Although it is now commonplace for archaeologists to study use-alteration patterns on ceramics, the same cannot be said of one of the most ubiquitous classes of hunter-gatherer artifacts, fire-cracked rocks (FCR). It can be shown, however, that many of the same methods and theories applied to the study of cooking ceramics are also relevant to the investigation of rocks used as heating elements. Because use alteration analyses of FCR are so scarce, I describe a range of attributes with the goal of helping researchers identify use alterations (e.g., sooting, reddening, various fracturing patterns) on lithic artifacts from sites worldwide and evaluate their potential function in various cultural practices. These attributes are also outlined in order to create a standardized terminology for describing FCR use-alteration patterns. I discuss my analysis of FCR from three Late Archaic sites (Duck Lake, 913, and 914) on Grand Island in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, followed by an interpretation of their cooking contexts, as a case study. The results indicate great intersite variability among FCR characteristics, cooking methods, and cooking facilities (earth oven, stone boiling, and rock griddle). This use alteration analysis can be applied in archaeological contexts worldwide where similar materials are recovered.

Doubts that the Peruvian Indians could smelt copper ores in pre-Columbian times are unjustified, although archaeological evidence for the very effective wind furnaces described by early chroniclers is scanty. Oxide and carbonate ores from shallow deposits are more simply smelted than the sulfide ores, which required roasting of the crushed ore prior to reduction at a higher temperature. New evidence for the smelting of sulfide ore comes from chemical analysis of an ingot from the Province of lea, and suggests the need for restudy of older analyses and a search for new prehistoric metallurgical evidence.

An obsidian fluted point was found on the slope of a gorge near San Rafael, just west of Guatemala City. The point probably washed from hills on the thick beds of volcanics through which the gorge is cut. This would confirm previous beliefs that the paleo-Indian occupation of the area post-dates the volcanics. The San Rafael point resembles the fluted points from Costa Rica and Durango, Mexico, and Clovis forms from the eastern United States. Thus, paleo-Indian influences from the north into Middle America may have been of predominately eastern rather than western origins.

The methods of trend surface analysis, a form of regression analysis, are applied to complex archaeological surfaces, or response surfaces, derived from a series of points representing carved stone monuments in the Lowland Classic Maya region bearing the most recent dates. Results of a comparison of trend surface and residual maps produced and of an analysis of variance with expected maps do not support a strong west to east diffusionary trend for the collapse, nor a hypothesized invasion. Evidence is presented indicating the probable existence of five regional zones or sociopolitical spheres in the Late Classic whose existence may bear directly on the collapse through increased competition. The utility of the trend surface model is demonstrated, primarily as a method of formalized data description and as an aid in the building of process-response models.

The content and interpretation of the Olmec bas-reliefs at Chalcatzingo are discussed in this paper. This reanalysis shows that some of the most important carvings have apparently been misinterpreted in the past. Information concerning a new carving, previously unreported, is presented, and a reaffirmation of the contemporaneity of the Chalcatzingo carvings with Olmec Gulf Coast reliefs is made. Chalcatzingo is suggested as an important Middle Preclassic religious and trade center.

A phonetic and semantic interpretation of the directional glyphs in Maya inscriptions and codices reveals that they did not refer to the cardinal directions. The glyphs that have been identified previously with north and south can be read phonetically as zenith and nadir, respectively. The glyphs for east and west refer semantically to the rising and setting sun. These data support Clemency Coggins's recent suggestion that Classic Maya directional symbolism was related to the path of the sun across the sky and through the underworld, rather than to the cardinal directions.

The question of Fire-Cracked Rock (FCR) in Woodland contexts has become an important and controversial topic in Western Great Lakes archaeology. There are no clear and widely accepted criteria for distinguishing FCR when the rocks show no observable characteristics associated with fire (heating and cooling). To help overcome this shortcoming, we analyzed both the thermoluminescence (TL) and the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) of alkali feldspar grains from a series of six samples of FCR from the Hannaford site in northern Minnesota. A geologic unheated specimen from the same geographic area was used as a control sample. A comparison of the luminescence (TL and OSL) intensities of both natural and natural plus artificial dose signals allowed us to demonstrate that the six selected samples of FCR had been effectively heated at the time of archaeological settlement. The good agreement between the TL and OSL results suggests that the OSL method is a viable alternative to TL for the identification of FCR. The OSL method requires less material, can be applied to a large number of samples, and is more cost-effective.

The recent publication in Lima of a detailed, house-to-house 16th-century census of the Huanuco region in the Andean highlands, suggests the possibility of an archaeological investigation retracing the 1562 survey. The archaeological expressions of the several ethnic groups should be identified. The degree and nature of the Inca influences in a peasant area could be revealed. Eventually it should be possible to clarify archaeologically a variety of moot points in Inca social organization.

In 1991, test excavations were conducted at Hedgepeth Mounds (16L17), a two-mound complex in Lincoln Parish, Louisiana. Radiometric, archaeological, pedological, and geomorphological data suggest that the site dates to the Archaic period (6000-1500 B.C.). Charcoal from a hearth beneath Mound A dates to cal 2888 ± 100 B.C. A soil sample from the submound surface dates to cal 4930 ± 117 B.C. Two Archaic projectile points are among the artifacts from the submound surface. Diagnostic soil horizons in Mound A fill suggest the mound is of great antiquity. Soil cores from areas adjacent to Mound A have demonstrated that the living surface of the site is covered with approximately 1 m of alluvium, and that the alluvial mantle contains diagnostic soil horizons indicative of long-term weathering.

White Cat Village, a newly-explored site of the Dismal River Aspect, is located on Prairie Dog Creek about 3 miles above the point where it joins the Republican River from the south. The greater part of the village is included within a 70-acre field just southwest of the center of Section 24, Township IN, Range 18W, some 6 miles southeast of Alma, Harlan County, Nebraska. The village occupies an area approximately 1000 feet long and 250 feet wide, lying along a 30-foot bluff which forms the north bank of Prairie Dog Creek at this point (Fig. 70, e). The terrace on which the site is located will be a few feet under the normal level of the Harlan County Reservoir, and nearly 20 feet below the maximum level.

A preliminary survey of the village was made in November, 1946, by Marvin F. Kivett and J. M. Shippee, for the Missouri River Basin Survey.

Recent research within the Quiche Basin of Highland Guatemala has revealed at least 117 sites with remains suggestive of Paleoindian and Archaic periods of occupation. Partly because these artifacts are predominantly of a gray, fine-grained basalt rather than obsidian, we have been able to rapidly recognize surface indications of these occupations. Tentative settlement patterns for these time periods are discussed. These patterns-particularly the Archaic pattern-suggest that early human occupation may have been somewhat different in the Quiche Basin from patterns defined for other areas of Mesoamerica. This may be due to the environmental conditions of the areas involved.

A recent identification of ramon in Miranda's sixteenth-century relacion of Alta Verapaz more likely describes achiote. There is very little archaeological evidence to suggest that ramon was more than a famine food in ancient Maya times.

This paper analyzes the culture history of the little-known Okhotsk culture and makes suggestions about its relationships with neighboring cultures. The Okhotsk culture is important in understanding the cultural history of the northern Pacific because it shows no affinities with the Ainu and Japanese cultures and has an economy remarkably like that of the more distant Aleut and Eskimo. The Okhotsk culture appears to have historical relationships with cultures in Siberia and Manchuria. The maritime hunting economy of this culture was probably derived from the Eskimo via Bering Sea and the Siberian coast. Other cultural elements, the most noticeable being ceramics, were of mainland origin and served as an influential force in forming Okhotsk culture. Once established on Sakhalin, this culture moved southward along the northeastern coast of Hokkaido, where a secondary and later cultural center developed. Migrations up the Kuriles occurred shortly thereafter. This culture probably flourished for at least a thousand years, beginning in Sakhalin several centuries before Christ and persisting until sometime after A.D. 1000 and possibly until the 17th century in the Kuriles. Several unsolved problems concerning the Okhotsk culture are presented.

Crawford and Smith have developed important new evidence that bears on the hypothesis that the Northern Iroquoians migrated into the lower Great Lakes region sometime after A.D. 900. Clarification of the Princess Point Complex in Ontario forces a revision of the hypothesis. While an Appalachian origin for the Northern Iroquoians and their subsequent migration is not rejected, new evidence strongly suggests that the population shift took place three centuries earlier than I previously proposed. The situation calls for both further refinement of paleodemographic theory and new empirical research into Owasco and other earlier Northern Iroquoian complexes.

Faunal analysis suggests that before the retreat of the Wisconsin glaciers from North America, the occupants of the Valley of Tehuacan, Puebla, engaged in communal drives of jackrabbit (and possibly pronghorn antelope as well). With the arrival of the present (warmer) climatic regime, antelope and jackrabbit were replaced by whitetailed deer and cottontail, and all evidence of communal drives ceased. This change, which has interesting implications from the standpoint of interband cooperation, is not reflected in either artifacts or settlement patterns as presently rscoverable by archaeologists. It also suggests that the nature of the post-Pleistocene "readaptation" in semi-tropical America differed from that postulated for the northern temperate regions.

Mississippian sites are generally believed to fall into one of three categories: paramount political center, local political center, and farmstead. Elites lived at paramount and local centers while the rest of a polity’s population lived in scattered farmsteads. Archaeologists identify paramount and local centers by the presence of earthen mounds and usually classify all small sites without mounds as farmsteads. In this examination of rural settlement in the Moundville chiefdom, I argue that there was more variation in Mississippian landscapes than the traditional tripartite site classification scheme allows. The vessel assemblage from 1TU66, a small site in the Black Warrior Valley, does not reflect domestic activities, but rather suggests that this site was a place where neighbors gathered to share food as a community.

The Oak Hill Village (41RK214) in northeastern Texas is a prehistoric (ca. A.D. 1150–1450) Caddo settlement that was completely excavated in the mid-1990s prior to lignite mining activities. Analysis of the architectural remains, key calibrated radiocarbon dates, and changes in ceramic decorations, indicates that the village evolved as three temporally and spatially different communities composed of a number of separate households. Emerging in the latter two communities were important social institutions (a plaza, an earthen mound, and specialized structures with extended entranceways) that bound this singular Caddo community together for approximately 150–200 years (ca. A.D. 1250–1450).

The introduction of the Colonial period culture of the Hohokam of southern Arizona derived from northern Mexico, and its diffusion in one form or another is traced north and east through Arizona. On the basis of changes in settlement patterns, architectural structures, and other material traits, a tentative reconstruction of sociological, ceremonial, and other intangible aspects of the early cultural developments in southern Arizona is attempted.

Much of the discussion about North American precontact and contact-period populations has focused on continent-wide estimates. Although the associated work has produced valuable information on the demographic and cultural history of the continent, it has failed to generate agreed-upon estimates, population trends, or detailed demographic knowledge of Native American cultures. Using archaeological settlement remains and methods developed in recent research on Iroquoian cultures, this study estimates and examines population trends for the Onondaga and Oneida cultures of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) from A.D. 1500 to 1700. Onondaga population appears to have increased until the mid—seventeenth century, when drastic declines in settlement area and population size occurred. This depopulation event is both several decades after first contact with Europeans and at least a decade after the first known depopulation event among the Haudenosaunee. Oneida populations show a much more complex history that suggests the need for more detailed analyses of contact-period Native American population data. In conjunction with archaeological evidence and ethnohistoric information, the population trends generated by this study create a model of two precontact Native American populations and display the effects of European contact on those populations.

The Forum article “Grand Challenges for Archaeology” (Kintigh et al. 2014) defines a number of leading research topics derived from a crowd-sourcing report and parsed by a panel of archaeologists. The questions focus on scientific subjects with high funding potential, amenable to addressing contemporary problems. Although the grand challenges put forth do represent many of the key issues being pursued by archaeologists today, I argue that they will impact a more limited audience than envisioned by the authors due to their emphasis on transhistorical processes and their lack of emphasis on the larger social and political implications of our research.