Research in psychology has established that humans organize spatial information into “cognitive maps” oriented around visual landmarks. Much of this research focuses on individual cognitive processes such as orienteering and wayfinding. We extend this research to the level of social groups, exploring the degree to which cognitive maps are shared among near and distant neighbors and the social implications of common, overlapping, or discrete cognitive maps. We develop the concept of “sight communities” —populations which shared similar cognitive maps—and then propose methodologies to (1) identify visual anchors and quantify their visual prominence from different vantage points, and (2) detect and analyze connections among the populations which were able to see visual anchors, with a special focus on tools from social network analysis.

Analyzing historical trajectories of social interactions at varying scales can lead to complementary interpretations of relationships among archaeological settlements. We use social network analysis combined with geographic information systems at three spatial scales over time in the western U.S. Southwest to show how the same social processes affected network dynamics at each scale. The period we address, A.D. 1200–1450, was characterized by migration and demographic upheaval. The tumultuous late thirteenth-century interval was followed by population coalescence and the development of widespread religious movements in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the southern Southwest these processes resulted in a highly connected network that drew in members of different settlements within and between different valleys that had previously been distinct. In the northern Southwest networks were initially highly connected followed by a more fragmented social landscape. We examine how different network textures emerged at each scale through 50-year snapshots. The results demonstrate the usefulness of applying a multiscalar approach to complex historical trajectories and the potential for social network analysis as applied to archaeological data.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, critics suggested that warfare profoundly shaped cultural change in the prehistoric Southwest/Northwest. This challenge was part of a much larger debate concerning violence and warfare before civilization. It has become clear that scholars need to consider violence and warfare to understand the aboriginal history of the Southwest/ Northwest. Increasingly, archaeologists are asking: How did indigenous peoples practice war? How did warfare relate to social organization, adaptation, and religion? How did these relations change over time? Many authors have argued that we best answer these questions in well researched and carefully considered case studies. In Sonora, México, prehispanic peoples constructed terraces on isolated volcanic hills and built rooms, compounds, and other edifices on their summits to create cerros de trincheras. The Cerros de Trincheras and Defense Project mapped and collected Trincheras Tradition cerros de trincheras in Sonora. We used Geographic Information Systems analysis to demonstrate how these cerros de trincheras were defensive, what defenses protected, and how these relationships changed over time. This article compares Trincheras Tradition cerros de trincheras to general models of “primitive “ war, Yuman warfare, Andean Colla pukaras, and New Zealand Maori pas in order to infer a Trinchereño way of war.

The Late Pithouse period in the Mimbres Mogollon region of southwestern New Mexico was a dynamic time during which many social changes occurred. One of the more significant of these changes appears to be related to the role of land-holding kin groups at some of the larger pithouse sites. We present bioarchaeological data from our recent excavations at the Harris Site in the Mimbres River Valley to illustrate that certain kin groups were gaining social power compared to others in the village. We discuss the reasons for these power differentials and the implications that they have for understanding the myriad other social changes occurring valley-wide at the end of the Pithouse period.

Although many researchers have studied prehistoric European artthere has been virtually no attention paid to the broad prehistory of art as a specialized form of material culture: virtually all studies focus narrowly on single bodies of art. This paper presents a new approach to analyzing prehistoric art: quantitative deep time study. It analyzes a database of 211 art traditions from across Europe and from 40,000 B.C. to 0 AD.to identify changes in the amountnatureand use of prehistoric art. The results reveal clear long-term trends. The amount of art made increased sharply with the origins of sedentary farming and continued to rise throughout prehistory. New forms of art arise in conjunction with new ways of life: “period genres “ are closely tied into patterns of social change. There are also long-term shifts in aesthetics and the uses of art (such as a gradual shift from arts of ritual and concealment to arts of surface and display). These resultsthough preliminaryshow that a deep-time approach familiar from topics such as climate change is applicable to art; the resulting social history can illuminate both art and its social context.

The appearance of iconographic-style pottery at fourteenth-century Pueblo villages in east-central Arizona marked an important shift in the decoration of pottery. These polychrome containers were painted with elaborate imagery that contrasts with earlier geometric-style traditions. Remarkably, though the type was circulated and copied throughout the region, we still know very little about how it was used. This paper addresses that issue by analyzing surface abrasions on a large corpus of White Mountain Red Ware whole vessels. Our research not only examines changes in the uses of Ancestral Pueblo ceramics during the late prehispanic period, but underscores the importance of use-alteration studies to interpreting the biographies of ancient objects.

While there is increasing recognition among archaeologists of the extent to which non-agricultural societies have managed their terrestrial ecosystems, the traditional management of marine ecosystems has largely been ignored. In this paper, we bring together Indigenous ecological knowledge, coastal geomorphological observations, and archaeological data to document how Northwest Coast First Nations cultivated clams to maintain and increase productivity. We focus on “clam gardens,” walled intertidal terraces constructed to increase bivalve habitat and productivity. Our survey and excavations of clam gardens in four locations in British Columbia provide insights into the ecological and social context, morphology, construction, and first reported ages of these features. These data demonstrate the extent of traditional maricultural systems among coastal First Nations and, coupled with previously collected information on terrestrial management, challenge us to broaden our definition of “forager” as applied to Northwest Coast peoples. This study also highlights the value of combining diverse kinds of knowledge, including archaeological data, to understand the social and ecological contexts of traditional management systems.

Archaeological investigations at the Trempealeau and Fisher Mounds Site Complexes in western Wisconsin have provided definitive evidence of settlements and platform mounds in a portion of the Upper Mississippi Valley dating to the early Cahokian era, immediately priorto A.D. 1050 and ending before A.D. 1100. The presence ofCahokian earthen constructions, wall-trench buildings, ceramics, and imported stone tools associated with likely religious buildings and a series of possible farmsteads 900 river km north of Cahokia points to a unique intrusive occupation. We suggest that Trempealeau was a religious installation located proximate to a powerful, storied landform on the Mississippi River that afforded Cahokians access to the animate forces of that region. Probably built by and for Cahokians with minimal involvement on the part of living local people, the timing of this occupation hints at its close relationship to the founding of the American Indian city to the south.

Many archaeological researchers studying colonialism are critiquing theories of cultural change (e.g., hybridity, creolization) in favor of interpretive models that emphasize cultural persistence and continuity. Ethnogenesis, the emergence of new cultural identities, has been put forward as a consensus model: what is “new“—the “genesis“ in ethnogenesis—is increasingly interpreted as an authentic remaking of communal identities to foster persistence and survival. This somewhat utopic emphasis on continuity in ethnogenesis theory broadens the concept of ethnogenesis to the point that its value as a theory of identity transformation is being lost. Overall, the archaeological emphasis on ethnogenesis as a tactic of resistance among subaltern communities has led to a general neglect of how ethnic identity practices are deployed in the exercise of power. The increasing use of bioarchaeological evidence in ethnogenesis research also raises pressing ethical and epistemological issues about the relationship between the body and identity. A more focused and restricted application of ethnogenesis theory is necessary to identify and investigate those situations in which colonialism and its consequences resulted in ruptures and structural transformations of identity practices.

This research revisits the question of the most likely paths traveled during the 1540 entrada of Hernando de Soto and colonizing efforts of Juan Pardo about 20 years later by utilizing the spatial modeling method of geographic information system (GIS) analysis to evaluate the favorability of different paths and place them within the context of recent archaeological and ethnohistoric research. Analysis results make the larger anthropological point that GIS route modeling should explicitly take into account the size of the party traveling. Routes for small parties are not the same as optimal routes for large armies such as de Soto’s, which included hundreds of people, pieces of equipment, and livestock. The GIS-modeled routes correlate with the distribution of contact-period archaeological sites and attested eighteenth-century routes. More accurate estimation of Spanish routes allows us to better model the Native American social, economic, and political nexus of this period, showing that the residents in far eastern Tennessee were probably part of a dynamic borderlands between the chiefdom of Coosa to the west and the ancestral Cherokee heartland to the east. This anthropological refinement in GIS modeling will be useful in investigating ancient paths of interaction in many parts of the world.

Understanding how the Chaco regional system operated requires examining the social networks maintained by great house communities during both the peak and decline ofChaco's influence. We used neutron activation analysis (NAA) of pottery, kiln wasters, and clays from three great house communities in southeast Utah (Bluff, Cottonwood Wash, and Comb Wash) to examine pottery production and the interaction networks of their residents. West of Comb Ridge, most gray ware jars or the materials they were made from were imported from east of Comb Ridge in both Chaco and post-Chaco times, while importation of painted white wares changed in the post-Chaco era as local production increased. This counters the expectation that painted pots are more likely to be exchanged than cooking jars. Kiln sherds and prepared clays are shown to be better identifiers of production area than raw clays, and paste color is confirmed as a useful clay source indicator in the Comb Ridge vicinity. Great house communities in the Comb Ridge area continued to exchange pots and/or ceramic raw materials in the post-Chaco era, but there is evidence for shifting social networks and intensified local production of white ware.

This paper examines choices of earth-working tools made by Neolithic Chinese populations. In the Hemudu Culture (7000–5000 B.P.), bone (scapula) digging tools were used from the earliest times, whereas peoples in surrounding areas used stone spades. A range of experiments on manufacturing costs, durability, and use efficiency under realistic conditions show that bone and stone spades are functionally equivalent when soils are soft, but that stone implements provide significant and easily perceived advantages when working harder soils. The persistence of scapular spades in the Hemudu Culture would have constrained decisions about undertaking large construction projects under normal soil conditions. Our results show that, in addition to generalized labor for construction, labor demands for producing earth-working implements for large-scale prehistoric earthworks could have also been substantial. These findings not only help explain the processes of intensifying rice-agriculture and sedentary settlements in the Lower Yangzi Basin, but also create a solid foundation for further investigation of how the recruitment of both generalized and specialized laborers, the organization of craft production, and the relevant logistics for large-scale earthworks may have paralleled concentrations of political power in prehistory.

The multicomponent Dry Creek site, located in the Nenana Valley, central Alaska, is arguably one of the most important archaeological sites in Beringia. Original work in the 1970s identified two separate cultural layers, called Components 1 and 2, thought to date to the terminal Pleistocene and suggesting that the site was visited by Upper Paleolithic huntergatherers between about 13,000 and 12,000 calendar years before present (cal B.P.). The oldest of these became the typeassemblage for the Nenana complex. Recently, some have questioned the geoarchaeological integrity of the site's early deposits, suggesting that the separated cultural layers resulted from natural postdepositional disturbances. In 2011, we revisited Dry Creek to independently assess the site's age and formation. Here we present our findings and reaffirm original interpretations of clear separation of two terminal Pleistocene cultural occupations. For the first time, we report direct radiocarbon dates on cultural features associated with both occupation zones, one dating to 13,485-13,305 and the other to 11,060-10,590 cal B.P.

This study integrates disparate geographical areas of the American Southeast to show how studies of Early Mississippian (A.D. 900-1250) interactions can benefit from a multiscalar approach. Rather than focus on contact and exchanges between farming communities, as is the case with most Mississippian interaction studies, we turn our attention to social relations between village-dwelling St. Johns II fisher-hunter-gatherers of northeastern Florida and more mobile Ocmulgee foragers of southern-central Georgia; non-neighboring groups situated beyond and within the southeastern edge of the Mississippian world, respectively. We draw upon neutron activation analysis data to document the presence of both imported and locally produced Ocmulgee Cordmarked wares in St. Johns II domestic and ritual contexts. Establishing social relations with Ocmulgee households or kin groups through exchange and perhaps marriage would have facilitated St. Johns II access into the Early Mississippian world and enabled them to acquire the exotic copper, stone, and other minerals found in St. Johns mortuary mounds. This study underscores the multiscalarity of past societies and the importance of situating local histories in broader geographical contexts.

Archaeological evidence documents apparent depopulation of the Hohokam region of Southern Arizona at the end of the Classic period (A.D. 1150-1450). Major population centers were no longer occupied, and many distinctive material culture traits associated with the Hohokam tradition seem to disappear. Proposed explanations include migration, dispersion of the population into less archaeologically visible settlements, and wholesale population decline. The latter hypothesis is attractive partly because of a seminal study of paleodemography and health at the Classic-period site of Pueblo Grande in the Phoenix Basin. That study suggested that the population was not sustainable due to very low life expectancy, a very high dependency ratio of juveniles to adults, and other indicators of biological stress. A hazards analysis of the published demographic data reveals life expectancy at birth in the expected range for prehistoric populations with no evidence of a dependency crisis. Population decline at the end of the Classic period is more likely explained by reduced fertility than by increased mortality. Birth rates are sensitive to cultural and economic forces, and we should look beyond health factors in trying to account for the disappearance of Hohokam traditions.

Indigenous negotiations of European colonialism in North America are more complex than models of domination and resistance reveal. Indigenous people—acting according to their own historically and culturally specific ways of knowing and being in the world—developed strategies for remaking their identities, material choices, and social configurations to survive one or multiple phases of colonization. Archaeologists are making strides in documenting the contingencies and consequences of these strategies, yet their focus is often skewed toward sites of contact and colonialism (e.g., missions and forts). This article examines places of refuge for native people navigating colonial programs in the San Francisco Bay area of California. I use a resistance-memory-refuge framework to reevaluate resistance to Spanish missions, including the possible reoccupation of landscapes by fugitive orfurloughed Indians. Commemorative trips to shellmounds and other refuges support the concept of an indigenous hinterland, or landscapes that, in time, provided contexts for continuity and adjustment among Indian communities making social, material, and economic choices in the wake ofmissionization. By viewing colonialism from the outside in, this reoriented approach can potentially enhance connections between archaeological and Native American communities.

This article evaluates current models of the influence of functionality and materials properties on pottery production as practiced by potters in the Middle Balsas Region of Guerrero, Mexico, during the Classic period (A.D. 300-900). The research was designed specifically to look for evidence of the influence of materials properties on pottery production in an archaeological context. Research results suggest that a specific clay deposit was selected deliberately by ancient Middle Balsas potters only when producing a subset of restricted vessels that were used for water storage. All other domestic vessels used in the Middle Balsas Region were produced from a variety of clay sources with no apparent link to vessel size, shape, or intended purpose. These production patterns endured with little appreciable change within the region for a time span of over a thousand years, from approximately 300 B.C. to A.D. 900.

Carvings that represent polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are commonly found in Dorset Paleo-Eskimo archaeological sites across the eastern Arctic. Relational ecology, combined with Amerindian perspectivism, provides an integrated framework within which to comprehensively assess the connections between Dorset and polar bears. By considering the representational aspects of the objects, we reveal an ethology of polar bears encoded within the carvings’ various forms. Reconstructing the experiences and perceptions of Dorset as they routinely interacted with these creatures, and placing these interactions in socioeconomic, environmental, and historical context, permits us to decode a symbolic ecology inherent in the effigies. To the Dorset, these carvings were simultaneously tools and mnemonics (symbols). As tools, they were used to directly access the predatory and spiritual abilities of bears or, more prosaically, to teach and remind of the variety of proper hunting techniques available for capturing seals. As symbols, however, they were far more powerful, signaling how Dorset people conceptualized themselves and their place in the universe. Symbolic of an ice-edge way of life, the effigies expose the role that this special relationship with polar bears played in the creation of Dorset histories and identities.

The periodization used to distinguish sites and artifacts as "prehistoric" or "historic" translates to the selection of field methods and analytical techniques. This comes at the expense of developing new approaches to track continuities and adjustments in Native American site use, technologies, and other cultural traditions, such as mobility across an artificial divide between prehistory and history. To evaluate the mobility of Coast Miwok people in colonial San Francisco Bay, California, this article presents an experimental technique that compares radiocarbon and geochemical data from a Late period Phase 2(A.D. 1500-1800) shellmound (CA-MRN-114) to baptismal records from Spanish missions (A.D.l 776-1830s). Supported by eyewitness accounts of native fugitivism, furlough, and foraging at the missions, Coast Miwok baptisms before 1817 are at their lowest during traditional times of mussel harvests. After 1817, a different pattern is examined vis-d-vis the colonial landscapes taking shape in the region. Radiocarbon, geochemical, and documentary evidence supports the conclusion that seasonally oriented Coast Miwok mobility involving the collection of shellfish continued even during missionization. With further refinement, the proposed methodological framework holds promise for documenting patterns that often go unseen in the historical record and enhancing the archaeology of colonialism in North America.