In this paper we argue that archaeologists and anthropologists should be aware of forces that encourage the separation of archaeology from anthropology. Sociological, organizational, and intellectual factors that do not necessarily have disciplinary separation as their logical consequence can nonetheless have a cumulative effect that moves the relationship between the subfields of anthropology in the direction of greater or lesser independence. We compare the relative strength of certain factors that could either encourage or discourage the perpetuation of four-field anthropology in Canada and the United States.

North American archaeologists see the study of the Emergent Mississippian period (ca. A.D. 800—1000) as critical for understanding the development of the Mississippian chiefdoms (ca. A.D. 1000—1500) of the American Southeast. Past research has frequently sought to explain that development in terms of generalized explanations, whose key variables become evident during the Emergent Mississippian period. Through an example in northwest Georgia, we argue that the Emergent Mississippian phenomenon is best understood by focusing on regional histories and multiscalar processes.

The idea of archaeology as craft challenges the separation of reasoning and execution that characterizes the field today. The Arts and Crafts Movement of the late nineteenth century established craftwork as an aesthetic of opposition. We establish craft in a Marxian critique of alienated labor, and we propose a unified practice of hand, heart, and mind for archaeology. The debates engendered by postprocessual archaeology have firmly situated archaeology in the present as a cultural and political practice. Many, however, still do not know how to work with these ideas. We argue that a resolution to this dilemma lies in thinking of archaeology as a craft. This resolution does not provide a method, or a cookbook, for the practice of archaeology, as indeed the core of our argument is that attempts at such standardization lie at the heart of the alienation of archaeology. Rather, we wish to consider archaeology as a mode of cultural productión, a unified method practiced by archaeologist, “client” public, and contemporary society.

Micro-seriation using attributes of decorated ceramics has been shown to accurately refine intrasite and intersite relative dating. Using data from Pueblo de los Muertos, a nucleated town in west-central New Mexico, this presentation demonstrates that micro-seriation of type frequencies produces equally accurate results. Typological analysis also provides substantial time savings when compared to attribute recording. Additionally, using types with established temporal ranges permits linkage of relative seriation with absolute dates. A combination of correspondence analysis and k-means cluster analysis was found to provide sound and easily interpretable results. The results of a typological seriation of Pueblo de los Muertos deposits are examined, and the utility of typological seriation for other contexts is considered.

Analyses of the size, shape, and wear on western Mogollon manos and metates reveal that the dietary importance of maize remained low and stable from the Early Pithouse period (A.D. 200–550) through the Georgetown phase (A.D. 550–700). The consumption of maize increased during the San Francisco phase (A.D. 700–825/850) and continued to increase through the Three Circle phase (A.D. 825/850–1000). Changes in the ubiquity of charred pieces of maize (Zea mays) from paleoethnobotanical samples also indicate an increase in maize consumption from the Early Pithouse period through the Three Circle phase. The onset of increased maize consumption roughly coincided with the introduction of an improved variety of eight-row maize, around A.D. 650–700 (Upham et al. 1987). The analyses presented in this study do not agree with recent suggestions (Gilman 1987; Mauldin 1991) that maize consumption in the western Mogollon region remained stable and low until the Classic Mimbres phase (A.D. 1000–1150).

Interest in the material correlates of economic specialization has led to numerous quantitative studies of standardization (or the lack of it) in craft production, particularly of ceramics. Most of this research has focused on measures of variation and conventional statistical procedures in the treatment of the empirical data, many of which are dependent on unrealistic assumptions (such as normal populations), yielding results that can be questioned. To resolve this crisis more robust statistical methods are investigated including the “jackknife” method (for confidence interval construction) and a multigroup test for homogeneity of variance known as the Brown-Forsythe Test. Computer simulations show that the latter is robust under a variety of distributional forms. These new methods are used to reanalyze ethnoarchaeological ceramic data from the Philippines; it is shown that markedly different conclusions can be reached when compared with the results of more conventional procedures.

Immunological and microwear analysis was performed on 100 chipped-stone artifacts from four prehistoric sites located in the Virginia Piedmont. A total of 20 artifacts returned positive results for immunological analysis and 16 artifacts returned microwear results. The findings indicate the negative effects of postdepositional processes and the potential utility of the techniques for deciphering prehistoric activities, otherwise unavailable by conventional studies in piedmont contexts. The study further illustrates the value and problems associated with immunological and microwear analyses on chipped-stone assemblages.

Results of a field study at Pot Creek Pueblo indicate that when effective hydration temperature varies significantly with depth, errors in obsidian hydration age estimates can occur if hydration rate constants are extrapolated to depth-specific effective hydration temperatures. This problem will be particularly severe in continental climates, but will have some effect anywhere the amplitude of the annual surface temperature wave exceeds 2-3°C.

The minimum spanning tree problem is a well-known problem of combinatorial optimization. It was independently discovered in archaeology by Renfrew and Sterud in their method of close proximity analysis. Unlike traditional methods of seriation, this method permits branching structures that reveal clustering in archaeological data. Identifying close proximity analysis as the minimum spanning tree problem permits a more efficient means of computation, an explicit rule of clustering, and a recognition of problems of indeterminacy in the analysis of network data. These points are illustrated with reference to Irwin's recent study of voyaging and cultural similarity in Polynesia.