The widely applied concentric zonation model for Classic period Maya centers, which specifies that high-ranking persons lived closer to the central civic-ceremonial precinct than low-ranking persons, is tested for the site of Tikal. Our method is to identify residential units from the Carr and Hazard (1961) Tikal maps and to compute labor investment costs of construction of residential units from variables derived exclusively from the cartographic data. Our finding is that the Tikal data do not substantiate the concentric zonation model.

It is shown that by means of an X-ray diffractometer that in bone diaphyses of dog (Canis familiaris L.), wolf (Canis lupus L.), ox (Bos taurus L.), aurochs (Bos primigenius Boj.), domestic pig (Sus domesticus L.), and wild boar (Sus scrofa L.), the hydroxyapatite crystals are in all probability oriented with the basal pinacoid (002) at right angles to the long axes of the bones, although in some areas of the distal epihyses they parallel the long axes of the bones. No difference is found in the orientation of the crystals either between domestic and wild animals or between carnivores, ruminants and omnivores.

Several lines of archaeological evidence are presented in this paper to suggest the existence of class warfare among the Classic Maya and of issues that historically have been associated with class conflict. This evidence indicates that class warfare may have halted the rule of the monument-producing, or Classic, elites and precipitated the depopulation of the lowland area. The theory is evaluated quantitatively by testing for time-related mathematical patterns that have been found to characterize large-scale conflicts in historical societies. The information used in the evaluation involves the time series data on the duration of rule by Classic elites as inferred from the production of monuments with Long Count dates at a sample of 82 ceremonial centers. The analyses confirm that the Maya data do exhibit the temporal and geographical patterns predicted from the class conflict explanation of the Classic Maya collapse. Alternative predictions from the other theories are considered but generally not found to be supported by these data.

The origin and dating of the bow and arrow in the Great Basin has been a key issue in a recent debate concerning a cultural hiatus between Archaic and Fremont. New stratigraphic and chronometric data from Dry Creek Rockshelter are presented to support previous evidence for an Archaic rather than a Fremont origin for this new weapon.

Four-part figures equal cyclic completion in ancient Mesoamerica, but they do not necessarily correspond to the cardinal directions; they refer, rather, to four-place cycles within the apparent annual path of the sun. The earliest excavated Maya example of such a quadripartite diagram in architectural form is Structure E-VII Sub at Uaxactun, which was part of a solar observatory. Later this E Group at Uaxactun was used for katun celebration. It is suggested that in Early Classic times Mexicans introduced to central Peten a type of celebration of solar cycles observed at Teotihuacan. This new ritual was rapidly Mayanized and institutionalized as the celebration of katuns or 20-year periods. The iconography of katun celebration emphasizes quadripartition and the rainy, stormy sky symbolism of the agricultural year as expressed in Tlaloc ritual at Teotihuacan. Katun celebration probably also served to undermine the original dynastic significance of the ancient Maya Long Count and thus enhanced the public ritual role of the new Mexican elite.

An ecological approach to religion is utilized to examine crocodilians represented in highland and lowland Mesoamerican art from the Early Formative to European contact. It is suggested for certain Formative New World religions, the Olmec in particular, that the crocodilian may have attained religious importance because it served as a major food source, is a predator of humans, and is an anomalous and striking animal. It is further proposed that crocodilian products (meat, skins, etc.) may have been lowland items used in an exchange network with highland groups, that the crocodilian motif and crocodilian products became elements of elite status regalia, and that Olmec ideology thereby gained a foothold in central Mexico. Subsequently, a decline in the supply of crocodilians due to overhunting or other causes may have undermined one basis of Olmec strength and hastened their downfall in the Middle Formative. Crocodilians remain in the art up to European contact, but their role seems to change as they transcend the secular-mundane, as the elite establish other status regalia, and as a greater variety of religious expressions develops.

Rock clusters are among the most ubiquitous features found in prehistoric sites and, at the same time, those receiving the most casual treatment. There are at least twelve attributes that all such clusters share, including depth, dimensions, shape, density, rock size, fill, placement, and association. The differences between one cluster and the next can be explained in terms of different uses or functions, different types of sites, different groups (geographically or temporally), or differential availability of resources and/or preferential collection. Despite the wealth of information potentially attainable from these features, a literature search reveals that very few archaeologists deal with more than just a few of these attributes. The argument is made that such neglect ought to be corrected.

Spiral ("green bone") breakage has been suggested as an indicator of human activity by some workers. Our examination of broken ungulate long bones from six paleontological localities in western Nebraska, however, shows that such fractures commonly occurred in the Miocene and Pliocene, long before the advent of man in North America. Pseudotools also occur frequently in these sites. We postulate that spiral breakage, including the production of pseudotools, may be due to trampling by animals.

Our study demonstrates that neither spiral breakage nor gross morphology, alone or in combination, is diagnostic of human activity. Problematical examples must be accepted or rejected wholly upon the basis of patterned wear on the supposed tools.

A counting index of the average degree of extreme settlement pattern change and stability is presented. Data from regional archaeological settlement pattern surveys in the Basin of Mexico are used to illustrate it.

Recent ethnohistorical investigations by the authors as part of a larger research effort focusing on Highland Maya ethnohistory have produced information on settlement patterns and subsistence activities for the Maya of the Alta Verapaz region. The environmentally transitional nature of this area—from tropical highlands to lowlands—makes this information of potential interest to Mayanists concerned with lowland civilization. Parallel subsistence activities known ethnographically from the present-day Itza of the Peten strengthens the applicability of this ethnohistorical information.

Site formation processes must be understood before the goals of archaeology can be attained. Modern and historical populations are examined here to construct a partial model of discard behavior, one formation process. Findings indicate that both sedentary and migratory populations discard materials outside their use location and that only some migratory peoples discard material elements at their use location.

In the second annual review of Old World archaeology, the authors have restructured their attention to three topics: (1) some issues of a theoretical and philosophical nature, involving differing stances on contemporary theoretical trends and the nature of the differences between the social scientist and humanist approaches to archaeology; (2) the wealth of recent work that has altered the conceptual framework of Paleolithic and Mesolithic archaeology in Africa and western Europe; and (3) recent developments in late Mediterranean antiquity, predominantly humanist in focus, involving detailed empirical studies, trends in fieldwork design, and analytical studies of organic and inorganic materials.

To enable systematic interpretive studies of community organization and population, two techniques are advocated: (1) a probability sampling technique for the selection of at least a portion of a site's excavation units and (2) the systematic recording of architectural space. A substantive example is drawn from the investigations of a historic period town in northern Morocco, Qsar es-Seghir. Analyses of architectural remains produced information on the overall nature of land use, general layout of the community, and two alternative methods of estimating population.

Counts of mosaic facade elements, doors, steps, and colonnettes of the East, West, and North Buildings of the Nunnery Quadrangle at the Maya site of Uxmal suggest that these features, taken together, preserve knowledge of eight facts about the sun, moon, and Venus: the moon's synodic period is 29.53 + days; the lunar sidereal period lasts nearly 27.33 days; the Venus synodic mean is almost 584 days; the observed Venus synodic can vary between 581 and 587 days; any five consecutive Venus synodics equal or come to within one day of eight vague years of 365 days each; one sun-moon correlation has five short years and three long ones together equal to eight vague years or eight true solar years or 99 lunations; the Venus sidereal period is nearly 224 days long; and, finally, 13 Venus sidereals virtually equal five Venus synodics. Cheek glyphs, flanking birdserpents, and plumed-snake headbands all suggest that most of the masks on the East Building, West Building, and Governor's Palace represent not Chac but Kukulcan-Venus. It is therefore suggested that at least some Pure Florescent facades contain astronomical, calendrical, and ritual information, not just attractively arranged mosaic stones, and that other features, such as doors, steps, and colonnettes, should also be considered as potentially informative.

Widely held notions about the effects of heat treatment of flakeable stone were tested by agitating matching sets of regularly shaped pieces of heated and raw chert. The tests indicate that heat treatment changes some of the variables that control flake formation although not necessarily in ways that make flintworking "easier." It appears that in order to realize an advantage to the practice, the flintknapper must call on individual skill to make technical readjustments.