Lake Nipissing is situated 230 miles north of Lake Ontario and roughly 140 miles within the igneous rock territory. Some 30 by 8 miles in size, it is drained westerly by the French River into Lake Huron. Frank Bay, enclosing an area of one half square mile, is situated on the south shore at the entrance to the French River.

Historically the area was occupied by an Algonkian group called “Nipisinieries” or “Nipissings” by the 17th century Jesuits; Galinee's map of 1665 depicts a bay on the south shore of Lake Nipissing at the head of the French River: “In a bay at this place the Nipissings usually locate their village” (Coyne, 1903).

The site described here, probably the one figured by Galinee, is a level tract of about one half acre constructed by wave deposition of coarse sand upon a low area at the bottom of the bay.

Unraveling an archaeological problem has often been compared to the solution of a crime, differing from the latter in the coldness of the trail. The “whodunit” detective approaches omniscience; the archaeologist can only hope for a small degree of information about the material clues to his case. It might be more apt to compare the archaeologic process in the Northeast to an attempt to find out what went into the hash, for scraps of leftovers are all too frequently the only remains of many obliterated northeastern sites.

The focus of archaeological investigation is shifting from generalizations about societies for comparative theory-building to the internal dynamics of societies. The generalizations made in processual archaeology have been attacked for ignoring conflict and the modo de vida: the concrete rhythms of daily life. As a result, the increased attention to internal dynamics is beginning to paint complex pictures of social relationships. A structural marxist approach that was associated with functionalism is reappraised and argued to be suitable for understanding the complexities of individual's daily lives and power relations. Rather than viewing social formations as systems comprised of multiple modes of production that influence one another, individuals are argued to have crossed between modes. The sets of social relations comprise the totality of people's daily experiences. Furthermore, within each mode of production are different recognizable variations that produce dynamic sets of relations. An application to the U.S. Southwest illustrates this social formations approach to modo de vida and conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to report the occurrence of obsidian artifacts from Early Woodland contexts in southwestern Wisconsin. During 1995 excavations at the Tillmont site (47CR460), seven obsidian flakes were recovered from a deeply buried paleosol in association with a virtually “pure” component of the Indian Isle phase, a local variant of the Early Woodland Marion Culture (Stoltman 1990:242–244). Geochemical analyses of four of the flakes confirm that Obsidian Cliff, Wyoming, was the source, demonstrating that this distinctive material was in use among Woodland peoples of the Midwest several centuries before the commencement of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere.

Manually operated post-hole diggers have proven to be useful tools for sampling archaeological deposits in an area where surface collection of artifactual material is impossible. Post-hole diggers were used to locate areas of dense occupation debris around residential platforms in the periphery of Tikal, Guatemala. The post-holing of extensive areas as a technique for locating hidden construction was also tested, with positive results.

Building upon the work of several other people, Clemency Coggins has recently presented a tentative reconstruction of Tikal dynastic history, complete with a proposed genealogy of the rulers themselves. These are important data for any attempt to reconstruct the social and political organization of Tikal, and this paper explores their implications. The data are consistent with models of ancient Maya sociopolitical organization in which patrilineal descent, stratification, and strong central political authority were important. At Tikal, this seems to have been the case from the first century A.D. until Terminal Classic times. A currently popular view that, in Early Classic times, positions of prestige, power, and authority were open to anyone who had the necessary talent, wealth, and support is probably untenable, at least for Tikal.

The site of Casas Grandes (or Paquimé) in northwest Chihuahua, Mexico, originally was estimated to contain some 2,300 rooms, placing it at the top of known prehispanic pueblo sizes. Its rooms were seen as arranged in blocks of as many as five stories, forming a vast, U-shaped pueblo. This room count and configuration are cited often in the past and present literature. We contend that Casas Grandes originally was interpreted in the most liberal terms. We reexamine it with a more conservative approach, and a different characterization emerges. The U-shaped configuration cannot be supported. Instead, we see a central, linear room block, a small part of which contained three stories. It was flanked on the west by well-known ritual architecture and surrounded on all sides by small, scattered, contemporary, one-story room units. The original room count estimation is reduced by about 50 percent, as is the concomitant estimate of nearly 5,000 residents. This has implications for extant models of the internal and regional organization of Casas Grandes.

The archaeology of the San Luis Rey Basin is characterized by a series of sites which for the most part conform to the San Luis Rey complexes described by Meighan (1954). San Luis Rey I is characterized by dark, sooty midden deposits containing small pressure flaked projectile points, manos, portable metates, spire-lopped and disc beads of Olivella, drilled stone ornaments, and portable and bedrock mortars with unshaped cobble pestles. San Luis Rey II contains all of the above elements plus pottery, pictographs, and historical artifacts on the terminal sites. The physical locations for San Luis Rey sites seldom deviate from streamside locations in close proximity to boulder outcroppings suitable for bedrock mortars and shelter.

The Holzman archaeological site, located along Shaw Creek in interior Alaska, contained two mammoth ivory rods, of which one is bi-beveled, within a stratigraphically sealed cultural context. Dated 13,600–13,300 cal BP, these are the earliest known examples of osseous rod technology in the Americas. Beveled ivory, antler, and bone rods and points share technological similarities between Upper Paleolithic Europe, Asia, eastern Beringia, and the Clovis tradition of North America and are important tool types in understanding the late Pleistocene dispersal of modern humans. The Holzman finds are comparable to well-known Clovis tradition artifacts from Anzick (Montana), Blackwater Draw (New Mexico), East Wenatchee (Washington), and Sherman Cave (Ohio). We describe these tools in the broader context of late Pleistocene osseous technology with implications for acquisition and use of mammoth ivory in eastern Beringia and beyond.

A series of "Clear Fork" tools from the Rio Grande Plain of southern Texas have been subjected to a functional analysis. Macroscopic, microscopic, and edge angle studies were conducted. A high frequency of nibbling wear was recorded on steeply-angled working edges. Comparisons of these data with several published studies indicate that this tool form was used in the working of wood or other tough materials.

Based on submission forms and other documents deposited in the Smithsonian Institution archives on termination of the Smithsonian Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory in 1986, Anna Roosevelt argues that shell middens on the coast of Guyana and northeastern Brazil contain pottery, and that the dates support her argument that “Amazonian early pottery is the most securely dated early pottery in the New World” (1995:128). Pending publication of a detailed monograph, I maintain that the Guyana sites in question are preceramic and thus offer no support to Roosevelt's thesis.

Exogenous diseases represent one of the principal agents of culture change associated with the historic period, yet the timing of their initial influence remains undocumented in many regions of North America. Settlement variables, cooking pot volume, and mortality profiles from Oneota tradition occupations are used to investigate the possible occurrence of epidemics in the Upper Mississippi River valley. Synchronous fluctuations in settlement and ceramic variables indicate that following at least two centuries of population growth a significant population decline occurred in the early seventeenth century. Several factors provide support for the role of disease in this decline, including its timing, magnitude, and the documented presence of epidemics in adjacent regions combined with substantial evidence for extensive contact with those areas. This event, prior to direct, sustained contact, is associated with the increased intensity of intergroup exchange occurring with the fur trade. The ability to identify the occurrence of such epidemics is essential for understanding protohistoric cultural dynamics as well as the transmission of disease on a continental level.

The use of a hypothesis of conflict between Tula and Cholula by Parsons (1970) to account for settlement patterns and ceramics of the Toltec periods in the Texcoco region has resulted in the introduction of inconsistencies in the settlement interpretations of the preconquest Texcoco sequence. The Tula-Cholula Conflict Hypothesis is based on inadequate data and not supported. However, it is possible to interpret the settlement and ceramic changes of the Texcoco sequence using ecological and cultural factors suggested by Parsons for periods earlier than the Early Toltec. The correlations suggested by Parsons (1970) between the Codex Xolotl and the Early Toltec period rested in part on the use of the Tula-Cholula Conflict Hypothesis. With the elimination of this hypothesis, it is possible to correlate the 2 basic culture patterns of the Codex, as defined by Parsons, with terminal Late Toltec and Early Aztec. These correlations support Dibble"s original thirteenth century date for the early events depicted in the Codex Xolotl.

In February, 1938, the Washington State Museum at the University of Washington, Seattle, acquired on loan a remarkable pottery vessel from Kodiak Island, southwestern Alaska. It is with the kind permission of the Director, Dr. Erna Gunther, that I publish the following pictures and description (Plates 19-20).

The pot is owned by Mr. James Spears of Seattle, and was found by local Eskimo on or near Three Saints Bay, on the southeastern shore of the island. It had apparently fallen out of a dirt bank in a recent landslide. Mr. Spears did not notice any trace of shells or other midden material in the bank, nor any indication of old house sites in the vicinity. No other objects were found with the pot.

M. Coe and K. Flannery (1964) a decade ago presented an account of their brief reconnaissance of a portion of the massive El Chayal obsidian quarry and workshop near Guatemala City. Noting the lack of ceramic artifacts and obsidian prismatic blades, Coe and Flannery reasoned that the workshop materials likely predated the Formative, and concluded that a date in the Archaic was the most probable. Their reasoning evidently was based on two fallacious assumptions, which, considered in the light of new data from Chalchuapa, El Salvador, indicates that the majority of the El Chayal artifacts described and illustrated actually date to the end of the Late Classic and particularly to the Postclassic (ca. A.D. 800-1500). Comments on technological analysis and basic illustration standards are included.

Three factors contribute to differences between archaeological samples: sampling error and functional and temporal differences between the parent populations from which the samples are drawn. Many archaeologists have explained such differences as due only to temporal variations between the parent populations, thereby ignoring sampling error and relegating functional specificity to a minor role.

A statistical analysis of potsherd frequencies in samples made by the Chicago Natural History Museum from an eastern Arizona pueblo, the Carter Ranch site, was undertaken using UNIVAC. By taking into account sampling error, differences between parent populations appeared that could most logically be attributed to functional differences. From the calculations, four possible functional constellations of pottery types were discovered, four types of rooms were isolated, a probable ceremonial complex of five pottery types was established, and differential areal disposal of sherds was found. It was impossible to demonstrate temporal differences between provenience units on the basis of sherd frequencies. Any such differences played a minor part in contributing to sample variation as compared to functional differences between provenience units.

The residue of an archaeological site, which represents a collection of cultural and noncultural materials, provides quantitative information from which some indication of cultural practices and ecological and chronological relationships can be extracted. If quantitative methods of analysis are to be successfully applied to archaeological remains, the archaeologist must either totally excavate a site, recovering all the elements in the residue, or he can devise some system of sampling it. Total excavation is seldom possible or feasible because of limited resources. Consequently, he resorts to the process of sampling, that is, excavating only a portion of the whole site. His field objective is to collect as representative a sample of elements as possible with a minimum expenditure of time, labor, and money. Achieving this objective depends upon following a sampling procedure. Stratified-cluster sampling is a method proposed to achieve this objective. A sampling design of 13 steps is presented to serve as a guide to this method.

A framework is established for the application of information-theoretic concepts to the study of archaeological inference, ultimately to provide an estimate of the degree to which archaeologists, or anthropologists in general, can provide legitimate answers to the questions they investigate. Particular information-theoretic measures are applied to the design elements on the ceramics of a southwestern pueblo to show the methodological utility of information theory in helping to reach closer to that limit.

The water control system at Hierve el Agua, Oaxaca, originally described by Neely (1967), has been widely accepted as an early example of crop irrigation. Various lines of evidence including chemical analysis of the water support an alternative hypothesis that the canals and terraces were designed for salt production through solar evaporation.