Through the use of the direct historical method and analysis of materials from more than 250 sites that indicate Southern Paiute occupation, a reconstruction of the culture history of this ethnic group is attempted. The data permit the following hypotheses: that the Southern Paiute were essentially a Desert culture people with the addition of agriculture in the south; that they entered the Southwest and the southern Great Basin about A.D. 1150 or slightly earlier from the north; that they did not develop from any of the Pueblo groups in the area; and that they maintained their maximum range until disrupted by European incursions between A.D. 1800 and 1860.

The archaeological sequence in the San Juan Islands is known best from two phases: the Marpole phase which occurs within the first millennium B.C., and the San Juan phase which lasts from at least A.D. 1300 to historic times. More difficult to place culturally and chronologically are: (1) the previously excavated bluff areas of Cattle Point which contain components similar to Whalen I and II and would thus occupy the time period between about 500 B.C. and A.D. 400; and (2) the Argyle Lagoon site which, though early, cannot be related definitely to other components because of insufficient excavation. Culture change is shown by increasing maritime adaptation through time and by the gradual replacement of the chipped stone industry by one using abrading and polishing techniques as the result of influence from the Old World.

How much stone tools are reduced and their form changed from first use to discard bears upon issues such as typological integrity, curation rate, and effects of occupation span. But degree of reduction depends partly upon the measures used to gauge it. Most studies involve single indices that gauge reduction in different ways or at different scales, so results are difficult to compare between studies. In this pilot study, we compare four allometric reduction measures—one each based on length, length:thickness ratio, volume, and mass, estimated by comparing observed values in discarded tools to estimated original values—for consistency when applied to an endscraper sample from the Nobles Pond Paleoindian site in Ohio, USA. Fitted to the Weibull distribution, all measures suggest attrition compared to experimental controls, but variation among them demands reconciliation. A multifactorial method that weights individual measures by their principal-component loadings suggests attritional discard at increasing rate as reduction advances. More importantly, it addresses the growing problem of reconciling the many reduction measures in use, a major concern in this expanding research area.

This paper argues that the recommendation by Fritz and Plog-that archaeologists adopt the Deductive-Nomological model of scientific explanation-mistakes a conceptual explication for a substantive recommendation. This misinterpretation results in the recommendation of tautologies. The detailed examination of this misinterpretation leads to an investigation of logical inference, the justification of the D-N model, the theory-laden nature of archaeological classificatory predicates, the epistemic status of the laws involved in this data-language, and the relation of the Fritz-Plog research program to the problem of devising and verifying worthwhile hypotheses in archaeology.

The goal of this paper is to identify the relationship between ceramic assemblages and household population. This ethnoarchaeological study among the Gamo of southwestern Ethiopia focuses on three villages and the relationship between household population and the ceramic life cycle and vessel uselife. The life cycle analysis in combination with vessel function reveals that household population could be interpreted from vessel frequency and volume. The non-pottery-producing village of Etello displays more correlations between household population and ceramic assemblages than do the two pottery-producing villages of Zuza and Guyla. Furthermore, vessel function plays a principal role in the association between uselife and household population.

Data from 22 Archaic sites in four ecologically similar regions in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia are compared to provide a synthesis of Archaic materials dating from the Anathermal to the first centuries of the Christian era in the Middle South. Stratigraphic evidence and radiocarbon dates make possible the establishment of two local sequences in western Tennessee where 15 components from ten sites can be assigned to six phases. These components are compared in terms of 83 traits through the use of the Z-coefficient described by Kroeber. Both the archaeological and the statistical analyses suggest the presence of two contemporaneous Archaic traditions in the area. The validity of this interpretation is tested by comparing the Tennessee materials with those from the Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia regions, again with the aid of the Z-coefficient. The Archaic phases of all four regions are assigned to the two traditions: Midcontinent tradition—Eva, Three Mile, Big Sandy (Tenn.), Indian Knoll, unnamed phase which includes the Parish, Ward, and Chiggerville sites (Ky.); Eastern tradition—Stallings Island (Ga.), Lauderdale (Ala.), Kays, Weldon, Ledbetter (Tenn.). The contacts between the Archaic and Woodland traditions and the lack of contact with Early Lithic cultures are discussed.

This study describes the symmetrical structure of hatched patterns in two ceramic types, Gallup Black-on-white and Chaco Black-on-white, made and used during the heyday of the Chaco network, A. D. 1050-1150. This design system represents a discontinuity in pattern, pattern formation, and structural symmetry from the previous decorative styles in the region. It consists of a limited repertoire of patterns formed by the continuous-line construction technique organized by a limited number of two-dimensional symmetries. These patterns are repeatedly painted on three specific vessel forms found especially in burials and storage rooms at Pueblo Bonito. Identical patterns from this Bonito repertoire are found at other great houses and small sites in great house communities throughout the San Juan Basin. The widespread distribution of this uniform design system is new evidence for the existence of institutionalized sociopolitical ties between Pueblo Bonito and the other great houses and small sites in the Chaco network. The implications of the homogeneous nature of this system and its sudden appearance without precedent will be addressed.

Although the archaeology of the “Eskimo” area need not be that of Eskimos, groups of people, by whatever name they are called, have lived continuously for at least 4000 years in Greenland, around the northern rim of Hudson Bay, on the American side of Bering Strait, and probably around the Pacific shores of Southwest Alaska. Shorter sequences of continuous occupation are known in many parts of the range, including St. Lawrence Island. Meaningful cross-analyses may be made from the coastal or near-coastal sites in which are preserved house, tent, burial, and cache remains, and sometimes whole villages. Sites of the interior are usually accumulations of projectile points and cutting-tools at game crossings, though some, for example, Firth River, Anaktuvuk Pass, and Dismal Lake, afford limited stratigraphy or means of seriation.

A sequence of cultural phases, perhaps those of two regional traditions, is emerging in the Bering Strait region. With this region as a focus, nine horizons are considered, beginning with the earliest: (1) Palisades I and British Mountain; (2) Palisades II, Tuktu, and Denali Highway; (3) Denbigh Flint complex and other microblade sites; (4) Old Whaling culture; (5) Choris, Early Aleut, Kachemak Bay I, and Sarqaq; (6) Norton and Dorset; (7) Okvik, Ipiutak, and Kachemak Bay II; (8) Old Bering Sea and Birnirk; (9) Punuk, Western Thule, and Thule. The two traditions are: (1) Palisades I, Palisades II, to Old Whaling culture, based on a distinctive flint-working technique, and later, the hafting of notched flints to wooden shafts; (2) Denbigh Flint complex, Battle Rock, Ipiutak, to Birnirk, based on side blading and engraving styles. The second of these American traditions parallels in its later period at least the Okvik to Birnirk tradition of the Asian side of the Bering Strait.

The earliest evidence consists of crude chopper-tools and percussion bifacing, followed much later by notched points, then successively by the combination of micro-blades, side-blades, and burins; whaling and deep-house building; pottery and the first midden mounds; elaboration of engraved art and ceremony; and finally by a specialized but utilitarian “Eskimo” form of culture. Minor climatic changes and related shifts in the food supply account for some of the shifts of cultural emphasis through time.

Dating of early Navajo residence and special use sites, ca. A.D. 1500-1775, has been hampered by a lack of datable materials and poor precision in radiocarbon results. Methods described in this paper use materials ubiquitous at early Navajo sites in northwestern New Mexico and employ a dual strategy involving tree-ring dating of nonarchitectural wood and thermoluminescence assay of ceramics and burned rock. Comparison of samples obtained from a number of sites near the Morris Site 1 pueblito indicates remarkable correspondence between tree-ring and thermoluminescence results. These techniques are argued to have considerable reliability for relatively recent cultural manifestations such as these early Navajo sites. Thermoluminescence in particular may be useful in protohistoric contexts where tree-ring dating is unavailable. The thermoluminescence technique has the added benefit of directly dating pottery sherds, which can be useful for developing ceramic cross-dating sequences.

The mound near Gila Bend, western Arizona, excavated between November, 1958, and February, 1959 for the National Park Service by the Arizona State Museum, was rebuilt, modified, and repaired through six major stages of construction. The platform mound in use at any given stage was flat-topped and slope-sided with rounded corners and an irregular squarish or subrectangular outline. The platforms were made of a caliche plaster, and the sides were faced with a plaster of mixed caliche and adobe, placed directly over the earth core. Evidence of pre-mound occupation was encountered underneath the platform mound and in an excavated pit structure near the southeast corner of the mound. The entire historical sequence revealed by this excavation took place within the Sacaton phase of the Hohokam culture which may have lasted from A.D. 900 or 950 to A.D. 1100 or 1150 in the Gila Bend area. The significance of this Hohokam mound complex is that it represents a northern extension of the Mexican pyramid idea.

Chenopodium seeds from Illinois Hopewell and Eastern Woodland contexts are described and discussed in terms of a hypothesis of a separate center of plant domestication in the East. Evidence for the role of plant foods in northern Hopewell subsistence is reviewed. Use of more refined field procedures for recovery of plant remains is recommended.

It has been thought that one of the most easily recognized types of flint used in the manufacture of stone tools in the Southern Plains is Amarillo or Alibates flint (Kidder 1932: 31, 44; Krieger 1946: 50, 62; Skinner 1956: 13). This flint has been widely recognized in Texas, central and western Oklahoma, southern Kansas, eastern Colorado and western New Mexico (Watson 1950: 32; Bell and Baerreis 1951: 84; Suhm and Krieger 1954: 71). The material has been dated as early as Folsom and as late as protohistoric (Roberts 1942: 18; Schmidt and Toldan 1953: 173; Baker, Campbell, and Evans 1957: 2).

Dillehay and Collins (1991) and Gruhn and Bryan (1991) claim that my review (Lynch 1990) was impaired by errors and misrepresentations, yet they identify only one significant error–the too-early date attributed to Toca do Sitio do Meio. Inspection of the sources shows that my article contained no misrepresentations of the public record available to me at the time of writing. Selective use of sources is necessary in a review of this scale. A careful reading of the primary sources, as well as the other papers cited, will show that I have not misquoted, misconstrued, or taken statements out of context. We are dealing with differences of interpretation and emphasis. There is no such thing as an “obsolete publication,” at least until the information in it has been retracted formally. Understandably, Gruhn and Bryan have been zealots for their pre-Paleoindian cause. Hardly neutral or dispassionate, they have over-reacted to my bringing the other side forward.

The state of Florida is mainly a peninsula projecting some three hundred miles south of the continental North American land mass. This unique position has given the state a certain amount of isolation, as a result of which, and because of environmental factors, Florida has been able to participate in the Southeastern cultural picture and at the same time to develop characteristic local features.

Although Florida has had a long history of archaeological research, with an impressive bibliography of descriptive material, synthesis has only recently been attempted. Some early attempts were made to divide the state into archaeological areas but none were of any significance until M. W. Stirling's recent four-fold division into the Gulf Coast, Glades, St. Johns, and Northern Highland areas. This division has been found, in general, to be useful, needing only greater refinement.

Bone grease rendering is a low-return activity well described in the ethnohistorical and ethnographic literature. However, identifying this activity in archaeological contexts is complex because diagnostic criteria are few. The goals of this article are twofold: (1) to provide new experimental data on bone grease manufacture for assemblages associated with severe fragmentation, and (2) to assess how these data can be used to make stronger inferences about skeletal fat processing in the archaeological record. The results presented here show that, despite some variation, several forms of damage appear to be diagnostic of bone grease manufacture, regardless of the degree of fragmentation. The results indicate that extensive pounding produces many fragments that can be identified as deriving from articular ends, which conflicts with the oft-cited notion that articular ends are destroyed “beyond recognition” during this activity. Consequently, assemblages with few epiphyseal remains are not consistent with bone grease rendering, assuming that the comminuted fragments were not burned or discarded off-site after boiling. Because bone grease manufacture produces many small fragments, a close analysis of the indeterminate remains is strongly recommended, as is the use of fine mesh screens (2 mm or smaller) in excavations.

This paper identifies a domain of inquiry that lies at the interface between archaeology and the philosophy of science. I argue that in the recent past archaeology has contributed little to the philosophy of science. This situation can change if archaeologists succeed in calling those issues or controversies that have genuine philosophical import to the attention of philosophers. This paper provisionally explores two such areas: first, the use of ecological principles to explain human behavior; and second, problems of confirmation in ethnoarchaeology.

Since the scientific recognition of a paleo-Indian occupation of the Southwest and high Plains, beginning with the Folsom discoveries in 1927 (Roberts, 1940), the presence of man in the eastern United States prior to the earliest demonstrated cultures of the Archaic period has been suspected on the evidence of random surface finds of fluted points. Some of these artifacts have typologically been equated with the Clovis Fluted form (Krieger, 1947, pp. 10-13), while the greater number, showing considerable stylistic variability, have provisionally been designated “Ohio Fluted points” (Shetrone, 1936, pp. 240-256; Wormington, 1949, pp. 33-35).

The hypothesis of an Intermontane Western tradition is advanced as a conceptual framework within which it is possible to achieve a greater understanding of the cultural histories of the Plateau, Great Basin, and Southwest culture areas, including broad and specific relationships and also the developing differences.

Geographically, the Intermontane Western tradition extended throughout the intermontane region between the Cascade-Sierra Nevada ranges on the west, and the Rocky Mountains on the east, and from southern British Columbia on the north to northern Mexico on the south. Temporally, the Intermontane Western tradition existed throughout the post-glacial period.

Within the major tradition, the Southwest Agricultural, Desert, and Northwest Riverine Areal traditions are seen developing, partly in response to environmental changes.

Fine orange pottery is one of the most distinctive wares in Mesoamerica. In an area where pottery generally is tempered it has no temper; it stands apart in having an especially homogeneous, fine-textured orange paste. Several types are recognized, including, in chronological order, Z, Y, X, V, U, and the problematical Isla de Sacrificios material. It is possible that there are other fine oranges but there is not now sufficient evidence to establish additional types. The letters used to identify the varieties are temporary designations which should be replaced with appropriate names when more complete data have been amassed.

Fluted projectile points of chipped flint have been found occasionally in Michigan and Wisconsin. Most, if not all of these, closely resemble the Clovis style of fluted point found in the west. There is some evidence indicating that the western Clovis points belong to a period older than 8000 B.C. A number of archaeologists, myself included, have assumed that the eastern varieties of fluted points are of approximately the same order of antiquity as the western points.