There is no recorded maize (Zea mays spp. mays) from sites predating circa cal AD 800 in the northern Lake Michigan or Lake Superior basins of the western Great Lakes, despite the presence of maize microbotanicals including phytoliths and starches in Michigan, New York, and Quebec as early as 400 cal BC. To evaluate the potential for an earlier maize presence in the northern Lake Michigan basin, samples of carbonized food residues adhering to 16 ceramic vessels were obtained from the Winter site (20DE17) located on the Garden Peninsula in the northern Lake Michigan basin. Each sample was split and sent to two analysts. Both analysts identified low incidences of maize starch and phytoliths in multiple samples, with overlapping identifications on several. Three direct accelerator mass spectrometry dates on the carbonized residues reveal maize incorporated into the residues as early as the second century cal BC, 800 years before any regional macrobotanical evidence. Although the method of dispersal cannot be determined, these results support the proposition that initial northern dispersal of maize in the region may have been nearly 800 years earlier than macrobotanical evidence would suggest and is consistent with the timing of its introduction to the lower Great Lakes area.

A preliminary report has already been made on the Finley site,2 located in Sweetwater County, southwestern Wyoming, in the southeast corner of the N.E. ¼ of Section 25, Township 24 N., Range 106 W., about four and a half miles east and a little south of the town of Eden, which itself is approximately thirty-seven miles northwest of Rock Springs. The altitude of the site is approximately 6750 feet.

The Presence in the southern California coastal region of prehistoric cultures showing considerable use of milling stones has been recognized for some years. Attention was called to this fact by the publication in 1929 of David Banks Rogers’ Prehistoric Man of the Santa Barbara Coast. Rogers distinguished a sequence of three aboriginal cultures in the Santa Barbara area, the earliest of which (Oak Grove) was characterized by the employment of this form of grinding implement almost to the exclusion of other artifacts. In the same year Malcolm J. Rogers noted a somewhat analogous complex (now La Jolla) in western San Diego County (M. J. Rogers 1929: 456-7). Occurrences of similar assemblages have been reported upon since (Treganza and Malamud 1950; Walker 1952).

An investigation conducted at the Little Sycamore site (Ven 1) in Ventura County by a class in archaeological field methods from the University of Southern California uncovered evidence of yet another milling stone complex.

Teeth of Vildivia Period C Indians lack caries, a fact inconsistent with suggestions for intensive agriculture at this time (ca. 2000 B.C.) in coastal Ecuador.

A reexamination of the data presented by Shafer and Hester (1983) indicates that the level of specialized production and volume of intersite exchange of chert tools in the area of Colha has been greatly overstated. Evaluation of rates of production over time suggests that at most a few thousand chert tools were produced per year at Colha, indicating a very low level of specialization, if any. The context of the chert debitage deposits is suggestive of domestic production for household use, rather than the “industrial-level mass production” postulated by Shafer and Hester.

Charred remains of Bison antiquus recovered in 1950 from lacustrine sediments at the Lubbock Lake archaeological site (Southern High Plains of Texas) yielded a radiocarbon age of 9,883 ± 350 years B.P. (C-558). The bone was believed to be from the Folsom occupation of the site and the date was considered to be the first for the Folsom culture in North America. Although the feature that contained the bone was correlated with bone beds that contained Folsom points found elsewhere at the site, the dated feature did not contain diagnostic artifacts and direct correlations with the Folsom features were not possible. Excavations at the site since 1973 provide data that demonstrate that the feature that produced the historic date is stratigraphically above the Folsom horizon. Sediment samples taken from the feature have yielded radiocarbon ages of 8,585 ± 145 years B.P. (SI-5499) and 8,130 ± 80 years B.P. (SMU-1089). These ages further demonstrate that the feature is from a post-Folsom occupation, and probably represents the Firstview occupation of the site. The Lindenmeier site, Colorado, probably produced the first radiocarbon age for the Folsom culture.

This question, which was answered affirmatively as early as 1716 by the missionary Velarde and more recently by some archaeologists, is reviewed in terms of trend and tradition through the archaeological and ethnographic sequence, ceramic, architectural, and other comparisons, the acculturational history of Pimas and Yumans, the broader context of the postcontact period, and the complete lack of archaeological evidence for the prehistoric Pima. The concept of a Hohokam-Pima continuum is accepted, although aboriginal Pima culture is seen as a product of multiple cultural influences.

Forty-two obsidian artifacts from the Chantuto Zone, Chiapas, Mexico, have been analyzed by neutron activation analysis, and fifteen artifacts were reanalyzed using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. These artifacts date to the Chantuto phase (3000-2000 B.C.), late in the Archaic period, and to a later period or periods. These analyses have made it possible to compare the two methods of analysis and also have made it possible to assign an obsidian source to each artifact. It has been shown that the majority of the obsidian originated from Tajumulco, with smaller amounts coming from El Chayal during the Chantuto phase and from El Chayal, San Martin Jilotepeque, and Pachuca during the late period.

The article recently published by Sabloff and Smith (AMER. ANT. 34:278-286, 1969) adds little beyond elaboration to archaeological classification and further tends to perpetuate some common and basic errors. Some of these flaws are noted along with their manifestation in the type-variety system as propounded by Sabloff and Smith, and a direction to solution is indicated.

Historical zooarchaeologists have made significant contributions to key questions about the social, economic, and nutritional dimensions of domestic animal use in North American colonial contexts; however, techniques commonly employed in faunal analyses do not offer a means of assessing many important aspects of how animals were husbanded and traded. We apply isotopic analyses to faunal remains from archaeological sites to assess the social and economic importance of meat trade and consumption of local and foreign animal products in northeastern North America. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of 310 cattle and pigs from 18 rural and urban archaeological sites in Upper Canada (present-day southern Ontario, Canada; ca. A.D. 1790–1890) are compared with livestock from contemporary American sources to quantify the importance of meat from different origins at rural and higher- and lower-status urban contexts. Results show significant differences between urban and rural households in the consumption of local animals and meat products acquired through long-distance trade. A striking pattern in urban contexts provides new evidence for the social significance of meat origins in historical Upper Canada and highlights the potential for isotopic approaches to reveal otherwise-hidden evidence for social and economic roles of animals in North American archaeology.

Chemical and microscopic analyses of material from eight structures at Palenque show that mortars, plasters, stuccos, wash coats, and lime-aggregates were used as building units, and extend the distribution of limeaggregate, known also at Comalcalco, Las Flores, and Uxmal.

The availability both of documentary data on the history of the Hopi pueblo of Walpi and of tree-ring dates from the village provides a rare opportunity to evaluate tree-ring interpretations in the light of independent chronological evidence. Three major events in the history of the community are reflected in the village's overall tree-ring date distribution: the initial settlement around A.D. 1400 of the site of Koechaptevela, located on the flank of First Mesa, the movement of the community around A.D. 1690 to the present location of Walpi on top of First Mesa, and the reconstruction of much of the village between A.D. 1880 and 1940. Analysis of the overall date distribution and of dates from individual rooms shows that many timbers in the village have been reused, sometimes more than once. For this reason, interpretation must rely on date clusters, though even they can be misleading when beams procured at the same time have been reused as a group. The significance of beam reuse to the interpretation of Walpi's tree-ring dates is a function, first, of the relocation of the village over a short distance around 1690 and, second, of the village's survival for almost 600 years. Because of Walpi's size and longevity, patterning in the pueblo's tree-ring evidence is most relevant to the interpretation of large, long-lived prehistoric and protohistoric sites in the Southwest. Historical details provided by tree-ring evidence are also likely to be of special interest to Native Americans, such as the Hopi, who live in these pueblos still.

In the spring of 1937 I first saw beveled artifacts in Florida. They were in the extensive catalogued collection of Florida Indian artifacts gathered by the H. H. Simpson family of High Springs, Florida. During that year, two specimens of the same type of beveled artifact were published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. These latter specimens had been excavated from a pit of pluvial gravel near Clovis, New Mexico, by a field party led by Dr. Edgar B. Howard during the summer of 1936. The three Florida artifacts described herein were found, in a total of seven pieces, by the Simpsons, beginning in June, 1927, in the bed of a Florida river.

The New Mexico artifacts were found in cultural association with typical “Folsom” chipped points; both beveled artifacts and Folsom points were in close physical association with skeletal remains of extinct animals.

The proposition is advanced that archaeologists are not justified in considering pollen analysis a technique of investigation restricted to the biological or earth scientist. This is shown not to be true in theory because of the nature of the technique itself. Comparison of pollen studies of samples from archaeological proveniences on the Colorado Plateau serves to illustrate the fact that research designs in pollen analysis do actually allow collection of cultural data and directly serve the purposes of cultural reconstruction. The comparison also serves to summarize the nature of the archaeological and nonarchaeological pollen research carried on to date in this region. A second portion of the paper synthesizes much of the available information for the presentation of a reconstruction of effective moisture variation on the Colorado Plateau over the past 1,500 years. This reconstruction was designed to serve the purposes of archaeological chronology and cultural ecology in the region. It also illustrates the flexibility of pollen analytic research as a technique of archaeology.

Very little has been published to date relating to the manufacture of early buttons. This is particularly true of plain, nonmilitary buttons which lack makers' names on their backs. Enough evidence has been assembled from dated garments or excavations to warrant a description of basic button styles, particularly when these styles can be assigned dates of manufacture to aid the archaeologist in the interpretation of his sites.

In science, understanding the relationship between data and problems is crucial to successful research. When problems are imposed on the data and its organization-instead of addressing the empirical subject matter of the discipline-a major epistemological difficulty arises. What domains of knowledge can reliably inform about the imposed problem? I suggest that the many claims that all data are "theory dependent" are primarily accurate in those instances when a problem is imposed on a body of data. This is the approach of humanities. When a problem is recognized in the context of pattern recognition studies that are focused on data generated from the study of one"s subject matter, a different relationship exists between data and theory and fruitful theory building becomes possible. The latter is the approach of science. Central to this contrast is the issue of where problems come from.

Ethnographic data indicate that historically, ceramic specialization is strongly correlated with agricultural and economic marginality. Where such specialization is concentrated geographically, it often is found in areas having agriculturally poor lands (Arnold 1985). Although this association is well established for modern-day and historic peasant communities, the degree to which this pattern extended into prehistory is unknown. In this paper, I evaluate the applicability of the agricultural marginality model to the prehistoric American Southwest by considering evidence from six areas where specialized pottery production is known to have occurred. The data from these areas suggest that, in the prehistoric Southwest, agricultural marginality was not the primary or sole factor leading to the adoption of part-time ceramic specializations. To understand why the ethnographic model does not apply to the prehistoric Southwest, attention must be focused on understanding the differing social and economic contexts within which prehistoric farmers and historic and modern-day peasants operated.

Aquatic fauna, and fish in particular, have had an important place in a number of theories of the development of complex cultural manifestations. Using experimental data, a number of specific characteristics of fish usage in riverine evironments have been evaluated. In one case 45.5 kg of fish were harvested in 4 man-hours from a floodplain slough using only two logs. The energy represented by the catch was sufficient for 9.9 man-days or a return of 60 to 1 [60 hours of energy per hour of labor]. Sufficient protein was produced for a return of 384 to 1 [384 hours of protein per hour of labor]. The species composition of the catch was also informative, with 50% of the weight contributed by gizzard shad, Dorosoma cepedianum, a small fish. It is demonstrated that archaeological recovery techniques are heavily biased against the recovery of gizzard shad and other small fish remains. The nature of this bias and considerations for compensation are discussed.

The use of xeroradiography as a new archaeological tool is illustrated in the study of ceramic, stone, and wood artifacts. A brief comparison with conventional x-ray is given.

The Holly Oak pendant is a shaped piece of marine whelk (Busycon sinistrum) shell with two holes drilled in one end that bears an incised depiction of an extinct proboscidean (woolly mammoth or mastodon). It allegedly was recovered in 1864 from an archaeological site in Delaware. There was speculation in the 1970s as to its age and significance, and it was illustrated and cited as a Paleoindian artifact of Pleistocene age. Subsequent analyses indicated the artifact was fraudulent: The engraving probably was done in the 1880s on a shell recovered from an archaeological site. This has been confirmed by a recently obtained AMS radiocarbon date. The Holly Oak pendant is a modern forgery.