An analysis of cotton remains from Huaca Prieta on the north Peruvian coast, dating from circa 2500 B.C. to circa 750 B.C., indicates that they were probably primitive forms of G. barbadense L. and similar in most features to those previously examined from sites in the Ancon area of the central coast (Stephens and Moseley 1974). As in the Ancon materials, there is a tendency for seed size, boll size and fiber width to increase from the earlier to later levels. Most of the Ancon materials belonged to the Preceramic Period, while at Huaca Prieta both Preceramic and Initial Periods are represented. Only fuzzy seeds were found among the Ancon materials and among the Preceramic materials recovered from Huaca Prieta. Tufted seeds first appear during the Initial Period at Huaca Prieta; it is the prevailing type among present-day cultivars, and may have been favored under human selection because their fibers are much more readily removed from the seeds by hand. It is believed that fuzzy seeds represent the more primitive condition; it is the prevailing type among present-day wild forms of G. barbadense. It remains a question whether the tufted seeds at Huaca Prieta originated as mutants in the locally cultivated fuzzy seeded types, or whether they were new forms, introduced along with pottery and other crop plants from elsewhere. None of the cotton materials so far examined from Peruvian coastal sites show affinities with cottons still extant in the Amazon Basin, and no wild, or apparently wild, forms of G. barbadense have yet been found east of the Andes.

The late Pleistocene–early Holocene archaeological record of the interior Pacific Northwest is dominated by what has been regionally referred to as the Western Stemmed Tradition (WST). While various efforts have attempted to clarify the chronology of this tradition, these have largely focused on data from the Great Basin and have been disproportionately preoccupied with establishing the beginning of the tradition due to its temporal overlap with Clovis materials. Specifically focusing on the Columbia Plateau, we apply a series of Bayesian chronological models to create concise estimates of the most likely beginning, end, and span of the WST. We then further explore its chronology by modeling its temporal span under various parameters and criteria so as to better identify places in the chronology that need further work and those that are robust regardless of data iteration. Our analysis revealed four major findings: (1) WST conservatively dates between 13,000 and 11,000 cal BP, likely extending to ~13,500 cal BP; (2) the most problematic period for WST is its termination; (3) the WST is incredibly long-lived compared to roughly contemporary Paleoindian traditions; and (4) the WST was seemingly unaffected by the onset of the Younger Dryas.

This article offers insights into the organization of Scioto Hopewell craft production and examines the implications of this organization through the lens of ritual economy. We present a novel analysis of investigations at the North 40 site, concluding that it is a craft production site located on the outskirts of the renowned Mound City Group. High-resolution landscape-scale magnetic survey revealed a cluster of three large structures and two rows of associated pits; one of the buildings and three of the pits were sampled in excavations. Evidence from the North 40 site marks this as the best-documented Scioto Hopewell craft production site. Mica, chert, and copper were crafted here in contexts organized outside the realm of domestic household production and consumption. Other material remains from the site suggest that crafting was specialized and embedded in ceremonial contexts. This analysis of the complex organization of Scioto Hopewell craft production provides grounds for further understanding the elaborate ceremonialism practiced by Middle Woodland (AD 1–400) societies and adds to the known complexity of craft production in small-scale societies. Furthermore, this article contributes to a growing body of literature demonstrating the utility of ritual economy as a framework for approaching the sociality of small-scale societies.

Industrial and medical x-radiography can be used in a manner analogous to back-scattered electron microscopy to identify the approximate mineralogy of rock temper particles in ceramics, but without their destruction by thin-sectioning, and at low cost. Particle traits similar to those used in petrography to identify a mineral are visible in a magnified x-radiograph. The traits include particle x-radiographic gray level, which varies with a particle’s mean atomic number, specific gravity, and mineralogy; size; morphology; cleavage; and internal texture. Blind tests are made to evaluate the specificity and accuracy of the method. Its utility is shown through a study of the exchange of Ohio Middle Woodland ceramics.

A secondary burial of at least 30 individuals was excavated on Polacca Wash south of the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. This burial does not match either the prehistoric or contemporary Hopi pattern and cannot be duplicated in the recorded habits of surrounding tribes. Slight evidence favors a prehistoric placement. The formal arrangement of the burial, with skulls around the periphery and the remainder of the bones within the outline, suggests a magico-religious rite.

In recent years, the archaeology of Native American sites in colonial contexts has increased our understanding of how indigenous communities persisted in challenging times. Greater attention to practices helps to create a more enriched picture, especially when set in the context of food and consumption. This article considers shellfish remains excavated from three households on the Eastern Pequot reservation, located several kilometers Inland from the Connecticut coast in southern New England, to explore the role that shellfish gathering played in eighteenth-century subsistence and social practices in Native New England. Household variability in the specific species and quantity consumed, as well as disposal methods, provide insight into internal community decision making. Moreover, eighteenth-century reservation demographics strongly accentuate the role of women in the provision of these foodstuffs and in maintaining cultural connections to the coast and other off-reservation communities. Practices of gathering and consuming shellfish thus provide vectors of change and continuity in Native American communities of colonial New England, showing how these practices represent not only connections to a deeper past, but also ongoing and even resurging practices to engage with a colonial present.

Elaborate rock paintings from several rock shelters in the central part of Baja California are reported and described. The paintings are assigned to the Comondú culture on the basis of artifacts found in the shelters, one of which yielded a radiocarbon date of A.D. 1435 ± 80. The paintings apparently served as hunting magic. The complexity of the rock art and the wealth of sites and paintings suggest a somewhat more advanced culture than reported by the Spanish.

Test excavations made in the spring of 1964 along the Salt River near Mesa, Arizona, by personnel from the Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, provide new data on the earliest Hohokam. The Red Mountain site produced inhumations, a burial cairn, a different grinding-tool complex, and other items previously unknown in early Hohokam associations. Since only Vahki Plain and Vahki Red pottery are present, the site might be designated Vahki phase; however, this designation alone would obscure and ignore the important differences that are present. There are several better interpretations, two about equally plausible: (1) since the only other excavations in early Hohokam sites in the Red Mountain area have also produced inhumations and at least one other burial cairn, and these sites span the Pioneer period, one can emphasize the persistence of differences in the Red Mountain area by identifying a "Red Mountain branch" Hohokam at least through the Pioneer period; hence, Vahki phase, Red Mountain branch. This designation employs a traditional South-western concept. On the other hand (2) if one subscribes to the hypothesis that both Mogollon and Hohokam are derived from the San Pedro stage Cochise, the Red Mountain data support the identification of a phase transitional between San Pedro stage and Vahki phase — Red Mountain phase. This latter interpretation does not preclude a Red Mountain branch.

The writers recently examined the famous Cerro de las Navajas obsidian mines described by William H. Holmes. Evidence was found there of extensive Aztec period working. The high proportion of mines to workshops suggests that the obsidian was only roughly processed at the mines, most of it having been carried elsewhere to be worked into final form.

Tambo Colorado is the name given to a group of buildings standing on the north bank of the Pisco River in southern Peru, 45 km. east of the Panamerican Highway. These buildings are definitely Incaic, but were built on an earlier site, and are no more than a very small portion of a large occupied area extending to the west, north, and east of the buildings.

Both banks of the Pisco River were densely populated during Precolumbian times, and establishments much larger than Tambo Colorado can be observed in the area.

Sulphur Springs Woman, an early human burial, was recovered from alluvial deposits dated between 8,200 and 10,000 years before the present in Whitewater Draw, southeastern Arizona. These are the oldest human remains from the Southwest and are some of the oldest in North America. These bones provide data on the earliest inhabitants of the New World.

Archaeologists interpreting the patterns of prehistory in the American Southwest have been influenced dramatically by the obtrusiveness of certain kinds of archaeological remains and by the remarkable record of continuity they suggest. Low-visibility archaeological remains and discontinuous developmental sequences have been accorded only minor significance in southwestern prehistory, in spite of the fact that occupational "discontinuities" are evident in the archaeological record of many regions. In this paper, two examples are presented to show how low-visibility archaeological remains support a discontinuous model of cultural development on the Colorado Plateaus.

Archaeological accounts of the spread of agriculture tend to favor either (im)migration/demic diffusion or in situ development/stimulus diffusion. Having moved away from the early twentieth-century's community-wide migration model for Iroquoian origins in the Lower Great Lakes region and southern Ontario in particular, orthodox archaeological belief over the past half-century had come to place Northern Iroquoian speakers in the area since at least 2,000 years ago and likely much earlier. In what appear to be modified versions of the older migrationist arguments, contemporary thought within archaeology once more seems to allow that wholesale relocations were responsible for bringing farming into the region. It has been suggested, for example, that Northern Iroquoian speakers entered southern Ontario as recently as the early or middle centuries of the first millennium A.D. In this paper, I recount the routes this debate has taken and show that the appearance of maize (Zea mays) agriculture, alongside a few other materials, has come to be bound up with documenting the arrival of Northern Iroquoian-speaking communities. I conclude by reiterating the cautions advised by a number of researchers for how we read past ethnicity from archaeological materials and the role this plays in contemporary political discourse between First Nations and others.

Although the Mississippian standard jar, a specific vessel form found in many parts of the Mississippian cultural world, has long been recognized as a utilitarian cooking pot, the important connection between this ceramic form and maize has largely been overlooked. By focusing on the Mississippian site of Moundville located in the Black Warrior valley of west-central Alabama, I propose that the Mississippian standard jar was not simply a general cooking pot, but instead a specialized culinary tool used to nixtamalize maize. As such, both the vessel and the plant were part of a cohesive ancestral hominy foodway. This relationship is demonstrated in two ways: first, by articulating both the hominy foodway and the antecedent nut foodway practiced between A.D. 1020–1260; and, second, by exploring changes in the morphology and use-alteration patterns of the Moundville Mississippian standard jars recovered from contexts dating to the Moundville I-III phases(A.D. 1120–1520). The relationship between vessel and food demonstrated here suggests a practice- and taste-based model for the synergistic relationship long recognized between maize and the emergence of the Mississippian civic-ceremonial center of Moundville.

In 1963 archaeological investigations were conducted by the Arizona State Museum in a series of Hohokam sites on the Gila River Indian Reservation of south-central Arizona. Significant data were derived from two of the eight sites tested. One site, Arizona U:13:9, included two small villages. The earlier village was first occupied during the Snaketown phase, which is estimated to date between A.D. 300 and 500. Occupation continued through the Sacaton phase or until about A.D. 1100. The later village was occupied during two phases of the Classic period, or from A.D. 1100 to about 1450. At this ruin both inhumations and cremations, apparently contemporaneous, were found in a distinct burial zone. The patterning noted in the placement of these two types of burials is a new feature for the Hohokam Classic period. The other site, Arizona U:13:11, a small Soho phase village that was occupied between A.D. 1100 and 1300, is important for the support it adds to the establishment of a pattern of burial placement during the Classic period.

A sample of Stallings and Orange series ceramics from riverine and coastal sites in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida was analyzed for fiber content. A portion of each sherd was macerated in acids to release fibrous tempering agents. The fibers, as well as other potentially identifiable materials, were then isolated from the maceration and examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). A comparison with published anatomical descriptions and fresh plant material revealed that the Stallings series sherds contained fibers and scales of Tillandsia usneoides L. (Spanish moss). Fiber-tempered sherds of the Orange series from the Bluffton midden in Florida also contained Spanish moss, although it cannot be demonstrated at present that Spanish moss was the primary tempering agent of Orange series ceramics.

The technological analysis of a collection of cores, flakes, unifaces, and bifaces from a Chickasaw site in northeast Mississippi makes it clear that the lithic industry was substantially reorganized to meet the functional demands of the early eighteenth-century colonial economy. The focus of this industry was a distinctive, well-made end scraper. Similar tools occur throughout the Midwest during late prehistoric times and extend into the middle Mississippi River valley during the protohistoric. Although the Midwest scrapers are likely a response to the spread of bison into that region, a study of the distribution of the Chickasaw tool kit in time and space suggests that it was used to process deer skins, the primary focus of the trade with the French and English in the Southeast. However, stone scrapers are not found on all early eighteenth-century Chickasaw sites. The historical documents suggest that some villages were more successful in their trade relations with the Europeans and were therefore able to replace stone tools with metal at an earlier date. An examination of the occurrence of stone tools throughout the Southeast during the early historic period indicates that relative distance to ports of trade was the primary determinant of the rate at which stone-tool technology was abandoned.

Archaeological investigations in the Southwestern field proceed apace. New facts and fancies burst forth in such profusion that the trend of the studies is well-nigh obscured by the complexity of information emanating from the area. The specialists at times find it difficult to comprehend developments. Hence there is little wonder that students and laymen are prone to succumb to a sense of futility when they view the welter of material on the subject. To many the archaeology of the Southwest now seems so involved, so cluttered with minutiae that it has become dull and stupid and can no longer be regarded as the source for a fascinating story of the cultural and material growth of a primitive people. Yet the new chapters being added are even more interesting than those with which most people are familiar.

The aim of this article is to describe and discuss the use of archaeological survey in the Mediterranean area during recent decades. Emphasis will be placed on research conducted since World War II, and I will concentrate primarily on Greece and the Western Mediterranean. In this context, surveys centering on later prehistoric and historic periods will receive most attention. Note that even within these areas of concentration, this article cannot claim to be exhaustive. It is my intention to discuss the highlights of this rapidly developing field.

In recent years there have been some differences of opinion among archaeologists as to the probable use of artifacts shaped like arrowheads but larger than the small so-called “bird points” and ranging in length up to 4 or 5 inches. Some think they are too large and heavy for arrowpoints and must be either knives or spear points. In an attempt to throw some light on this question, tests were made using points varying in weight from that of the smallest “bird points” up to that of spear heads.