Recent discoveries—particularly those of Kennewick Man—have renewed debates on the peopling of the Americas. Our vantage point comes from research on the Gordon Creek Burial which commenced some 30 years ago. We suggest that a contrast between the conditions under which Gordon Creek and Kennewick were recovered and analyzed provides insights into current interpretations and controversies. Specifically, we argue that bioarchaeologists cannot, and therefore should not, separate the sociopolítical issues from the scientific, that biological assignments of affiliation are extremely problematic in such cases, and that prior assumptions figure strongly in the interpretations presented. If more detailed understanding of the peopling of the Americas is a common goal, then we as bioarchaeologists must be prepared to reexamine our practices and learn from our mistakes.

In the American Southeast, the simple-complex chiefdom cycle is the predominant model of sociopolítical development applied to the Precolumbian ranked societies known as Mississippian. In this paper, mound-center settlement patterns in the South Appalachian area are reviewed. Most of these distributions fail to conform to the hierarchy of centers predicted by the simple-complex chiefdom model. Contrary to the model, an absence of primary-secondary center hierarchies implies that extension of regional administrative control was not the primary determinant of mound-center distributions. A review of ethnohistorical sources suggests that another sociopolitical mechanism, the fission-fusion process, created the majority of mound-center settlement patterns through the aggregation or dispersal of basic political units. The fission-fusion process was the product of efforts by factional leaders to resolve the conflicting values of autonomy and security. Unlike the simple-complex chiefdom dichotomy, the fission-fusion model encompasses a greater diversity of Mississippian political forms and provides an alternative explanation for changes in mound center size, complexity, and location.

Recent theoretical developments in the organization of lithic technology provide powerful tools for learning about prehistoric settlement systems and the roles of sites within settlement systems. Strong relationships between mobility and the designs and production methods of stone tools provide a means for testing hypotheses about the functional and organizational roles of sites; this is especially important for learning about "plow zone lithic scatters" and other small, poorly preserved sites. Subsistence-settlement models for three periods of western New York prehistory imply different roles for small sites in the interior of the region. These hypotheses are tested by the analysis of dominant tool-production methods. Strong differences in stone tool assemblages indicate major differences in site roles, but greater analytical detail and discriminatory power are obtained from the analysis of tool-production methods from flakes.

The Polop Alto valley, in eastern Spain, serves as the focus of a study of long-term temporal and spatial dynamics in human land use. The data discussed here derive from intensive, pedestrian, non-site survey. We employ the concept of artifact taphonomy to assess the various natural and cultural processes responsible for accumulation and distribution patterns of artifacts. Our results suggest that the most significant land-use changes in the Polop Alto took place at the end of the Pleistocene and accompanying the late Neolithic, while much less notable changes in land-use patterns are associated with the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition and the initial use of domestic plants and animals in the valley.

The integration of archaeology and paleoecology has allowed a fuller understanding of the history of southern Haida Gwaii and provided insights into the regional history of coastal occupation in northwestern North America. Of particular consequence is the history of sea-level fluctuations during the late-glacial and early Holocene. The modern shore holds only part of the history of coastal occupation. Much is flooded or hidden in the rainforest. In southern Haida Gwaii, shorelines dating from 13,000 to 9,500 B.P. are deeply drowned while those dating from 9,200 to 3,000 B.P. are stranded in the rainforest up to 15 meters above modern levels. Shorelines have been approximately coincident with the current position for only the last two to three millennia and for a century or two centered around 9,400 B.P. Modeling these paleoshorelines has led to discovery and investigation of a number of early Holocene archaeological sites.

A radiocarbon date of A.D. 1070 ± 60 was linked to the remains of maize (Zea mays), beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), and squash (Cucñrbita pepo) at the Roundtop site in the Susquehanna River valley of New York by William Ritchie in 1969 and 1973 publications. This date established the presence of beans in the Northeast at an earlier time than in most other areas of the eastern United States, where they are generally rare before A.D. 1300. Subsequently beans have been reported in pre-A.D.1300 contexts from at least eight other sites in the Northeast. Recent calibrated AMS dates on beans from Roundtop are no earlier than A.D. 1300 (Hart 1999a). Given that the original Roundtop date was responsible for the acceptance of early beans in the Northeast, the AMS dates suggested that beans may not become archaeologically visible there until ca. A.D. 1300. AMS dates on beans from four other sites, reported here, substantiate the Roundtop results. Beans and by extension maize-beans-squash intercropping are not evident in the Northeast before ca. A.D. 1300.

Models of Archaic period economy in the Lower Pecos River region of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, are based primarily on coprolite, faunal, and macroplant analysis of materials recovered from rockshelters. The models maintain that during the Middle Archaic period residential mobility is reduced and tethered to rockshelters in canyons near water, and diet dominated by the plant resources lechuguilla (Agave lechuguilla), sotol (Dasylirion texanum), and prickly pear (Opuntia spp.). I use archaeobotanical analysis and actualistic studies to determine the contents of earth-oven features, the number of plant food calories produced by ovens, and the quantity of refuse they generate. Considered within the framework of a diet-breadth model, the data demonstrate that return rates and caloric yields for lechuguilla and sotol processed in earth ovens are typical of a broad spectrum, low-return economy. Intensive use of these low-ranked resources indicates periods of subsistence stress beginning in the Early Archaic period and continuing through the Late Archaic. Use of low-ranked, high-cost resources in canyon zones indicates that food and fuel resources were quickly depleted forcing high residential mobility. Depletion of local resources, not the distribution of water sources governed residential mobility.

Paint types on black-on-white pottery in the prehistoric American Southwest have had significance for both chronological and sociocultural interpretations. Visual attributes have formed the basis for distinguishing carbon- and mineral-based paints on ancient black-on-white pottery in the American Southwest for over 60 years. In this study, an SEM-EDS (scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer) system was first used to make an independent objective determination of the mineral or non-mineral paint present on 15 Mesa Verde White Ware sherds. Then, a group of 19 people (including experienced archaeologists and newly trained individuals) examined and classified the paint on these sherds, achieving an overall accuracy of 84.2 percent. This group also ranked in priority order the visual attributes they felt were most useful in determining pottery paint type: nature of edges (fuzzy, sharp), absorption (soaks in, sits on top), luster (shiny, dull), color range (black-gray-blue; black-brown-reddish), flakiness (doesn't flake off, flakes off), thickness (thin, thick), and surface polish (polish striations visible through paint, striations not visible through paint). In each case, the attribute applicable to carbon-based paint is listed first. The most difficult sherds for the group to identify displayed attributes of both carbon and mineral paints. A category for "mixed" paint type, already in use by archaeologists, is a reasonable third category for labeling sherd paint, as long as it does not become a "catch-all" category. For problematic sherds, the SEM-EDS can be used to characterize paint type, then the visual attributes adjusted to improve investigator accuracy in paint type determination.