In 1953 human remains and a new type of Paleoindian artifact were discovered eroding from a "blowout" in a small dune field along Monahans Draw, near Midland, Texas, on the Southern High Plains. The projectile points became the type “Midland” collection. Stratigraphy, radiometric dating, paleontology, and geochemistry suggested that the artifacts and bones dated to at least 10,000 B.P. and that the human remains were possibly as old as 20,000 B.P. The researchers believed that the human bones were from below a red sand that in turn was below a Folsom occupation. The dating of the human remains has long been problematic, however, and recent attempts to apply U-series dating further confuse the story. Geoarchaeological investigations were carried out at the site from 1989 to 1992 to reevaluate the geochronology, with particular reference to the age of the skeletal material. We reach several conclusions: (1) there are two Red Sands; (2) the human remains are from below the upper Red Sand, but the Folsom material is from above the lower Red Sand and, therefore, the Red Sand stratigraphy is not relevant to the age of the human remains; (3) the human remains were associated with the valley-margin facies of a lacustrine carbonate that is well dated in the region and rarely is > 10,000 B.P.; and (4) all numerical dating methods applied at the site produced unreliable results. We find no compelling evidence that the human remains from the Midland site are older than Folsom age; they may be contemporary with or younger than the Folsom occupation.

Sanders and Price, Palerm, Carrasco, and others have argued for the utility of the theoretical formulations of "oriental despotism" and the "Asiatic mode of production" for the investigation and comprehension of Aztec political organization and society. Accordingly, it has been claimed that irrigation played an important role in the consolidation of Aztec states, that no significant private property in land existed among the Aztecs, and that government control of the economy was thoroughgoing and complete. All of these theoretically generated positions are demonstrably false, at least for the important Aztec state of Texcoco. Irrigation played no significant role in the origin or consolidation of the Texcocan state; extensive private property in land did exist among the Texcocans, and the government of Texcoco did not at all dominate the Texcocan economy. Marketing was clearly the principal mechanism within the empire for the transference of goods. The basic principles of Aztec society are to be discovered through objective examination of the ethnohistorical and archaeological data and cannot be determined through the imposition of inappropriate or outmoded theoretical formulations.

A regional systems approach has become a mainstay for examining intersocietal interaction in the prehistoric Southwest, although problems with the approach exist. Particularly problematic for the model is how smaller-scale societies might have interacted with larger-scale societies. As a case study in comprehending “areas in between,” I examine the Animas phase (about A.D. 1150-1450), located in extreme southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northeastern Sonora. Considerable controversy exists over the relationship between Animas phase sites and the much more imposing remains found at and near Paquίmé (Casas Grandes) in northwestern Chihuahua. This debate is explored through two contrasting theories about smaller-scale societies: (1) that they are relatively stable and autonomous remnants of older social systems or (2) that they are dependent peripheries marginalized by core areas. Neither of the models appears to adequately explain the mosaic of features that the Animas phase possesses. A more dynamic model is proposed that recognizes the presence of regional interaction, the low efficiency and high costs of interactión for the prehistoric Southwest, and the sources of power of small-scale social systems.

I propose that Chaco Canyon was a chiefdom that emphasized a corporate political strategy (Blanton et al. 1996). Corporate groups define the relationship of people to resources, especially as the owners of productive land. Groups are materialized by public ceremonies and monuments, but leaders are typically faceless. Chaco's famous road system, the elaborate architecture of the great houses, and the regional procurement of specific resources support the proposal that Chaco was a corporate chiefdom. To create and sustain the regional institutions of a chiefdom requires not only leaders, but a system of finance. Chaco is argued to have had a system of staple finance, where surplus food and everyday technologies were mobilized from a broad supporting population. Mobilization was based on control of food production, but the method of control has not yet been defined for Chaco. The exchange of prestige goods, such as turquoise, shell, and copper bells, was not part of the system of finance for Chaco, but was part of an interpersonal and noncentralized reciprocal exchange network such as those found broadly in egalitarian societies.

This paper questions the historicity of Carib migrations in northeastern South America, especially from the Guianas to the West Indies, on the basis of (1) recent chronological work on the late prehistory of the Lesser Antilles, and (2) a critical reexamination of ethnohistorical data on the Island Caribs (migration myths, linguistic dimorphism, distribution, early European contacts). A new interpretation of the previously elusive Island Carib pottery complex allows for a reevaluation of cultural continuities and affiliations. The question is further approached through a more precise definition of the Island Carib as an ethnic group in relation to other groups in the Guianas.

The concept of a disembedded capital is viewed as a specious construct. The logical foundations of disembeddedness of political authority from local commerical hierarchies are viewed as largely untenable, at least in prehispanic Mesoamerica, and the close parallels between Monte Albán and Teotihuacán in terms of general site location, access to prime agricultural land, level of craft specialization required to meet local needs, and local market patterns suggest that both sites had similar roles with respect to local central-place support hierarchies. An alternative evolutionary model is then offered, one which relates developments manifest in the Basin of Mexico and in the Valley of Oaxaca to an economic and political strategy which seeks to minimize labor input and amount of systemic risk.

Previous research has identified specialized production of prestige goods during the Medio period (A.D. 1200-1450) in the Casas Grandes region of northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest. We evaluate the organization of production of two functionally equivalent types of trough metates from Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico, using the standardization hypothesis, i.e., the premise that products produced by specialists have less variation than those manufactured by less-specialized producers. We find that the morphology of one of the metate types (Type 1A metates) is statistically more standardized than the other (Type 1B metates). We then compare the Paquimé metates to those manufactured by generalized producers from the Mimbres Valley region of New Mexico. We find that Mimbres through-trough metates and the Type 1B metates from Paquimé have a similar degree of morphological variation, but that the Type 1A Paquimé metates are morphologically more standardized, indicating that specialists produced them. We conclude that specialized production in the Casas Grandes region was not limited to prestige goods but was instead a fundamental organizing principle of the Medio period economic system, reflecting the presence of a well-established social hierarchy and exchange system.

We report major new insights from recent research at the Powars II Paleoindian red ocher quarry (48PL330). We salvaged more than 7,000 artifacts from Powars II between 2014 and 2016 by screening redeposited sediment from the talus slope below the intact portion of the site. Clovis artifacts dominate the diagnostic artifact assemblage, including 53 Clovis points, 33 preforms, and artifacts associated with a previously unrecognized blade core industry. We report the first radiocarbon dates from the site, determined from dating bone tools, which indicate Cody-aged use (ca. >10,000 cal BP). Further, salvage efforts discovered a previously unknown toolstone source from which many of the Clovis artifacts were produced. The Powars II Clovis points most resemble early Paleoindian points from the far Northern Plains and were likely both produced and discarded in the red ocher quarry after hunting, as evidenced by preform production and the presence of impact fractures on many used points. Given these production and discard patterns, Powars II holds some of the best evidence archaeologists currently have for Paleoindian ritualism related to hunting.

A shift in Archaic foraging to a largely logistic collector strategy by the middle Holocene is indicated by the presence of rock-filled middens in the U.S. southern Midwest. This change has usually been attributed to the development of super-rich wetland habitats in large river valleys. Analysis of a well-preserved faunal assemblage from the Bluegrass site, a late Middle Archaic base camp/mortuary occupation, located in an interior upland drainage basin of southwestern Indiana, suggests that small-bodied terrestrial mammals and reptiles were substituted for aquatic animal foods. Comparisons with faunal assemblages from other base camps in a diverse set of habitats in the southern Midwest indicates that white-tailed deer and hickory nuts were the basis for the logistical foraging strategy rather than aquatic resources. It is proposed that a change in forest composition from a mesic closed canopy to an open oak-hickory association by the middle Holocene increased the abundance of deer and nut mast leading to a coarse-grain use of the landscape.

This study investigated intracommunity variation in diet during the introduction and adoption of a new staple crop (maize) into an indigenous horticultural system. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes of human bone collagen were analyzed from five sites in west-central Illinois, dating from the Middle Woodland to Mississippian periods, and the results contrasted with evidence from neighboring river valleys and the wider Eastern Woodlands area. Contrary to speculation, neither the initial adoption of maize nor subsequent intensification in its use were correlated with status, gender, or age. A striking bimodal distribution was observed in consumption of native and introduced crops; growing or eating small amounts of maize was apparently not practiced. Fluoride dating confirms the burials are contemporary, and the pattern persists over several hundred years. Possible explanations include issues related to the economics of maize growing, household requirements for storage, exchange, or levies, or individual taste. Also notable were earlier-than-expected dates for intensive exploitation of the maize in this area, in the early Late Woodland, possibly as early as A.D. 400. Nitrogen isotope ratios were higher for males at all sites and time periods; the cause may have been greater access to dietary protein, or could be the result of physiological differences.

The histories of maize utilization in eastern North America have been substantially revised recently, primarily because of the analysis of charred cooking residues encrusted on pottery. A multifaceted research strategy of bulk δ13C assays coupled with accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon data and microbotanical evidence can yield coherent regional maize use histories. Bulk δ13 C assay interpretation complications include (1) variations among vessels by site, (2) a potential for false negatives, and (3) a wide range of variation potentially present for any given time period. Regional histories using this approach can be quite variable without appropriate use of multiple lines of evidence.

In this paper I highlight the potential of social memory research to enhance our archaeological understanding of Mississippian social organization and identity politics. Mississippian communities commemorated and invoked the past through the creation and manipulation of landscapes, places, and things. To demonstrate the utility of this approach I examine and discuss Mississippian architectural and mortuary data from the Moundville site in west-central Alabama. On the basis of this examination I argue that social memory played an important role in the negotiation of social identities and the organization of community space at the Moundville site and the Mississippian Black Warrior Valley.

A falling-weight device was developed for testing ceramic impact strength. Tests carried out on a large sample of commercial tiles showed that the incremental height test, wherein drop height is raised gradually, is the most reliable. In order to assess the accuracy of the test, an additional experiment was performed on laboratory-made briquettes fired at 550, 650, 750, 850, and 950 °C. In contrast to the results of Bronitsky and Hamer's (1986) pendulum test (but in conformity with general principles of ceramic engineering), the present study found a strong correlation between firing temperature and impact strength. It is concluded that the falling-weight device provides a simple, accurate, and reliable test for ceramic impact strength.

Previous morphometric studies have identified variation in fluted-point thickness data but have seldom considered its cultural or technological sources. New data from western and eastern North America suggest that variation in fluted-point thickness results from variability in lithic raw-material selectivity and bifacial-flaking techniques.

Interpretations of man's relationship to his environment are basic to the understanding of archaeological data. Such interpretations are made by almost all archaeologists in the course of presenting their findings, and there is a growing trend toward more precise delineation of human ecology in prehistoric times. Yet much archaeological writing of this sort tends to be sketchy and fragmentary, and techniques of value are often overlooked or ignored. More or less standardized procedures for interpreting prehistoric ecology are still in the process of being worked out, and even the physical techniques of collecting and sorting samples are experimental at present.

Alison Wylie (1992) provides an important discussion about the contribution of feminist research in archaeology by arguing that a feminist perspective can lead to a better, more rigorous science of archaeology. Her article inspires comment in three areas. First, the diversity within feminist theory and practice is emphasized by describing liberal, separatist, and socialist perspectives and how they might manifest themselves in archaeology. Second, the historical and political context of gender ideology and metaphor in the development of Western science is noted. The apparent need for feminist theory to defend its appropriateness is tied to this context. Third, feminist theory must, and will, rehabilitate the structure of that historically and politically constituted science.

Prehistoric ceramic containers were tools used in culinary and ceremonial activity. The archaeological record preserves fragmentary remains of these ceramic tools, challenging the archaeologist to interpret their use and function from potsherds rather than from whole pots. We introduce the two-curvature method for reconstructing ceramic vessel shape and volume from assemblages of potsherds. Each point on a ceramic vessel or sherd has two dimensions of curvature, profile and axial. Profile curvature is sensitive to vessel shape, and axial curvature is sensitive to vessel diameter. Since vessel curvature and sherd curvature are the same, measuring profile and axial curvatures of potsherds provides information on parent-vessel shape and size. The two-curvature method is tested with replicated vessels, and its accuracy for measuring vessel parameters from sherd curvatures is assessed. Vessel parameters are estimated accurately from average-sherd-curvature measurements. Data gathered by using this method, on an archaeological assemblage of Kumeyaay ceramics from southern California, show that Kumeyaay pottery consists of 85–90 percent open-mouth hemispherical bowls and 10–15 percent closed-mouth spherical ollas. Through time, Kumeyaay vessel volume increased while vessel shape remained consistent.

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.

It is proposed that archaeologists can apply their method and theory to the study of material culture in modern industrial societies for the purpose of deriving explanatory statements of modern human behavior.

A site survey was conducted in the upper drainage basin of the Rio Zahuapan in north-central Tlaxcala, Mexico, during the 1964-65 season. Sixty-three ceramic collections from 59 sites were examined and eventually seriated. The resulting sequence of pottery types indicates that, in spite of its location near major pre-Hispanic centers, this area was apparently not in the mainstream of Mexican prehistory until Late Postclassic times. Moreover, the locations and sizes of the sites sampled indicate that the area never completely lost its rural character. However, Tlaxcalan influence increased significantly with the resistance to the expansion of the empire centered at Tenochititlán and the eventual alliance with Cortes.