Patterns in household consumption reflect changing strategies of control, finance, and legitimation used by the Inka empire after their conquest of the northern Wanka of Central Peru. Changes in consumption reflect differential access to goods. In pre-Inka Wanka II, the evidence of social stratification was relatively marked; in Wanka III—under Inka domination—this difference continued but narrowed significantly. The symbolic referents of prestige wares that distinguished elites from commoners changed from local styles to those conforming to Inka stylistic canons. We also recognize changing participation in activities associated with economic control and legitimation. In Wanka II, elite households yielded evidence of greater involvement in storage and feasting. In Wanka III, the overall quantities of items associated with these activities fell and the difference between elites and commoners was diminished as the state co-opted local elite prerogatives of status and power.

The carrying-capacity model applied to the Basin of Mexico by Sanders et al. is tested by Contact period hieroglyphic data on population and landholding from the rural tlaxilacalli (ward) of Santa María Asunción. Two calculations are made of the theoretically maximum tlaxilacalli population, one using the Sanders et al. parameters, and the second based on Asunción data. The analysis confirms the accuracy of Sanders et al.'s maize yields and average per-capita maize-consumption rate (if a variable of seed set aside is included), but suggests revision downward of household size. Although for the wrong reasons, the Sanders model correctly predicts the range of population for Asuncion. The balance between simulated household maize consumption and production shows that carrying capacity under viable, long-term strategies had been exceeded for poor and average agricultural years in the Contact period. At the tlaxilacalli level, grain deficits of greater than — 50 percent are projected for poor years, a — 28 percent deficit to + 11 percent surplus in average years, and surpluses of 10 to 74 percent in good years. In average years, to meet the maize requirements of the recorded population, continuous cultivation rather than 1:1 fallowing must have occurred on marginal land. Rural overpopulation apparent in Asunción may have been typical of many piedmont communities. The impetus for Late Horizon expansion of agricultural settlement might have come as much from rural overpopulation as from state-directed settlement to provide subsistence for Tenochtitlan.

A decade of intermittent archaeological research in the upper Zaña Valley in northern Peru has documented an intensive Middle Preceramic period (ca. 6000—4200 B.C.) occupation in the tropical-forest and thorn-forest ecotone on the western Andean slopes. This research has revealed one stratified nonresidential site (the Cementerio de Nanchoc), characterized by dual earth mounds, and a complex of small, preceramic residential sites in the Nanchoc branch of the valley. The nonresidential site is associated with the production of lime, probably used as a mineral supplement to the diet or as an extractive agent with coca leaves. Evidence recovered from residential sites shows that incipient horticulturists, documented by the presence of several species of cultigens, and unspecialized hunters and gathers lived in scattered households located along small streams in alluvial fans above the valley floor. A unifacial lithic technology and a diversified ground-stone technology attest to an economy primarily adapted to plant resources. The preceramic culture of the upper Zaña Valley is interpreted as a local manifestation of an early western-slope-forest cultural tradition associated with the development of a specialized public precinct and the adoption and intensification of agriculture.

Lake Pátzcuaro (2,035 m asl), situated in the temperate highland-forest region of central Mexico, was the focus of Postclassic Tarascan civilization. Today, the lake is bordered by wide, swampy flats, which can be interpreted as low-angle fans of colluvial material derived from the deeply eroded, lower-valley side slopes. A gully near the northwest shore exposed two colluvial units: The lower one was dated at 2,300 years B.P. (350 B.C.) at the base of the exposure, while the upper one yielded three 14C ages ranging from 270 years B.P. (A.D. 1680) to "modern." Both units contained abundant charcoal. Pollen studies by Watts and Bradbury (1982) suggest that the first phase was initiated by the widespread introduction of maize cultivation around 1550 B.C. The second, more intense, phase of forest clearance, although it may have begun during the Late Postclassic period, probably culminated during the great expansion of colonial plough agriculture and livestock rearing in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Clovis projectile points and chipped-stone tools have been recovered in a number of archaeological sites in the New World, but these cannot be tested on mammoths, which we know from the archaeological evidence Clovis hunters were able to procure. Extensive culling of elephants in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe provided the necessary animals to test replicas of Clovis tools and weaponry. The experiments leave little doubt that Clovis projectile points can inflict lethal wounds on African elephants and that simple stone tools will perform the necessary butchering tasks. The physiology of mammoths and elephants is similar enough to make positive statements on the potential of this kind of stone-tool and weaponry assemblage, but we will never be able to compare elephant and mammoth behavior directly.

Reported criteria for distinguishing wild Zea varieties (teosinte) from cultivated primative maize using plant opal phytolith morphology were tested using computer-assisted image analysis. Results showed current criteria to be effective but inconsistent. A straightforward stereological algorithm was derived from image analysis data providing high-confidence statistical assignment of the Zea phytolith populations in this study to wild or cultivated categories.

Elevated lake levels resulting from dam construction in the early twentieth century is producing widespread shoreline erosion at Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota. In an effort to preserve a sample of the more significant archaeological sites, the National Park Service has initiated a program of site stabilization. Stabilization of the Clyde Creek and Sweetnose Island sites was accomplished during the winter months by transporting materials and supplies across an ice road. The use of filter fabric and turf-stabilization matting in association with large quantities of sediment and riprap have produced a new shoreline that serves to protect the respective archaeological deposits. This approach has successfully preserved these intact archaeological resources and avoided the costs associated with large-scale data recovery and curation of collections.

A recent effort in archaeological critique by Cordell et al. (1987) is undermined by confusion, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation. This comment on their paper illustrates how confusion may arise when the literature of the American Southwest is not read carefully and the causes of variability in the archaeological record are understood incompletely.

The comments by Reid and others demonstrate a continued failure to distinguish problems of a general theoretical nature from those concerns relating to specific interpretations of southwestern prehistory. We separate these issues here. We also suggest that confusion arises because there are important philosophical differences between our approaches.

In their article, Cordell et al. (1987:571) assert that the Grasshopper Pueblo skeletal series is an "obviously biased sample." This paper criticizes that position as an incorrect interpretation of the Coale and Demeny (1983) model life tables. An alternative interpretation is offered using a modeling procedure based on the Coale and Demeny regressions and pattern-fitting-by-maximum-likelihood techniques. The present author agrees with Cordell et al.'s theoretical position; uniformitarian assumptions should play an important role in archaeological interpretation, especially where the questions addressed are rooted in human biology. The analysis presented, however, indicates that they overestimate problems with the Grasshopper series, and supports the validity of studies based upon it.

Paine's comments do not clarify problems with the data from Grasshopper. We maintain that the age/sex pyramid for the Grasshopper series remains problematical.

Can architecture be treated as an artifact worthy of archaeological analysis? This is a key question that remains unanswered in Gilman's (1987) article on southwestern pit structures and pueblos. The majority of Gilman's article is a cross-cultural ethnographic overview of pit-structure and pueblo use. Gilman takes such a "big-picture" approach that when she finally presents her archaeological data it is insufficient to test her model of architectural change. More importantly, by disregarding temporal changes in prehistoric southwestern pit-structure and pueblo designs, Gilman fails to realize that pit structures and pueblos are architecturally related phenomena during the transition period that is the focus of her research. Pit structures, rather than being independent of pueblos, actually provide the construction dirt with which many of the first pueblos are built.

Wilshusen has critiqued my recent research on pit structures and pueblos in the prehistoric Southwest and has suggested that the use of pit and surface structures is interrelated in that pit structures in southwestern Colorado become deeper at the same time surface structures become more common. This idea is examined further in my response, in the context of a broad and general argument, while Wilshusen examines pit-structure depth, one particular aspect of the pit-structure-to-pueblo transition.

In a series of articles Robert McK. Bird systematically has denied that preceramic maize has been discovered in the central Andes. The authors consider Bird's methodology to be unscientific and illustrate this by demonstrating the value of a significant body of archaeological evidence in support of preceramic maize.

Salt production has been proffered recently as an alternative explanation to irrigation agriculture for the existence of canals and terraces at the Hierve el Agua site in Oaxaca, Mexico. This argument is based in part on new interpretations of the functions of two types of water-control features. Hewitt et al. (1987) consider the so-called "pocitos" to be natural, and the "registros" to be water tanks or collecting basins. Evidence that contradicts these interpretations is presented here. Pocitos, it is argued, were constructed intentionally in order to facilitate manual irrigation, and registros are drop structures built to regulate the flow of water after the arrival of the Spaniards. Salt making might have been carried out to some extent at the site, but only in late prehistoric and historic times. Hierve el Agua was principally an agricultural site throughout most of its occupation.

Doolittle (1989) provides interesting information on pocitos and registros but does not show that they are associated with irrigation agriculture exclusively, nor does he address the main point of our paper — that Hierve el Agua was a salt-producing site. We suggest several criteria for distinguishing salt-production sites from agricultural sites and present some additional observations in support of our interpretation of Hierve el Agua's function.

A recent report by Hull (1987) on the microdebitage analysis of soil samples from a stone-circle site in the Northern Plains indicates the utility of such analyses for the study of use and disposal in lithic-tool-manufacture areas. Its value could have been heightened through greater awareness of recent research on the ethnoarchaeology of tipi use and of site-formation studies in general. Various factors were overlooked in Hull's analysis, including the intentional disposal of refuse away from the place of use, the widespread distribution of secondary refuse as a result of smearing and blending, the distinction between occupation and abandonment refuse, and the effects of rodent disturbance within tipis. The fact that these factors were not considered weakens the applicability of Hull's site-formation model. Research among the Slavey Dene of the western Canadian Subarctic suggests that tipis are better viewed as generalized activity centers, embracing a variety of human activities and events, none of which have strict spatial definition. This helps to explain the weak or nonexistent patterning noted by Hull.