of the features indicates that this view is incorrect, and that the bulk of the features are flood control embankments. Parallels with similar systems elsewhere in the Americas are described, and the implications for reconstructing prehistoric agricultural processes are explored.

The transition from mobile foragers to sedentary farmers was not made to the same degree all over the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The deserts of the Jornada Mogollon region illustrate the persistence of some aspects of mobile adaptations through the first millennium A.D., as both Jornada Archaic peoples and their ceramic-using successors made use of a seasonal mobility pattern to cope with the region's arid conditions. Use of winter base camps and mobility during the rest of the year are apparent in both cases, but important differences can also be detected. This study combines old and new data to show how the two adaptations differed in the extent to which winter camps were used, in type and intensity of winter provisioning strategies, and in patterns of community organization. All these changes are argued to be logical precursors to the short-lived agricultural adaptation that appeared in the area after A.D. 1100. Moreover, such adaptations may characterize a large portion of the desert Southwest and northern Mexico.

Data derived from site survey and excavation in central New Mexico indicate that there is a lack of congruence, or agreement, between material recovered through excavation and expectations derived from environmental, ethnographic and site location information. It is argued that the lack of congruence should not be dismissed but may provide useful insights into past subsistence technology.

The Melhado site is near the town of El Cayo, in the Cayo District of west central British Honduras. This region forms a part of the eastern edge of the Peten forests. Its limestone hills and ridges are covered by a dense jungle growth, including such typical trees as the mahogany, sapodilla, Spanish cedar, and cahune palm. Rainfall is heavy, amounting to 50 to 70 inches a year at El Cayo, most of it falling in the rainy season from June to October.

Jamaica, the third largest island in the West Indies, has probably received less archaeological attention than any other island in the Greater Antilles. There are several reasons for this neglect. Jamaican archaeological remains are not very spectacular and offer few features to excite the interest or curiosity of the casual observer. The Jamaican Arawak were exterminated so early and so effectively by the Spaniards that they were able to contribute virtually nothing ethnically or culturally to the history of the island in the historic period.

Evidence indicates that several temporally distinct periods of prehistoric occupation of the now dry Santa Elena Peninsula of Ecuador coincided with periods of mangrove formation on the Peninsula. This article challenges the premise behind the hypothesis that such hydrophytic vegetation indicates greater rainfall during these periods. An alternative hypothesis is suggested, based upon the argument that known coastal uplift and probable accompanying physiographic changes first created, and later destroyed, the edaphic requirements for such a formation. The need to invoke a hypothesis of climatic shifts is thus dispensed with.

It is suggested that the idea of a sedentary pattern of existence diffused into southern Arizona from lower western Mexico or Guatemala by way of the region west of the Sierra Madre. It is also suggested that this transmission occurred shortly after the introduction of a teosinte-infected chapalote corn into the Southwest, a type that was better suited to low, arid regions than the chapalote corn that preceded it. The spread of this sedentary complex from southern Arizona into other areas also is outlined.

The people of the Thule culture, who entered the Canadian Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago and eventually became the Inuit who today inhabit that region, spent the long winters living in impressive semisubterranean houses constructed of boulders, skins, pieces of cut turf, and the bones of bowhead whales. Most sites contain fewer than 10 houses, but some contain many more, leading to disagreement among archaeologists concerning Thule settlement patterns. This paper reviews the criteria archaeologists have used to identify contemporaneous houses at large Thule sites and identifies a new criterion tested at a site in the High Arctic. The 14 houses at the Porden Point site appear to have accumulated gradually through the abandonment of some houses and the construction of others. Therefore, the impressive appearance today of many Thule sites may not reflect their actual social/demographic nature.

The best method for quantifying the marine reservoir effect (MRE) using the global IntCal Marine13 calibration curve remains unresolved. Archaeologists frequently quantify uncertainty on MRE values as errors computed from single pairs of marine-terrestrial radiocarbon ages, which we argue significantly overstates their accuracy and precision. Here, we review the assumptions, methods, and applications of estimating MRE via an estimate of the additional regional offset between the marine and terrestrial calibration curves (ΔR) for the Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH) region of British Columbia, Canada. We acknowledge the influence on ΔR of MRE variation as (1) a dynamic oceanographic process, (2) its variable expression in biochemical and geochemical pathways, and (3) compounding errors in sample selection, measurement, and calculation. We examine a large set of marine-terrestrial pairs (n = 63) from PRH to compare a common archaeological practice of estimating uncertainty from means that generate an uncertainty value of ±49 years with a revised, more appropriate estimate of error of ± 230 years. However, we argue that the use of multiple-pair samples estimates the PRH ΔR as 273 ± 38 years for the last 5,000 years. Calculations of error that do not consider these issues may generate inaccurate age estimates with unjustifiable precision.

A five day conference on Apachean ceramics was held at the University of Colorado, Boulder from July 29 through August 2, 1985. The format of this conference consisted of a workshop with a series of open discussions rather than formal papers. Results of this conference included a reorganization of Brugge's (1982) Apachean ceramic taxonomy. The participants concluded that more than one source was responsible for the development of Southern Athapaskan ceramics. Furthermore, the development of this technology occurred, in most cases, as a complex in conjunction with a horticultural and/or pastoralist system.

How archaeologists conceive variation in the archaeological record influences the kinds of explanations they produce. By treating all variation as potentially informative, evolutionary explanations stand in sharp contrast with transformational models which regard variation as noise. I show that variation in the timing of steatite vessel manufacture is not only less problematic than Sassaman proposes, but crucial to understanding how and why this technological change occurred. Evolutionary models have the additional benefit of requiring explanations to be in the form of tested hypotheses, something not inherently required by transformational models. My conclusion-that the most common function of steatite vessels was to process red oak acorn-has thus far stood up to a range of empirical testing, making it a stronger explanation than untested interpretations.

Flakes having superimposed positive and negative bulbs of percussion may be produced in two ways: by being struck from a core from which a primary flake has previously been struck, or by being produced simultaneously with the primary flake. Conditions are defined under which those produced in the latter fashion can occur by natural agency, and thus need not be diagnostic of human industry.

Analysis of Middle Woodland paleoethnobotanical assemblages from south-central Tennessee yielded evidence of variation and change in human and plant niche expression. A coevolutionary framework for understanding the mutually effective relations between human behavior and plant ecology and genetics is applied in an effort to explain why the Middle Woodland paleoethnobotanical record is expressed as it is. Focus upon a limited suite of taxa associated with secondary succession, cultivation, and domestication make clear the need to understand the ecology and morphology of taxa being considered, as well as the occupational history of the sites in question.

Rapid shoreline regression and transgression along the western Gulf of Maine between 13,000 and 9000 years B.P. are inferred to have produced a nearshore marine environment low in biologic productivity. Paleo-Indians living near the coast of the Gulf were probably forced to rely on nonmarine resources landward of the late-glacial marine limit. Thus, Paleo-Indian sites of the time period in question may be restricted in the region between the marine limit and the postglacial low sea-level stand, or may be altogether absent.

Here we report on the first cultivated chile (Capsicum annuum) from the prehispanic United States Southwest and far northwest Mexico. A carbonized seed was recovered from a site near Casas Grandes, northwestern Chihuahua dating to the Medio period, A.D. 1200–1450. We then discuss the role of chile among prehispanic indigenous communities in the region and its transformation to a seemingly high profile foodstuff after Spanish contact. We suggest that the context of prehispanic crop introductions was far different from postcontact introductions and that this is central for understanding the changing use of chile in the region.