The increase in funding associated with new legislation subsequent to the late 1960s and the introduction of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) research has changed archaeology in many ways. Not the least of these changes is the first full flowering of archaeology's four fields of endeavor (research and report writing, teaching, management, and outreach) to the extent that it is now possible for individuals to devote major portions of their career to a single field, and increasingly they are doing so, though a career that entails some work in more than one field is still, and probably should remain, the rule. Within the research field, academic research and research activities related to archaeological resource management (ARM) should develop as complementary rather than as compartmentalized approaches to the database. The teaching field must emphasize training students for service in all four fields. Management and public outreach should be recognized as legitimate fields of full-time archaeological endeavor, and public accountability should be embraced.

Paleoarchaic (11.5–8.0 ka) occupants of the Great Basin encountered numerous lithic sources as they moved across foraging territories. Source provenance and lithic technologic analyses applied to the tools manufactured from these source materials elucidate several aspects of mobility, including the geographic scale of material conveyance and extent and possible routes of population movement. This research indicates that central Great Basin groups traversed large subsistence territories, extending more than 400 km from north to south, with mobility tactics probably keyed to the distribution of resource-rich wetlands. Changes in source representation parallel warming and drying trends, suggesting that Paleoarchaic foraging ranges shifted as wetlands diminished after about 9.5–8.5 ka.

Theory in North American archaeology is characterized in terms of foci and approaches manifested in research issues, rather than in explicit or oppositional theoretical positions. While there are some clear-cut theoretical perspectives—evolutionary ecology, behavioral archaeology, and Darwinian archaeology—a large majority of North American archaeology fits a broad category here called “processual-plus.” Among the major themes that crosscut many or all of the approaches are interests in gender, agency/practice, symbols and meaning, material culture, and native perspectives. Gender archaeology is paradigmatic of processual-plus archaeology, in that it draws on a diversity of theoretical approaches to address a common issue. Emphasis on agency and practice is an important development, though conceptions of agency are too often linked to Western ideas of individuals and motivation. The vast majority of North American archaeology, including postprocessual approaches, is modern, not postmodern, in orientation. The relative dearth of theoretical argument positively contributes to diversity and dialogue, but it also may cause North American theory to receive inadequate attention and unfortunate misunderstandings of postmodernism.

The timing of crop introductions, particularly of maize (Zea mays), has been of long-standing interest to archaeologists working in various regions of eastern North America. The earliest confirmed macrobotanical evidence for maize in New York is A.D. 1000. We report on the results of accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) dating, phytolith analysis, and stable carbon isotope analysis of carbonized cooking residues adhering to the interior surface of pottery sherds from three sites in the northern Finger Lakes region of New York. Maize, squash (Cucurbita sp.), wild rice (Zizania aquatica), and sedge (Cyperus sp.) were identified in phytolith assemblages dating to as early as the first half of the calibrated seventh century A.D. The results demonstrate that low δ13C values on cooking residues cannot be used to preclude the possibility that maize was cooked in vessels. Two of the maize-bean-squash crop triad were present in New York at least 350 years earlier than previously documented, and the Northern Flint Corn Complex was present in New York by at least the first half of the seventh century A.D. This research highlights the potential of cooking residues to provide new insights on prehistoric plant-based subsistence.

This article argues that the development of excavation field methods in archaeology is closely tied to the social position of fieldworkers. We also note disaffection in field contract archaeology today resulting from a wide range of factors, including the separation of excavation from interpretation. We argue that this separation and the notion that archaeological excavation can be seen as unskilled undermine the scientific basis of archaeology. A reflexive archaeology is discussed that empowers field archaeology by (a) focusing interpretation at the trowel's edge, (b) bringing multiple perspectives close to the moment of excavation, and (c) documenting the documentation process.

Recent advances in technology and practice allow geophysical surveys in archaeology to produce maps of subsurface features over large areas and in potentially great detail. It is shown through a series of case studies from two regions in North America that archaeo-geophysical surveys can produce primary information suitable for the study of site content, structure and organization, for examining spatial patterns and relationships, and for directly confronting specific questions about a site and the past. Because large buried cultural landscapes can now be revealed, it is argued that an alternative perspective on regional or landscape archaeology may be possible because space can be viewed in terms of tens of hectares as opposed to the tens of square meters typical of archaeological excavations. Moreover, by placing focus on such buried features as dwellings, storage facilities, public structures, middens, fortifications, trails, or garden spaces that are not commonly revealed through most contemporary surface inspection methods, a richer view of archaeology, the past, and cultural landscapes can be achieved. Archaeo-geophysical surveys can also play an important role in Cultural Resource Management (CRM) contexts as feature discovery tools for focusing expensive excavations, thereby reducing the amount needed and lowering costs. Their utility is weighed against shovel test pits as a primitive and costly form of prospecting.

Latin American archaeology has been influenced by the world theoretical context, from which it has developed original approaches. Currently, a culture-history conceptual foundation still predominates in the region, with some modern variants that have emphasized environmental aspects and approached specific problems. Processual archaeology, especially the North American varieties, remains minor in the region despite many Latin American archaeologists' belief that their work falls within this camp. Post-processual trends are even less well represented, although a growing number of researchers focus in an eclectic fashion on subject matter that corresponds to the post-processual agenda (e.g., identity, multivocality, etc.). Researchers in certain areas within the region are producing original research linked to political economy and its relation to ideology, and others are focusing on symbolic and cognitive aspects (in some cases within a structuralist framework). In Latin America several interesting methodological developments are emerging, among which ethnoarchaeology and vertebrate taphonomy stand out. In recent years historical archaeology has been one of the disciplines that has grown the most and achieved the greatest popularity. Despite the still-limited nature of Latin American archaeology's contributions in the field of theory and methodology, there is nonetheless sustained growth in this direction, fundamentally in the generation of models for the interpretation of regional processes. However, these contributions are not visible at the level of international debate and are generally ignored by archaeologists from the central countries. The multiple causes of this phenomenon are analyzed.

Population displacement, resettlement, and migration constitute important dimensions in a general process of “cultural construction.” A pedestrian survey and extensive excavations of 255 domestic buildings and related artifacts at 15 contemporaneous sites document a pattern of localized resettlement in which thousands of agricultural villagers moved or were displaced coeval with the founding of Cahokia. The resettled villagers appear to have moved into a previously unoccupied upland zone that surrounds the Mississippi River floodplain. Identified as the “Richland Complex,” the seemingly abrupt resettlement corresponds to other regional evidence of demographic reconfiguration and cultural pluralism. The immediate effect of this study is a reorientation of research at Cahokia toward the goals of a “historical-processual“ archaeology.

Explaining variability among Mississippian period (A.D. 1000-1600) chiefdoms has become a key research aim for archaeologists in the southeastern United States. One type of variability, in which simple and complex chiefdoms are distinguished by the number of levels of regional hierarchy, has dominated chiefdom research in this part of the world. The simple-complex chiefdom model is less applicable to the Mississippian Southeast, however, as there is little empirical evidence that chiefdoms here varied along this quantitative dimension. This article offers a qualitative model in which regional hierarchies are distinguished by the manner in which authority is ceded or delegated between an apical or regional chief and constituent, community-level leaders; chiefly power may be ceded from local-level leaders upward to the regional chief or delegated from the regional chief downward to local leaders. This apical-constituent model addresses variation in the administrative structures of chiefdoms: it is not a chiefdom typology. The model is used to contrast two Mississippian polities, Moundville in west-central Alabama and Powers Fort in southeastern Missouri, and illustrates variability in the process by which local communities were integrated into regional institutions.

Recent excavations and reanalysis of existing data on communal pit structures provide intriguing insights into ritual and cultural developments over a period of about 350 years, from A.D. 800 to 1140, in the Mimbres Valley of southwestern New Mexico. In the middle of this period, people shifted dwellings from pithouses to pueblos, a shift previously viewed as the pivotal transformation of Mimbres society. In this paper we show that significant changes in Mimbres society began in the A.D. 800s. Trends in the construction methods of communal pit structures, the placement of dedicatory items within them, their ritual retirements, and their long-lived significance within Mimbres villages, reflect other changes that occurred in Mimbres society. We contend that in the A.D. 800s, rapid change based on strong connections with the Hohokam of southern Arizona and agricultural intensification began a trajectory that culminated in the Classic Mimbres pueblos of the A.D. 1000s and early 1100s.

Archaeological theory has traditionally presupposed the existence of “battleship curves” in stylistic evolution, with little understanding about what governs the width (variant frequency) or length (variant lifespan) of these curves. In terms of these variables, we propose that there is a testable difference between independent decisions, unbiased transmission, and biased transmission in cultural evolution. We expect independent decision making to be represented by an exponential distribution of variant prevalence in the population. In contrast, unbiased transmission tends to be characterized by a power law or log-normal distribution of prevalence, while biased transmission should deviate significantly from the unbiased case. The difference between these categories may be fundamental to how cultural traits spread and persist. In order to make analytical predictions for unbiased transmission, we adapt a model of stochastic network growth that, by quantitatively demonstrating the inherent nonlinearity in unbiased transmission, can explain why a few highly popular styles can be expected to emerge in the course of cultural evolution. For the most part, this model predicts the frequencies of pottery decorations remarkably well over a 400-year span of Linearbandkeramik settlement in the Merzbach valley. Because the highest frequencies of actual motifs are somewhat less than predicted by our unbiased transmission model, we identify an anti-conformist, or pro-novelty, bias in the later phases of the Neolithic Merzbach Valley.

In North America, American Indians and First Nations have often been at odds with archaeologists over the status of their relationships, about who should have control over research designs and research questions, the interpretation of information about past cultures, and the ways past cultures are represented in the present. While the influence of the voice of Indigenous Nations in the discipline has risen, in many ways their voices are as stifled now as they were in the 1960s. This paper gives an American Indian perspective on the current practice of archaeology in North America and offers suggestions for improving relationships.

One of the common design characteristics on black-on-white pottery from the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the northern American Southwest is the use of thin, parallel lines (hachure) to fill the interior of bands, triangles, or other forms. This essay explores a proposal offered by Jerry Brody that hachure was a symbol for the color blue-green. Brody's proposal is examined by exploring colors and color patterns used to decorate nonceramic material from the Chaco Canyon region of northwestern New Mexico. His proposal is supported and the implications of this conclusion for Chaco Canyon and for future studies of this nature are discussed.

Exchange of preciosities is often considered an integral factor in the emergence of Mississippian chiefdoms, and the rise of Cahokia has been linked to such long-distance trade. We know that Cahokia was the center of production for large flint clay figurines and effigy pipes (Emerson and Hughes 2000). Similar Cahokia-style figures have been found in the Trans-Mississippi South and the Southeast. We investigated the material used.to make these figures using a newly developed nondestructive PIMA SP™ spectroscopic technology to identify the stone and to determine their source location. These analyses proved that the figures were made of Missouri flint clay from quarries near St. Louis. We submit that Cahokia was the twelfth-century source for the production of these Cahokia-style figures. Outside of Cahokia the flint clay figures were primarily found in Caddoan mortuaries, reinforcing earlier evidence of a strong Cahokia-Caddoan connection. The available chronological and contextual information indicates the flint clay figures left Cahokia after it began to decline in the late thirteenth-century, through various mechanisms of extra-local exchange rather than as part of any systematic prestige-goods network. The association of these highly symbolic figures with Cahokia allows us to reevaluate the indigenous iconography and propose that many of the themes (e.g., fertility and warfare) that later appear in Eastern Woodlands native cosmology such as the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex were first codified here in the twelfth-century.

This study examines postmarital residence patterns at the Windover site, an Early Archaic occupation located in east-central Florida. Residence patterns are assessed using a population genetics model based on isolation by distance and migration matrix methods. Variation in nonmetric dental traits is examined among a group of 40 adult males and 43 adult females. The sex with the higher within-group variance is considered the more mobile sex, thereby providing a possible reflection of residential patterns. Results indicate that females are almost twice as variable as males, thus suggesting patrilocality. However, this result is not statistically significant at the .05 probability level. Additional lines of evidence are assessed in conjunction with dental data. Specifically, ethnographic data indicate that subsistence and sexual division of labor are important factors related to social organization, including residence. Although these lines of evidence can be used to support the dental data and patrilocality, they are not conclusive. Future studies of activity patterns, disease, mortuary remains, and material culture may help to clarify the issue of postmarital residence patterns at Windover.

The Casas Grandes culture flourished between two well-known regions: Mesoamerica and the North American Southwest. An analysis of Medio period (A.D. 1200-1450) pottery suggests that Paquimé, the center of the Casas Grandes world, was dominated by shaman-priests. The pottery includes images that document a “classic shamanic journey” between this world and the spirit world. These images can be connected to the leaders of Paquimé and to valuable objects from West Mexico, indicating that the Casas Grandes leadership had more in common with the Mesoamerican system of shaman-leaders than with the political system of the Pueblo world of the North American Southwest.

Stone tool assemblage variability is considered a reliable proxy measure of adaptive variability. Raw material richness, transport distances, and the character of transported technologies are thought to signal (1) variation in raw material selectivity based on material quality and abundance, (2) optimization of time and energy costs associated with procurement of stone from spatially dispersed sources, (3) planning depth that weaves raw material procurement forays into foraging activities, and (4) risk minimization that sees materials transported in quantities and forms that are energetically economical and least likely to fail. This paper dispenses with assumptions that raw material type and abundance play any role in the organization of mobility and raw material procurement strategies. Rather, a behaviorally neutral agent-based model is developed involving a forager engaged in a random walk within a uniform environment. Raw material procurement in the model is dependent only upon random encounters with stone sources and the amount of available space in the mobile toolkit. Simulated richness-sample size relationships, frequencies of raw material transfers as a function of distance from source, and both quantity-distance and reduction intensity-distance relationships are qualitatively similar to commonly observed archaeological patterns. In some archaeological cases it may be difficult to reject the neutral model. At best, failure to reject the neutral model may mean that intervening processes (e.g., depositional time-averaging) have erased high-frequency adaptive signals in the data. At worst, we may have to admit the possibility that Paleolithic behavioral adaptations were sometimes not responsive to differences between stone raw material types in the ways implied by current archaeological theory.