During the 12th and 13th centuries A.D., diverse populations of Pueblo Indians gradually withdrew from the drainages of the San Juan River and its tributaries, leaving the area uninhabited and open to future reoccupancy by Navajos. Two hypotheses have been put forward to explain these emigrations: the great drought theory and the Athabaskan raider theory. However, data from recent field work in the Four Corners area can be put together with clues from the literature to construct a third hypothesis: that late Pueblo II population shifts from the north created multiple, small pressures which slowly built into a chain-reaction of anxieties, producing widespread population rearrangements in the San Juan regions, cultural and stylistic changes and, finally, an increasing trend toward emigration. Paiute pressures in the north may have combined with climatic deterioration to initiate withdrawal of the Utah peripheral farmers who, in retreating, disturbed precarious balances of San Juan groups who were already maximally expanded in population. These, in turn, began to move about more frequently than previously, disturbing one another. Stylistic changes in pottery and architecture, large towns, and defensive sites reflect the unrest which resulted in final migration to more peaceful drainages.

Hegmon and Trevathan's (1996) contention that Mimbres figurative pottery was probably painted by men ignorant about birthing, as evidenced by a virtually impossible birthing scene, is unsubstantiated. This claim was due to a lack of familiarity with the birthing motif they described, as well as selective and unrepresentative use of relevant ethnographic and historical data. We find no evidence that men painted Mimbres pottery.

Practically all of the aboriginal inhabitants of Canada, including the Eskimo, made and used pottery. The only people who do not seem to have used it are the Indians of the coast and interior of British Columbia; in fact, according to Wissler, “practically the whole Pacific belt … is without pottery.“

As can be seen from the map (Fig. 7), pottery is fairly well distributed over the southern part of Canada, but even here our knowledge of its occurrence is far from complete, owing to the lack of archaeological exploration. There are vast areas elsewhere in Canada from which no pottery has been reported, including southern Ungava, northern Ontario, northern Manitoba, northern and western Alberta, and the Northwest Territories.

This study concentrates upon the distribution and possible developmental sequence of maize agriculture in the northern Southwest, and its significance for Fremont cultural dynamics. Attention is focused upon the corn known as Fremont Dent, which was one of the main forms of maize raised by the peoples of the Fremont culture. Of particular interest is maize material from the Evans Mound, Grantsville, and Nine Mile Canyon Fremont sites, which demonstrates a pattern of regional distribution within the Fremont culture area. Also of importance is the corn from Clydes Cavern, a well-stratified dry cave in east-central Utah. A large collection of corn was recovered from this site which broadens our knowledge of the forms, origins, and economic relations of the Fremont corn complex.

Barnes et al. raise a number of points relating to the National Register of Historic Places, only some of which are relevant to our initial discussion of archaeological significance in 1977. Archaeological significance can be supported by any of the four Register criteria, not only by the single criterion presented by Barnes et al. The role and initiative of all archaeologists in the decision-making process leading to significance determinations cannot be underestimated.

Recent research at Jaketown, a Late Archaic earthwork site in the Lower Mississippi Valley, suggests that the culture-historical framework used to interpret Jaketown and contemporary sites in the region obscures differences in practices across sites. As an alternative, we propose a framework focused on variation in material culture, architecture, and foodways between Jaketown and Poverty Point, the regional type site. Our analysis indicates that people used Poverty Point Objects and imported lithics at Jaketown by 4525–4100 cal BP—earlier than elsewhere in the region. By 3450–3350 cal BP, people intensively occupied Jaketown, harvesting a consistent suite of wild plants. Between 3445 and 3270 cal BP, prior to the apex of earthwork construction at Poverty Point, the community at Jaketown built at least two earthworks and multiple post structures before catastrophic flooding sometime after 3300 cal BP buried the Late Archaic landscape under alluvium. These new data lead us to conclude that the archaeological record of the Late Archaic Lower Mississippi Valley does not reflect a uniform regional culture. Rather, relationships between Jaketown and Poverty Point indicate a multipolar history in which communities selectively participated in larger social phenomena—such as exchange networks and architectural traditions—while maintaining diverse, localized practices.

Archaeogenomic studies of a burial crypt in Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, have demonstrated the presence of an elite matrilineal descent group that spanned most of the 300+ years the great house was occupied, confirming, among other things, the deep antiquity of matrilineal ideologies among the Ancestral Pueblos of the northern Southwest. This article explores the sociopolitical implications of matrilineal descent, matrilocal residence, and Iroquois-Crow alliance structures among the Ancestral Pueblos of Chaco and elsewhere. It argues that matrilineal ideologies helped shape community forms and intercommunity relations throughout the Pueblo Southwest. It argues further that kinship provides insights into Chaco's eleventh-century expansion that dispersed “outlier” great houses over much of the southeastern Colorado Plateau. The article concludes with a call for archaeologists and cultural historians to pay more attention to kinship, the principal idiom of social, economic, and political relations in nonstate societies.

We test the antiquity of a dietary life history model on Tutuila, American Samoa. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in serial, age-adjusted samples of first and third molars reveal isotopic biographies of 16 individuals from five late Holocene (200–1100 RCYBP) sites. Combining this with bone collagen from a larger sample of individuals, we document a patterned dietary life history on the island. Between ages zero and two years, infants show elevated δ15N values, consistent with a diet rich in breast milk. In early childhood (two–10 years), individuals shift to a diet with higher δ13C values, suggesting greater marine protein intake. Around age 10 years, males shift to a more terrestrially focused diet, while females retain a higher marine signature. After ~20 years of age, males and females are more similar in diet, with a greater contribution from terrestrial resources. We argue that these shifts reflect diet-marked social transitions in life histories, especially social status and eating order within households, as predicted from the ethnographic model. When contextualized with other archaeological data, such as mortuary patterns and social organization, the isotopic biographic approach facilitates examination of diet-linked social transitions of individuals as they aged within ancient societies.

Erlandson and Moss (2001) indicate one step to deciphering the taphonomic history of a deposit comprising numerous remains of aquatic organisms involves building a list of the nonhuman local carnivores. Such lists indicate potential, not actual, taphonomic agents, and the list they provide does not include one of the more significant potential accumulators of aquatic faunal remains—pinnipeds. Nor do they discuss the critical second step of taphonomic analysis that involves the writing of taphonomic histories based on signature criteria manifest as modifications to faunal remains.

On the western end of the north coast of Honduras, the outstanding river is the Ulúa, whose basin is formed by the plain of Sula. In the south, the gradually descending steps of the Cordilleras with the open avenues of the Ulúa on the west and her tributaries, the Lindo due south and the Comayagua at the east, bring contact to the wet valley of Sula from the semi-arid interior. Eastward lies the low margin of coast and the lagoons and river systems of the Pijol range. West and southwest is mountain land with an important river valley, the Chamelicon, which merges into the Sula plain. At the north is the open sea, bringing to this region varied influences from many and distant places.

An archeological chronology for the region of Mobile Bay, Alabama was first worked out by Trickey in 1958 (Trickey 1958). Systematic excavations and radiocarbon dating now suggest that Indian sites, marked by shell middens and artifacts, were periodically overwhelmed by rise in water level and then re-occupied during each succeeding state of low sea level. Middens are dated at 4100, 3090, 2040 and 1080 B.P.

Qualitative models are unable to explain the known variability in the adoption and intensification of agriculture in the prehistoric North American Southwest. Adoption of a quantitative approach (specifically, a model based on marginal costs and benefits) better accounts for that variability.

The most common explanations for the appearance of miniatures in the archaeological record are drawn from practice theory. Two alternatives stem from learning theories, while a third is based in ritual practice and performance. First, miniatures may represent early attempts at craft production by children or novice adults. Second, they could serve as children's toys used for enculturation purposes. Third, miniatures may be produced for use in rituals or as offerings. These explanations are not mutually exclusive; all may be part of the life history of a single artifact. Previous archaeological and ethnographic work on miniature ceramic vessels in the Southwest has variously supported all three prominent explanations. In this article, we examine the miniature vessel assemblage from Homol'ovi I, a prehispanic pueblo in northern Arizona, through a synthetic analysis of craft mastery, use, and deposition. While various life history trajectories are indicated, the miniature vessels at this ancestral Hopi village appear in similar depositional contexts. Specifically, these objects serve as important components in the preparation or closure practices of ritual spaces throughout the pueblo.

Test excavations at Aguacatal, located on the Xicalango peninsula, western Campeche, revealed chultuns (water cisterns) of the Late Classic period. Modern chultun construction by Chontal Indians, as late as the 1940's, followed the Late Classic period methods and style. First hand descriptions of the construction and use of chultuns by the Chontol is an aid in archaeological interpretation.

The extensive use of native copper by historic Copper Inuit has been felt to be a fairly recent development, inspired in one way or another by indirect European contact. This conclusion seems to be based on the comparison of ethnographic historic collections and archaeological prehistoric ones. However, an examination of archaeological collections dating from the historic period suggests that copper and other metals are much less frequent in archaeological samples than in functioning, ethnographically-described assemblages. The difference appears to be due to curation, which in turn is a product of the high value and durability of metal. Archaeological collections from the prehistoric Thule culture in the area show a frequency of copper tools that is actually higher than the frequency of all metals at late nineteenth-century sites. This study illustrates some of the difficulties inherent in uncritical use of ethnographic data to solve archaeological problems.

In a 1995 paper, Raab et al. questioned Arnold’s assertion that high sea temperatures in prehistoric southern California resulted in maritime subsistence disaster. The current discussion by Arnold et al. argues that our data were flawed and taken out of sociocultural context. Not only are these claims unfounded, they are based largely on an unfortunate strategy of combining uniformitarian and interpretivist analytical frameworks

The Convention on the Law of the Sea, the culminating document of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, received favorable votes from 130 States in April 1982. The United States voted against approval. Articles 149 and 303, which address archaeological and historical objects found in various ocean zones, are compromise measures with ambiguous texts that are subject to interpretation. Archaeologists generally, not simply underwater archaeologists, should be concerned with these provisions because they could set an unfortunate precedent for future international negotiations involving cultural resources, and because they may apply to inundated prehistoric sites as well as to shipwrecks.

An open file report of the U.S. Geological Survey, “Glacial Features and Surficial Deposits of the Malaspina District, Alaska,” by George Plafker and Don J. Miller, 1957, not only indicates some of the periods when the Icy Bay-Yakutat Bay area was open to habitation, but seems to confirm native traditions of great antiquity. I am indebted to Don Miller for bringing this report to my attention.

With the rise in importance of the archaeological survey as a major data-recovery tool has come greater concern over methods for making inferences about site subsurface characteristics from surface materials. One growing area of concern is the identification of site function using surface features and artifact assemblages. Here we examine the relations among architectural site types (defined using surface features), modeled functional site types, and surface artifact assemblage characteristics. Analysis proceeded in three stages, each one built on the previous stage. In the first stage we used site type models to predict surface assemblage differences between types and then tested these predictions with the surface assemblages from surveyed sites grouped by architecture type. The procedures involved analysis of variance, difference-of-means tests, and discriminant analysis. In the second stage, we used discriminant analysis to create a classification function for predicting site type on the basis of artifact assemblages. In the third stage of the analysis, we investigated possible reasons for the uneven classification results. We conclude our analyses by presenting an example of functional change that affects the ability of the discriminant analysis to distinguish between two of the site types.

In November, 1949, a fluted point was found in possession of a family at San Joaquin in Baja California. It was not possible to procure the point or photograph it, but a drawing was made. The drawing is accurate as to scale, form, and extent of fluting. The individual flake scars are illustrative rather than an attempt at exact representation. The point seemed to be made of very fine grained, almost glassy, basalt and the flake scars are considerably worn (Fig. 86).