Most Arctic archaeologists believe that the people of the Thule culture, who arrived in the eastern Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago, met people of the Dorset culture and acquired important knowledge from them while replacing them in this region. The most convincing indication for technology transfer comes from the Thule adoption of Dorset harpoon-head styles. However, a review of radiocarbon dates, artifact styles, and site data reveals no conclusive evidence for face-to-face contact between the people of these two cultures. Given evidence that the Thule actively salvaged harpoon heads and carvings from abandoned Dorset sites, I contend that salvage was the sole means of contact between these cultures and the means by which harpoon-head technology was transferred. This example points out the importance of salvage as a mode of culture contact and the weakness of studies that interpret changes in material culture solely in a culture-historical context.

Analogy is fundamentally important to archaeological inquiry, yet archaeologists remain profoundly ambivalent about its use. In this paper I address issues of how we develop and subsequently apply analogical models. Selecting an analogue requires that we have some implicit or explicit sense of its relevance to the case at hand. In the past, archaeologists often assumed that principles of relevance implied extensive similarities between the ethnographic and archaeological contexts and diverted attention away from the need to compare the analogical model with the archaeological context. In the first part of the paper, which is historically oriented, I examine the role that concepts of time (e.g., stone age, traditional, modern) have played in selecting relevant analogues. Fabian's critique of how anthropologists have used time to distance contemporary peoples guides this inquiry. In the remainder of the paper I explore the implications of recent historical-anthropological studies that document tremendous changes that resulted from European contact; this literature challenges archaeologists to develop more critical approaches to the use of so-called traditional societies as analogical models. In the final sections of the paper I explore the need for enhanced source-side criticism in developing relevant analogues, and advocate a comparative approach to the application of analogical models.

In an effort to understand the relative advantages and drawbacks of the minimum number of individuals (MNI) and number of identifiable specimens (NISP) for quantifying body-part representation in faunas from archaeological sites, we analyzed relations among NISP, MNI, fragmentation, and bulk density in the fauna from Ngamuriak, a Kenyan pastoral Neolithic site. Our findings suggest that MNI is at least as sensitive as NISP to effects of fragmentation. While MNI decreases with increasing fragmentation, NISP moves in two directions with fragmentation, increasing at low levels of fragmentation and decreasing at high levels of fragmentation. In addition, MNI appears more sensitive than NISP to the relative identifiability of different body parts. We believe MNI may be a less representative descriptor of relative element frequency than NISP in highly fragmented assemblages.

The scarlet macaw (Ara macao) was an important prehistoric trade item in northern Mexico and southwestern United States. Paquimé (or Casas Grandes) in northwestern Chihuahua has been assumed to have dominated or even monopolized the macaw trade. This conclusion is a result of the fact that Paquimé is the only site with evidence of substantial macaw-breeding facilities. Two recent archaeological projects in Chihuahua indicate that macaw production was not limited to Casas Grandes. Furthermore, the political relations of production for these ritually and economically important birds differed depending on whether or not the producers were part of the complex polity centered at Casas Grandes.

Common problem areas in archaeological palynology include sampling, processing, counting, preservation, and interpretation. In this report, the authors present guidelines for researchers seeking pollen analyses, recommend the kinds of observations palynologists should make on their samples, and suggest ways of determining when samples should be considered invalid for paleoethnobotanical interpretations or paleoenvironmental reconstructions.

The form in which archaeologists recover artifacts is the product of intentional design, use modification, and postdepositional alteration. Analysis of grinding tools, from small prehistoric sites in southwestern New Mexico, indicates the effects of intentional design and use modification on artifact form. These variables of technological behavior are considered in relation to anticipated, regular occupation of sites. Distinguishing the extent to which site visits are anticipated and regular can enhance our understanding of how places and resources were used and how land use was organized. Because grinding tools commonly remain on sites, their anticipated reuse signals anticipated reuse of the places where they occur. While characteristics of intentional design positively correlate with regularity of site occupation, the effects of use modification do not.

Research designed to explore the Grand Plaza at the Cahokia Mounds site, the largest Mississippian-period mound center in the eastern United States, documents that plazas may yield significant information regarding Mississippian manipulation of the landscape and the initial growth of mound centers. Probing and excavation within the Grand Plaza revealed that buried ridge-swale topography, identified through an electromagnetic-conductivity survey, was stripped and then filled by the Cahokians. Excavation also corroborated the presence of deep-pit borrows identified by remote sensing. Based on the ceramics recovered from our excavations, we argue that these earth-moving events were initiated prior to the onset of the Mississippian period (ca. A.D. 1000). Reclamation of the borrowed areas resulted in the formation of the mound-plaza configuration early during the Mississippian period.

Monks Mound is a premier example of monumental architecture occupying the center of Cahokia, the largest prehistoric Indian site north of Mexico. A massive slump on the so-called "second terrace" of the mound prompted geoarchaeological testing resulting in new data concerning the age and function of this enigmatic structure. These data support theory suggesting that construction of monumental architecture is most likely to occur early in the development of complex societies, in this case the Cahokia polity. It is concluded that Monks Mound was a purposeful political tool for the manipulation of mass psychology.

A review of the history of marine-shell chemical-sourcing efforts preceeds the introduction of this project. Atomic-absorption spectroscopy (AAS) was used to assay levels of Ca, Mg, Fe, and Sr, in 44 prehistoric Busycon carica and Busycon perversum specimens from the eastern United States. Control shells (35) were collected from food refuse in coastal archaeological sites from Long Island to the Mexico—United States border. Subject shells came from nine Archaic and Mississippian sites. Elemental ratios were clustered to derive a probable water-body origin for the nine artifacts. The influence of diagenesis, body part, and species was negligible, but geography heavily influenced the results. The three shells from Monks Mound indicated origin in tropical, eastern Gulf, and Atlantic water. The shells from the Indian Knoll, Mulberry, and Tatham sites appear to have originated in eastern Gulf waters. The shell from the Archaic-period Ward site seems to have come from tropical water.

It is our opinion that archaeologists have no inherent right of access to human remains, grave goods, or objects of cultural heritage; that respecting diverse cultural views does not amount to an abdication of academic freedom; that historically archaeologists have been unanthropological in their approach to living populations and inconsistent in their treatment of indigenous peoples; and that archaeologists are fighting a losing battle when they ignore public opinion and clash with indigenous groups in the name of science. We offer some guidelines that we feel will alleviate much of the current tensions between archaeologists and indigenous peoples. A professional ethic must be devised that is consciously anthropological, values the rights of those studied and their cultural descendants in their own terms, and places academic pursuits in their proper context.