Scattered finds of Dalton, Quad, Plainview, and Scottsbluff projectile points in the Yazoo Basin of west-central Mississippi affirm the presence of an early Archaic occupation in at least that region of the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. These finds are associated with present surfaces in the alluvial flood plain which are geologic relicts formed prior to the final stages of the post-Pleistocene filling of the valley.

Six sites attributable to the Coalescent tradition in the Fort Randall and Big Bend reservoir areas of South Dakota are arranged in a seriation indicative of their temporal relationships on the basis of the popularities of certain pottery types and the presence or absence of European trade goods. Three sites fall within the prehistoric segment of the continuum, ca. A.D. 1500-1700, and three in the protohistoric segment, ca, 1700-1750. It is postulated that the sites were occupied by Arikara prior to their movement upriver to join others of the same tribal affiliation after invasion of the region by the Dakota. Certain ceramic types are proposed as time markers and sequences are revised in the light of new data.

In his recent article, Jernigan (1986) presents what he feels is a superior alternative to the traditional hierarchical approach to design analysis on ceramics. We disagree that the hierarchical system is flawed seriously. Both Jernigan's nonhierarchical approach and the hierarchical approaches are models of design that should be applied selectively according to specific problem orientations. Our discussion focuses on: (1) the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches regarding different aspects of design analysis, and (2) a critique of Jernigan's schema concept with respect to its supposed emic content, operationalization, and internal consistency. Specifically, we believe that Jernigan's characterization of schemata as emic units of design is inappropriate. An understanding of design units such as schemata can be achieved best by placing design in a cultural context. Jernigan's schemata also suffer from both ambiguity and internal inconsistency that compromise their usefulness. However, despite our reservations concerning the nonhierarchical approach, Jernigan's article rekindles important issues concerning the design analysis of prehistoric artifacts.

The Southeastern archaeological area has never been clearly defined but has tacitly been considered that part of North America south of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi. By some archaeologists it has been thought a rather homogeneous culture area, but no other portion of the continent presents a more varied content. With several types of topography represented, it is logical that many kinds of aboriginal sites are to be found within its scope; the number of seemingly unrelated tribes that claimed this area as their home connotes a varied past. In early historic times it was one of the first sections of the continent to be explored by Europeans. In recent years intensive archaeological investigations have thrown new light on the history of the region and its inhabitants. Tremendous shell midden deposits along river and creek courses and on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, rock shelters and caves showing occupation, and a few inland sites of demonstrable antiquity all indicate an earlier population entirely different from that encountered by the first visitors from Europe.

Can architecture be treated as an artifact worthy of archaeological analysis? This is a key question that remains unanswered in Gilman's (1987) article on southwestern pit structures and pueblos. The majority of Gilman's article is a cross-cultural ethnographic overview of pit-structure and pueblo use. Gilman takes such a "big-picture" approach that when she finally presents her archaeological data it is insufficient to test her model of architectural change. More importantly, by disregarding temporal changes in prehistoric southwestern pit-structure and pueblo designs, Gilman fails to realize that pit structures and pueblos are architecturally related phenomena during the transition period that is the focus of her research. Pit structures, rather than being independent of pueblos, actually provide the construction dirt with which many of the first pueblos are built.

It has long been recognized that certain macro and microanalyses of soil and midden constituents can aid archaeologists in determining the strategy and evolution of subsistence activities as well as in dealing with questions of site function and intra-site variability. Applied to the site of Medaños la Joyada (El 102) located in the Moche valley on the north coast of Peru, these techniques: (1) shed light on a subsistence strategy characterized by plant cultivation and the exploitation of marine resources found associated with the phenomena referred to as “sunken gardens” (Parsons 1968; Rowe 1969; Moseley 1969; Parsons and Psuty 1975); (2) provide comparative information for the data collected by Parsons and Psuty (1975) in their excavation of sunken garden sites located in the Chilca valley on the central coast of Peru; and (3) call into question the utility of the “small site methodology” as outlined by Moseley and Mackey (1972).

This Study deals primarily with the pottery from a series of 8 Middle Woodland village sites in the central Illinois River valley (Mason, Tazewell, Fulton, Peoria, and Marshall counties in Illinois, see Fig. 62). Comment regarding 3 other sites is also included. All of these sites but one are either directly associated with Hopewellian burial mounds or have Hopewellian pottery and other artifacts scattered throughout the debris. There are numerous other sites known with material similar to these sites, but they are not included here due to the small number of sherds in each of these sites (for example, F°77, Fv88, and others reported on by Cole and Deuel in 1937).

The purpose of this particular study is twofold. First of all an attempt is being made in this report to present indications of changes through time and style preferences in a rather well-known culture. It is hoped that these indications will help us to understand the temporal position of the different sites and to build up a body of information that will allow better understanding of the various cultural forms, in this particular case, pottery.

One of the consequences of the Missouri Basin development program will be the virtual obliteration of the Missouri River between Yankton, South Dakota, and the Montana-North Dakota line. The lakes to be created by the various dams proposed or under construction by the Army Corps of Engineers will inundate all but short stretches of the terraces on which are situated literally hundreds of fortified and unfortified earth-lodge villages and other, earlier, occupational sites. Situated near the northern limit of agriculture but heavily populated by sedentary, horticultural people for a period of several hundreds of years, this anthropologically fascinating area has been barely touched scientifically.

It has been claimed that many Native American skeletons from the King site in Georgia show evidence of wounds from sharp-edged metal weapons that were wielded by members of the sixteenth-century de Soto expedition (Blakely and Mathews 1990). The supposed massacre of these villagers has caught the attention of the public and scholars alike. But we failed to find any evidence of damage caused by sixteenth-century Spanish weapons in our examination of the King site skeletons. Our finding-there is no evidence for a massacre-eliminates a major discrepancy between historical and archaeological information used in reconstructions of the de Soto route.

Grass-tempered bowls made by the forbears of historical Karoo Bushmen between ca. A.D. 1500 and 1800 were decorated with many different stamp-impressed motifs. Five of the seven observed motif groups appear to be distributed randomly across the 2,000 km2 study area in the upper Seacow River valley, South Africa. When their percentage frequencies per site cluster were mapped, however, localized concentrations appeared. The validity of the percentage concentrations is tested here by unconstrained cluster analysis, which is not subject to the closure effect. Also, several other tests, all avoiding the use of percentage frequency maps, are introduced as alternative ways to deal with unevenly distributed sites and scarce artifacts or traits unevenly distributed among the sites themselves. The results demonstrate that percentage-frequency mapping can produce occasionally spurious and misleading patterns. Because stratigraphic evidence is scarce and inconclusive, and direct dating of sherds has not yet been conducted, a test also is proposed for determining contemporaneity of motif groups.

The archaeological content of ten years of Life magazine is analyzed in an attempt to identify what may go into formulating the public's images of the archaeologist and his goals. The four themes which appear in the 34 Life articles are: chance nature of archaeological discovery, role of the archaeologist as an expert, emphasis on technical knowledge and skills, and heavy use of superlatives. Analysis of other mass media, including fiction and cartoons, might lead to the identification of other themes. The image of archaeology presented by mass communication is considered important in a science so dependent upon public cooperation.

A regional episode of erosion between A.D. 1020 and 1160 coincides with social, political, economic, and demographic changes in the Hohokam culture. This regional erosional event was of such magnitude that it accelerated cultural changes that were already underway. The Ensor et al. (2003) commentary and attempt to layer a number of hypotheses on our original interpretations are fraught with problems.

An archaeological example of simple watertable farming dating to the beginning of the Early Intermediate period in the Viru Valley, northern Peru, is reported. This technique was deployed by functionally differentiated segments of a single community, one stressing fishing and the other farming. Analyses of pollens indicate that Zea, Leguminosae, and Solonaceae were grown in two separate field systems.

Point Sal is 50 miles north of Santa Barbara, and represents a seaward projection of the Casmalia Hills. Two and a half miles inland from the sea, at an elevation of 1100 feet, there occurs a large flowing spring. On the bench below this spring there is an extensive shell midden of the general type described by D. B. Rogers for the area south of here. Excavation on this site was limited to four small test pits and to the removal of a group of burials from the upper level. The test pits showed a maximum depth of 10 feet near the center, and a thinning towards the edges. Three principal strata were observed, and will be designated as numbers I, II, III, numbering from the bottom up.

Stratum number I was two feet thick. It was of a brown color, of a clayey textured soil streaked with lime. Its shell and ash content was the lowest of the three. Stratum number II was grey colored.

The sequence of three phases (Anathermal, Altithermal, Medithermal) of the Postglacial or Neothermal temperature curve, although demonstrably a reality, has been used improperly to determine absolute dates and past climatic conditions from archaeological deposits. A review of the historic development of the concept of the three sequent Neothermal temperature phases reveals the assumptions on which absolute dating of these phases has been based. Analysis of the variable radio-carbon dates now available for deposits attributed to these phases in a number of different localities in North America indicates that these phases cannot be considered as universal time periods bracketed by definite absolute dates; and consideration of the ecological diversity within North America at any particular time, especially in the West, indicates that climatic conditions inferred for a given span of Neothermal time in one area cannot be projected into another area without direct independent evidence of the actual climatic conditions which existed in the second area at that time. It is suggested that Anathermal, Altithermal, and Medithermal be used not as time periods with fixed absolute dates or climatic periods with defined characteristics, but rather be considered as phases of the Neothermal temperature curve which in different ecological areas resulted in locally varying climatic conditions which must be determined by direct evidence, dated by independent means, and designated by local terms.

Samples were collected from four excavations and three muskegs for palynological examination in connection with a study of human prehistory in the Naknek drainage area, upper Alaska Peninsula. The purpose was to reconstruct the sequence of environments dating back to the earliest recognizable cultural phase, close to 4000 B.P. Pollen diagrams for muskeg show birch and alder as the principal arboreal types. Increasing percentages of alder occur during a late interval of hypsithermal time dating about 5500 B.P. Birch thereafter gained in proportion and between approximately 5000 and 2500 B.P. achieved maxima. Subsequently percentages of birch declined. Pollen spectra disclose that migration of spruce from the interior into this area took place within recent centuries. A climate cooler and drier than at present is interpreted from the diagrams to have been in effect during the earliest cultural phase and probably lasted until about 2500 B.P. Later, climate became slowly warmer and increasingly more humid. Temperature, however, was at first lower than at present and, coupled with greater precipitation, presumably caused heavy snow accumulation in the Aleutian Range which resulted in glacial advances during recent centuries.

The future of field archaeology in some parts of North America is seriously threatened by rampant pot-hunting. Archaeologists should capitalize on popular concern against the looting of foreign antiquities to build better public cooperation for site preservation within the United States.

Recent excavation and analysis of the remaining section of the endangered Rapidan Mound site (44OR1) in the central Virginia Piedmont provide new insights into a unique complex of burial mounds in the Virginia interior. Known since Thomas Jefferson's eighteenth-century description, the mounds are both earth and stone and accretional earthen mounds. Thirteen are recorded, all dating to the late prehistoric and early contact era (ca. A.D. 900-1700). Typically containing few artifacts, the accretional mounds are unusual in North America in the numbers of individuals interred, more than one thousand in at least two cases, and in the nature of the secondary, collective burial ritual that built up the mounds over centuries. Following a review of the characteristics of the mound complex, we focus on the Rapidan Mound and the analysis of the collective, secondary burial features in the mound. Precise provenience information and bioarchaeological analyses of two large and intact collective burial features provide new information on health and diet, and several lines of evidence for demographic reconstruction. Finally, we discuss the mortuary ritual conducted at the mounds within the cultural and historical context of the region.

No satisfactory explanation, to the best of my knowledge, has been offered of the scenes on pages 16-20 of the Maya Dresden codex and the parallel passages on pages 93-95 of Codex Madrid which depict a goddess or woman in association with various birds, animals, and gods. She carries them on her head or shoulders or on a pack on her back supported by a strap across her chest.