Processual and postprocessual archaeologists implicitly employ the same epistemological system to evaluate the worth of different explanations: inference to the best explanation. This is good since inference to the best explanation is the most effective epistemological approach to archaeological reasoning available. Underlying the logic of inference to the best explanation is the assumption that the explanation that accounts for the most evidence is also most likely to be true. This view of explanation often reflects the practice of archaeological reasoning better than either the hypothetico-deductive method or hermeneutics. This article explores the logic of inference to the best explanation and provides clear criteria to determine what makes one explanation better than another. Explanations that are empirically broad, general, modest, conservative, simple, testable, and address many perspectives are better than explanations that are not. This article also introduces a system of understanding explanation that emphasizes the role of contrastive pairings in the construction of specific explanations. This view of explanation allows for a better understanding of when, and when not, to engage in the testing of specific explanations.

For more than a century, archaeologists have studied the cultural and skeletal remains of the prehistoric Native Americans known as the “Hopewell Moundbuilders.” While many aspects of the Hopewell phenomenon are now well understood, questions still remain about the genetic makeup, burial practices, and social structure of Hopewell communities. To help answer these questions, we extracted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the skeletal remains of 39 individuals buried at the Pete Klunk Mound Group in Illinois. The pattern of mtDNA variation at this site suggests that matrilineal relationships did not strongly influence burial practices. Because different forms of mortuary activity were not associated with distinct genetic lineages, this study provides no evidence of a maternally inherited or ascribed status system in this society. The genetic data collected here also help clarify another aspect of Illinois Hopewell social structure by suggesting a matrilocal system of post-marital residence. Finally, when these data were considered in conjunction with mtDNA data previously collected from the Hopewell Mound Group in Ohio (Mills 2003), they demonstrated that migration and gene flow did accompany the cultural exchange between Hopewell communities in the Illinois and Ohio Valleys.

Teouma, an archaeological site on Efate Island, Vanuatu, features the earliest cemetery yet discovered of the colonizers of Remote Oceania, from the late second millennium B.C. In order to investigate potential migration of seventeen human individuals, we measured isotopes of strontium (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen (δ18O), and carbon (δ13C), as well as barium (Ba) and strontium (Sr) concentrations, in tooth enamel from skeletons excavated in the first two field seasons. The majority of individuals cluster with similar isotope and Ba/Sr ratios, consistent with a diet of marine resources supplemented with plants grown on the local basaltic soils. Four outliers, with distinctive 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O, are probably immigrants, three of which were buried in a distinctive position (supine, with the head to the south) with higher Ba/Sr and δ13C, consistent with a terrestrial, nonlocal diet. Among the probable immigrants was a male buried with the crania of three of the locally raised individuals on his chest.

Two modes of whale use have been documented on the Northwest Coast of North America, namely systematic whale hunting and whale scavenging. Ethnographically, systematic hunting was practiced only by Native groups of southwestern Vancouver Island and the northern Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. This hunting was undertaken with technology specifically designed for the task. Other groups on the Northwest Coast reportedly did not hunt whales but did utilize beached animals. Here we present archaeological evidence of whaling from the northern Oregon coast site of Par-Tee in the form of a bone point lodged in a whale phalange. This hunting likely occurred 1,300 to 1,600 years ago. Ancient DNA extracted from the phalange proves it to be a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae). DNA recovered from the bone point indicates that it is made from elk (Cervus elaphus) bone, and the point's DNA sequence is identical to that from unmodified elk bone from Par-Tee, suggesting the whale was locally hunted. We present ethnohistoric data from the southern Northwest Coast describing opportunistic whale hunting with a variety of technologies. We argue that many groups along the west coast of North America likely occasionally hunted whales in the past and that this hunting occurred using nonspecialized technologies.

Archaeologists often implicitly assume that individual ceramic objects were the work of a single individual artisan. Ethnographic and archaeological data suggest that this assumption should be questioned. Ceramics from the Greater American Southwest demonstrate that multiple hands contribute to the finished products in two ways. Two artisans may collaborate on vessels in various combinations of task differentiation. Alternatively, some vessels are modified over time, with artisans adding new features to existing vessels in diachronic collaboration. Such collaborative vessels have implications for understanding labor demands, learning and teaching frameworks, specialized production, and the life histories of ceramics.

Nogahabara I is a late Pleistocene age archaeological site located in interior northwestern Alaska. In contrast to most archaeological assemblages left by mobile hunter-gatherers, which consist largely of manufacturing debris and a few worn or broken tools, the site contains 267 largely whole, useful tools, which we interpret as a lost or abandoned toolkit. As a snapshot of the tools carried by an individual or small group during an archaeological instant, the toolkit offers insights into specific technological behaviors and general processes that influence the formation of lithic assemblages. The toolkit exhibits a surprisingly wide range of tool forms and production technologies. It also shows direct archaeological evidence of transport and episodic use and maintenance of tools and cores. This evidence suggests intensive toolstone conservation that would have reduced the frequency with which toolkit depletion would have forced people to re-provision. One implication of these behaviors is that lithic assemblages left scattered across the landscape should be highly variable. Another is that there are profound differences between systemic toolkits and the archaeological assemblages from which they are derived.

We report here on the results of AMS dating and isotopic analysis of the frozen human remains named Kwaday Dän Ts'inchí and associated materials recovered from a glacier located in Northwest British Columbia, Canada in 1999. The isotopic analysis of bone collagen (bulk and single amino acids) from the individual indicates a strongly marine diet, which was unexpected given the location of this find, more than 100 km inland eroding out of a high elevation glacier; however, bulk hair and bone cholesterol isotopic values indicate a shift in diet to include more terrestrial foods in the year before death. The radiocarbon dating is not straightforward, as there are difficulties in determining the appropriate marine correction for the human remains, and the spread of dates on the associated artifacts clearly indicates that this was not a single use site. By combining the most recent date on a robe worn by Kwaday Dän Ts'inchi with direct bone collagen dates we conclude that the individual likely dates to between cal A.D. 1670 to 1850, which is in the pre-(or early) European contact period for this region.

Within the broad framework of historical and behavioral ecology, we analyzed faunal remains from a large habitation site (CA-SRI-147) on Santa Rosa Island to explore a 7,000 year record of coastal subsistence, nearshore ecological dynamics, and human impacts on shellfish populations. This long, stratified sequence provides a rare opportunity to study the effects of prolonged human predation on local intertidal and nearshore habitats. During the past 7,000 years, the Island Chumash and their predecessors had significant impacts on nearshore ecosystems, caused by growing human populations and depletion of marine and terrestrial ecosystems. At CA-SRI-147, local depletion of higher ranked shellfish species stimulated dietary expansion and a heavier reliance on lower-ranked shellfish taxa and more intensive exploitation of nearshore and pelagic fishes. In the Late Holocene, as local ecosystems were increasingly depleted, the Island Chumash relied increasingly on craft specialization and trade to meet their subsistence needs. Native peoples clearly impacted Channel Island ecosystems, but data from CA-SRI-147 suggest that they adjusted their subsistence strategies toward productive fisheries that sustained the high population densities and sociopolitical complexity recorded by early Spanish chroniclers at European contact.

A magnetic field gradient survey was conducted at Poverty Point to determine if that technique could detect discrete subsurface features and differentiate the ridges and swales in an area that today exhibits very little topographic relief. The survey area (280 m long by 20 to 60 m wide) crossed Ridges 1 through 5 in the southwest portion of the site. The ridges were revealed as variegated bands of positive and negative magnetic anomalies whereas the swales appeared to be relatively homogeneous. Ridge 1, nearest the plaza, is wider and higher but has less of a flank midden than the other ridges. Two roughly circular arrangements of anomalies on Ridge I are potentially important but cannot be reliably interpreted without ground truthing excavations. Future large-area, high-resolution magnetic gradient surveys could dramatically enhance our understanding of this enigmatic site.

Experiments were undertaken to evaluate a natural versus cultural origin for a set of modified pebbles and cobbles found in pre-Clovis-age contexts at the Big Eddy site (23CE426) in southwest Missouri, U.S.A. Two experiments involving Asian elephants and American bison provided evidence that pre-Clovis-age modified cobbles, pebbles, and flakes probably were produced by the trampling of large mammals traversing alluvial gravel bars in search of food and water in a riparian environment. The production of “zoofacts” and behavioral aspects of elephants are described with respect to research on the earliest Americans.

Mark Mitchell’s (Mitchell 2006) assessment of the theoretical legacy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Missouri Basin Project does not show that research in the Great Plains has made a particularly small contribution to archeological theory. The sparse population, dispersed professional community, and paucity of graduate archeology programs in the region contribute to its archeological research patterns.

Mark Mitchell's analysis of the legacy of the Missouri Basin Project (MBP) identified the direct historical approach as one discourse that shaped the MBP legacy. While that identification is certainly correct, the discussion is too limited in two ways. First, the use of the direct historical approach for tracing ethnicity was more limited than is generally recognized. Second, and more seriously, the rich documentary and ethnographic record of the Plains Village lifeway became a too readily used source of specific analogies for reading the archaeological record. Theory became irrelevant. Some of the numerous inaccuracies this produced are only recently being corrected.

In their comments, Bleed and Roper acknowledge the profound effects routine research practices have had on the conceptual development of Plains archaeology, though both disagree with aspects of my analysis. Bleed disputes my characterization of current theory in Plains archaeology but fails to appreciate the extent to which Plains archaeology continues to emphasize culture historical research. Bleed further argues that there are few connections between the research practices established by the Missouri Basin Project (MBP) and those of more recent Plains archaeologists. However, such a stance discounts the powerful influence of construct paradigms or exemplars on the development of method and theory. Roper provides valuable insights into the role played by direct historic analogy in the development of theory in Plains archaeology. However, her analysis glosses over the fact that all aspects of archaeological research are informed by theoretical propositions, whether explicitly stated or merely assumed.