A collection from a small Late Wisconsin site is described. This assemblage exhibits a distinctive coreworking technique and a distinctive variety of fluted points. It is dated on geological grounds to between 11,000 B.C. and 9000 B.C. at a time when spruce stands were probably becoming established in the area. The contrasts between this assemblage and others described from Northeastern North America suggest a number of hypotheses not testable with the available data.

Pomacea flagellata (Say), a large freshwater snail, was eaten by the ancient inhabitants of Tikal. Its shells appear in archaeological contexts datable to the entire circa 1500-year span of permanent occupation. Utilization was heaviest during the earliest and latest periods, a distributional pattern that seems directly related to population growth and decline. Comparison with the freshwater mussels and European land snails suggests that Pomacea snails were probably never more than a supplementary source of protein and calories. However, they could have been important in a marginal diet. Occasionally Pomacea were deposited in ceremonial contexts. They were most frequent during the later Early Classic period when they may have figured in a special votive complex.

Discoveries of concentrated deposits of fragmentary human bone and their interpretation as evidence of cannibalism in the pre-Hispanic American Southwest have engaged archaeologists in a continuing debate. Forensic study of the victims in the historic Alferd [sic] Packer case from southern Colorado in the 1870s contributes to this discussion by providing detailed data regarding perimortem trauma, cut marks, and butchering patterns in a well-accepted case of mass murder and survival cannibalism. In particular, postmortem cut marks record a butchering strategy focused on filleting muscle tissue for immediate consumption; patterning of cut marks was structured by anatomy and also by cultural values. Contrasts between this historic case and the archaeological assemblages highlights the need for a more nuanced discussion of the cultural context and meaning of the archaeological cases. Interpretations of human skeletal remains arguably must begin with the view of “the body as artifact” and from a theoretical perspective defined largely by osteology and in comparison with zooarchaeological assemblages under various ecological conditions. At this point, however, the debate regarding Anasazi cannibalism would benefit from the addition of other anthropological perspectives, particularly those concerning the human body as a vehicle for the expression of cultural ideas and values.

This paper compares unnotched triangular arrow point refits (conjoined fragments) with whole points from the Eaton site in New York. The differences between the two samples are significant, suggesting that point typologies based on whole points may be misleading. Refits tended to have greater length to width ratios and lower thickness to length ratios, rendering them less durable. While lack of durability is generally considered to be a negative characteristic of stone points, fragmentation of a projectile in an enemy or hunting prey creates a large internal wound cavity, which is desirable. Also desirable is a point base that makes a cut wide enough to prevent drag on the arrow shaft, but narrow enough to have a good chance of passing through the ribs of the target.

Schiffer (1986) first identified the old wood problem for wood charcoal-based dates from archaeological contexts in the American Southwest. The potential for dates to be skewed toward excessively old calendar ages in this region has recently generated reticence in part of the archaeological community towards including wood charcoal dates in general. Some scholars have even begun to cleanse the radiocarbon databases of regions throughout North America, partly with this presumed limitation in mind. However, the issues that contribute to the old wood problem have not been closely examined outside the arid climate of the American Southwest, resulting in some studies excluding hundreds of radiocarbon dates. The present study fills that void by examining the radiocarbon record from four well-dated Fort Ancient sites in southwestern Ohio and southeastern Indiana. Specifically, we test whether or not there are significant differences between wood charcoal and non-wood charcoal assays. Our findings suggest that wood charcoal dates should not be excluded. We explore reasons for this difference in the Eastern Woodlands and propose an ideal dating regime.

Dissection of certain animal specimens indicated that meat poundage figures based on modern processing practices could be unreliably high.

Prinsesse Ingeborg Halvø is a low peninsula, situated on lat. 81°35'N., long. 16°35'W. in northernmost east-Greenland. From the west it wedges into the large local icecap Flade Isblink, which forms the easternmost corner of Greenland. The peninsula lies 70 miles southeast of the northernmost region in Greenland, Pearyland, separated from it by a bay, the joint mouth of two big fjords: Danmarks Fjord and Independence Fjord. The latter cuts its way westward from the Greenland Sea as the southern border of Pearyland (Fig. 101).

At three places on Prinsesse Ingeborg Halvo (Fig. 102, A, B, C) paleo-Eskimo flint implements were spotted by the author of this article during the summer of 1952. The localities were all situated at a height of 40-50 feet above sea level and at a distance of 370-810 yards from the present coastline. Thus, from a geological point of view they belonged to the same horizon in the system of old raised beach terraces of the peninsula.

As the state of Georgia marks the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of Hernando de Soto, we reflect on the other actors in the encounter. The King site, a Native American village in the sixteenth-century chiefdom of Coosa, yielded an unusually high crude death rate of 36 per 1,000. We attribute the elevated mortality to casualties from a clash with the Spaniards. Twenty percent of the King site skeletons exhibit injuries-deep gashes and cuts across two extremities–inflicted by steel weapons. Although enemies of the Coosa possessed some European weapons, the demographic profile of the fatalities–young women and middle-aged males and females–implicates the Spaniards. Comparison with European battle casualties supports the notion that the Spaniards were responsible for the injuries. The chronicles reveal de Soto’s army to have been the likely perpetrator. The victims probably either resisted enslavement or attempted to free others from enslavement. The site offers the first archaeological evidence of Spanish violence in the interior Southeast.

Fluctuating modes of thought concerning the origins of the American Indians are traced from the time of the Spanish Conquest to the present. Early Man studies are related to the broader aspects of archaeology in Europe as well as in North America. Six periods are presented, in each of which different conceptions of Indian origins were dominant: (1) 1520-1780, (2) 1780-1859, (3) 1859-1890, (4) 1890-1925, (5) 1925-1950, (6) 1950-present. It is shown that developments in other fields of inquiry influenced the conceptions that evolved in each of these periods.

This report presents four radiocarbon dates of charcoal pigments from Picture Cave, a site located in a remote wooded area in east-central Missouri. Carbon from charcoal pigments was extracted from three rock drawings on the wall of this cave. The four pigment samples contained sufficient carbon for accelerator mass spectrometric radiocarbon analysis. These black pigment samples (red and white paints are also present in the cave) yielded dates that place their affiliated motifs in a time-frame associated with Cahokia ca. 950 years ago. The dates are somewhat earlier than expected. We discuss the dates in connection with the iconography of the three motif panels tested.

Rio Grande Anasazi in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries A.D. mulched hundreds of garden-sized plots with pebbles to increase soil moisture, reduce erosion, extend the growing season, and increase crop yields. This paper reports on the construction and configuration of pebble-mulch gardens in New Mexico, focusing particularly on those in the Galisteo Basin. Surfaces adjacent to these gardens were scraped and pits were excavated to collect gravel, which was placed over garden surfaces in layers 5 to 11 cm thick. Gardens averaged 15 x 23 m in size, although both size and shape were highly variable, and they collectively covered an area of 41,000 m2 Although this unique agricultural strategy has been shown to be effective, construction was limited to sites with natural gravel deposits, pebbled surfaces inhibited the recycling of crop wastes, and such gardens never became as widely used as more traditional field forms.

The long-standing interest of the Indiana Historical Society in archaeological methodology has led to a program designed to evaluate the applicability of the proton magnetometer to the location of certain subsurface features. Early trials at the Angel site in southern Indiana, which offers a variety of controlled experimental conditions, have shown that the instrument is capable of detecting the rather slight magnetic anomalies arising from the trench in which the stockade that once surrounded the village was set. While preliminary research has met with some success, a full report of the findings and problems encountered is reserved until completion of the project.

The ethnographic and ethnohistoric records from the Northern and Canadian Plains indicate that a variety of plants were utilized by past peoples. These accounts provide two important insights into plant use in this region where very little archaeological evidence exists for plant utilization. First, plant processing tools are most likely to be unmodified lithic tools that may escape our recognition. Second, a variety of plants, which can be identified via starch grain analysis, were processed with these tools. This project analyzed the residues from two unmodified lithic grinding tools, identified as possible plant processing tools, for starch grains. Our results indicate that not only were a nuinber of wild plant species, such as choke cherry (Prunus virginiana), saskatoon berry (Amelanchier alnifolia) and likely prairie turnip (Psoralea esculenta), processed with these implements, but so too was maize (Zea mays). These results not only provide important insight with respect to identifying a tool class, plant use, and trade within our study area, but also provide an exceptional window into the use of wild plant species, an aspect of human history that is poorly understood in many regions of the world in addition to the Northern Plains.

Archaeologists, especially those doing regional surveys, generally assume that there is a correlation between the areal extent of a habitation site and the number of people living at that site. This paper uses a combination of archaeological and historical data from the Peruvian Andes to examine this assumption. We find that, in this case, only a weak correlation holds between these two factors. However, a consideration of site function and topography may render the apparent ambiguities understandable.

This article advocates for archaeological investigation of sustained colonialism that examines the implications of Native American negotiations with multiple waves of foreigners over the course of many decades, if not centuries. The study of native confrontations with successive groups of intruders, who often represented a diverse range of colonial programs and interests, involves analyses of not only indigenous encounters with first-wave colonists but also their entanglements with later colonists, particularly settler colonists. This will provide the necessary diachronic approach to consider the cumulative effects and implications of multiple colonial intrusions on specific tribes and how tribal negotiations with earlier colonial enterprises may have influenced and shaped their responses to later settler colonists. This article presents a case study of one such approach for the study of sustained colonialism that examines native entanglements with mercantile and settler colonists in northern California.

Is the customary word "data" a good name for archaeological records and facts? "Data" means the things that are "given," but archaeological observations and facts are never given at all. Rather, they are captured by the researcher, who seeks to grasp from the material record the essentials of some complex and little-known phenomenon, often remote in time and usually ambiguous in material expression. We should prefer to use the better word "capta," the things that have been captured, and to realize that this word captures the essence of what we do.

A living Hopi village is used to develop architectural analogues to room use and social organization in the Pueblo Southwest. These models are then tested against prehistoric sites. For interpretation of room use, factors such as room size, room location, and number and location of doors are shown to be significant. Room size criteria are found to segregate room use in prehistoric sites dating at least as early as A.D. 860. The boundaries of households and lineages are determined by room use and presence or absence of doors between rooms. This model is limited to large, multiple-story pueblos and was tested on Hawikuh, a seventeenth-century Zuni town. The advantages and limitations of using architectural data for such behavioral models are discussed.

Ethnoarchaeology has, from its inception, suffered from the lack of a clear theoretical framework to productively link its two constituent parts: ethnography and archaeology. In this paper, I propose a framework that allows the integration of ethnographic and archaeological datasets at various levels of abstraction. I argue that it is only through innovative combinations of ethnography and archaeology, applied with proper caution and disclosure and at explicit levels of abstraction, that ethnoarchaeologists can hope to construct an ethnoarchaeology that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Paleoindian archaeology on the Great Plains is often characterized by the investigation of large mammal kill/butchery bonebeds with relatively high archaeological visibility. Extensively documented aspects of Paleoindian behavioral variability include the form and composition of weaponry systems, hunting strategies, carcass exploitation, and hunter mobility. Non-hunting oriented aspects of settlement and subsistence behavior are less documented. Information from Component 2 at the O.V. Clary site, in Ash Hollow, western Nebraska, lessens this imbalance of knowledge. It provides a fine-grained, spatially extensive record of Late Paleoindian (Allen Complex) activities at a winter base camp occupied for 5-7 months. This paper highlights elements of site structure and activity organization, emphasizing domestic behaviors including hearth use, site maintenance, and hide working. ArcGIS 9.3.1 (ESRI) and GeoDa 0.9.5-1 (Anselin 2003; Anselin et al. 2006) are employed in conjunction with middle-range observations and expectations to document and interpret spatial patterning in the distribution of over 57,000 artifacts, ecofacts, and red ochre nodules. More broadly, results are related to two models of Paleoindian residential mobility: the place-oriented model and the high-tech forager model. Rather than mutually exclusive scenarios, Component 2 indicates that these models reflect complementary structural poses within the overall behavioral system.

Up to the present time, some specialists have held to the view that on the American continent before the European colonization, there was no writing in the true sense of that word. The various systems of writing used by the Indians were regarded as pictographic or ideographic. However, it is now known with certainty that the civilized peoples of ancient America — the Maya, Zapotec, Olmec, and also the Quechua and Aymara — had hieroglyphic writing of the same type as that of the Old World, of China, Egypt, Sumeria, and so forth.