Moseley's contention that coastal Peruvian civilization was founded on a maritime subsistence economy is challenged, and the evidence that he used to substantiate his claim is re-examined. It is argued that: (1) the number of calories represented by the faunal remains in the late preceramic sites of the central coast is too few to have supported more than a simple hunter-gatherer society; (2) the potential productivity of the agricultural food plants present in the preceramic sites has been grossly underestimated; (3) biases in the preservation of sites and of food remains in the sites have not been considered sufficiently in drawing conclusions from the data; and (4) when considered in relation to the hydrology of the Peruvian coast, the distribution of the late preceramic sites indicates a dependence on flood-plain agriculture.

The use of ethnohistoric and ethnographic data in interpreting evidence for prehistoric ritual activity is highly controversial in Mesoamerican circles. This paper traces the long history of a Maya ceremony identified as the cuch rite. Although transformations in characters and symbols have occurred, continuity is also evident. Application of the ethnohistorical approach has suggested that a large corpus of ancient art depicts fertility and accession ceremonies. The stag appears to have been a major agricultural supernatural in Maya religion.

Recent studies of sixteenth century Quiche-Maya society have resulted in a sociocultural reconstruction based on the integration of archaeological and ethnohistorical data sets. Certain aspects of the internal social system of two contemporaneous settlement centers are examined in the context of this model and correspondences are noted. Contradictions between data sets suggest the applicability of an explicitly dialectical perspective.

We examine the process of political development in relation to selected social and economic variables in the plateau region of the American Southwest. We argue that political development was closely associated with strategies of agricultural intensification, surplus production, changes in the organization and management of labor, and expanding regional exchange. We draw supporting data from several settlement systems and attempt to demonstrate that both exotic and labor-intensive commodities were restricted to political and economic centers. We then examine the distribution of one category of these materials, ceramics, through application of the "production step" measure. Our analysis suggests that access to highly decorated ceramic items was restricted to individuals residing at the largest centers. Traditional interpretations of the political organization of plateau region prehistoric groups stress their egalitarian qualities. We suggest that such interpretations be re-examined in the light of data and arguments presented here.

Due to excessive adherence to theoretical "first principles" and consequent erroneous superficial textual analyses, Carrasco overstates political control over land and labor and understates the importance of marketing and forces of supply and demand in Aztec economies. The lack of evidence for price regulation and for the enforcement of sumptuary laws is exposed, while other evidence which indicates that the Texcocan (and other) tribute systems depended in many ways on Mesoamerican marketing systems is pointed out. The inadequacies in Carrasco's comments on the scale of Texcocan tribute income are evaluated along with the lack of diachronic depth in his analyses.

An earlier article in this journal suggested that Tayasal, the island capital of the late Postclassic and historic period Itza Maya, was located at Topoxte on Lake Yaxha in the Department of Peten, Guatemala. Study of ethnohistorical sources for the Peten Itza and their neighbors leads us to conclude, however, that Tayasal was in fact in Lake Peten Itza, the location long favored by earlier writers. These sources are reviewed here, and Tayasal is positively located on the island of Flores; tentative locations for other contemporary settlements in the central lakes region of Peten are offered. The current status of Postclassic period central Peten archaeological research is reviewed in light of the known ethnohistory of the region. The need for continuing interaction between archaeological and ethnohistorical research is stressed.

Southwestern archaeologists have traditionally devoted much attention to inventory and description of material culture change between the Pithouse and Pueblo periods. Unfortunately, our understanding of the ecological, demographic, and organizational aspects of the Pithouse-to-Pueblo transition is much less advanced. The present study attempts to remedy this deficiency for at least one portion of the Southwest, relying largely on survey data from the Mogollon culture area of extreme western Texas. Three major aspects of Pithouse-to-Pueblo change are considered. These are demographic change, subsistence pattern change, and social-organizational change. Basically, the transition is seen as a fundamental adaptive reorientation in which a small-scale, extensive, generalized adaption is replaced by one which was larger in scale, more intensive, and more specialized in focus than ever before. Factors motivating this transition are considered, and the supra-local applicability of the resulting model is discussed.

The 13C/12C ratio in human collagen was determined for 19 individuals from Hopewell sites in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio and compared with 27 new measurements from individuals of Archaic, Mississippian, and Late Woodland affiliation. Additional measurements were made of elements in the food chain and on experimental animals fed on a diet of known composition containing maize. The similarity of the Hopewell measurements to those of nonmaize diets indicates that corn was of little importance in the Hopewell diet for those populations tested.

Alluvial geology studies indicate that valleys crossing the Texas High Plains have significant archaeological and paleontological potentials. Paleo-Indian and Ceramic/Historic sites are unexpectedly common, and are associated with ancient lake and marsh environments, spring deposits, entrenched meander necks, and buried strath terraces. Paleogeologic maps illustrate prehistoric topography and relate known sites to depositional environments. Archaeologically, the most valuable strata in both Yellowhouse and Blackwater Draws date to 11,500 to 8000-6000 radiocarbon years B.P. and 1000-100 radiocarbon years B.P. Sediments dating to ca. 6000-2000 radiocarbon years B.P. have a distinctly lower archaeological content. Yellowhouse, Blackwater and Running Water Draws have similar sedimentary sequences which are divided into two lithostratigraphic units, the Yellowhouse Draw and Lubbock Formations.

There are indications that future archaeological investigations of the Late Postclassic horizon of the central and eastern Gulf Coast will reveal the existence of several regional artistic subtraditions of the prevailing Mixteca-Puebla horizon style. This would discourage the current pan-"Mixtec" approach to the interpretation of Postclassic Mesoamerican culture. A consequence of this presently confusing practice is the provenience debate concerning the religious Borgia Group codices. An abstract method of costume analysis indicates that these pictorial manuscripts did not originate in the Mixteca because they do not display Mixtec ritual clothing patterns. Data from the costume analysis, together with internal clues from the codices and archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence, demonstrate that the Borgia Group codices had diverse origins. The general Puebla-Tlaxcala region is suggested as the probable homeland for codices Borgia, Cospi, and Vaticanus B. The stylistic twins, Fejervary-Mayer and Laud, are assigned to the eastern Gulf Coast.

Prediction of human skeletal preservation at mortuary sites is important in archaeological research and in cultural resources management. In this study, correlations between osseous deterioration and soil acidity, as measured by pH, were found to be significant. Age-associated preservation biases were also evident. The use of multiple regression is suggested as a technique for estimating recovery of human osteological remains in archaeological context.

A newly discovered paleo-Indian site in the mountainous interior of northwestern Maine yields tools identical to those reported for the Debert site in central Nova Scotia.

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.

Infant and child skeletal remains from the site of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, were examined for particular skeletal pathologies. The observed frequencies of those pathologies do not support a hypothesis of a temporal shift in subsistence patterns. A hypothesized change in settlement pattern is supported by the increase of a particular class of skeletal lesions.

Excavations at Pottery Mound, a large Pueblo ruin located on the banks of the Rio Puerco in New Mexico, have recovered over 4,000 bird bones representing 50 species. The habitats of these birds include grassland, marshland, canal- and riverbank, Pinyon-juniper forest, and coniferous forest. Instead of attributing this diversity to changing climate or long-distance hunting expeditions away from the pueblo, I employ the "garden hunting" model, which ascribes increased species biomass to areas of human disturbance. At Pottery Mound prehistoric agricultural fields increased insect populations and provided wild and cultivated seeds which attracted a variety of birds. Additionally, irrigation canals extended riparian growth from the river across the floodplain creating more available cover for predators. This ecotone effect allowed avian species to increase beyond their normal numbers and diversity in undisturbed areas. All 50 species at Pottery Mound could have been obtained within a small radius of the site.

This paper presents a method for quantifying "boundary effect" in square, rectangular, triangular, and circular study areas. It is based upon a very different, theoretically oriented modification of the classic computation methods, is applicable to the variously shaped study areas described, and produces results which approximate simulation data quite closely.