Charles Di Peso (1920-1982) was an active field archaeologist and museum director whose provocative interpretations of prehistory and ethnohistory influenced several generations of southwestern scholars. His intellectual breadth transcended the conventional structures of academia, and his original ideas remain at the forefront of American archaeology.

Ethnographic examples of stone-tool makers in Australia and archaeological examples from three different areas in the western United States indicate that the availability of lithic raw materials is an important variable conditioning stone-tool production technology. Attributes of availability such as abundance and quality of lithic raw materials condition the production of formal- vs. informal-tool types. Poor-quality raw materials tend to be manufactured into informal-tool designs. High-quality lithic raw materials tend to be manufactured into formal-tool designs when such materials occur in low abundance. When high-quality materials occur in great abundance both formal- and informal-tool designs are manufactured. Other factors, such as residential mobility or sedentism, are found to be less-important determinates of lithic-production technology.

Fifteen years ago Casteel and Grayson (1977) identified potential ambiguity in the definitions of quantitative terms and units used by zooarchaeologists. As solutions they suggested that analysts use the original definitions of terms and explicitly specify how units are counted. The history of zooarchaeology since then has involved a shift from producing estimates of taxonomic abundances to measuring various taphonomic processes and effects within taxa. As a result, many new quantitative units and terms for those units have been proposed. Some of these new units and terms have been used to measure properties of bone assemblages that are not clearly related to a taphonomic process or effect. Other units and terms have been used inappropriately due to apparent misunderstanding of the property measured by a unit or due to some assumed, implicit meaning of a term. The 112 terms compiled for this study have 122 distinct definitions. Some of the designated quantitative units are synonymous with one another while other units are used in ambiguous manners that seriously compromise their reliability. Explicit definitions of quantitative units and terms along with detailed descriptions of how individual units are measured are mandatory to the efficient communication of research results and the continued prosperity of zooarchaeological research.

Health patterns in the Pueblo III (A.D. 1100-1225) population from Carter Ranch Pueblo were investigated in skeletal remains from 34 individuals. Childhood health disruptions were assessed using stature, linear enamel hypoplasias, and Harris lines. Periostitis, arthritis, anemia, trauma, and dental pathology were also observed. Although the low juvenile representation is probably an effect of age-biased mortuary practices, results suggest a healthy population compared to larger southwestern sites. Trauma levels at the site are quite high, possibly indicating burial practices differentiated on the ability to work or other health criteria. Additionally, a number of genetic anomalies are present, suggesting an isolated population.

Although true blade technologies were virtually unknown throughout the entire Archaic period of the American Midwest, they blossomed briefly during the Middle Woodland, but died out and were absent again during the rest of prehistory. Despite their temporal specificity, we have no idea why this technology developed. In the most intensive attempt so far to derive an answer to this question, Yerkes, at the Murphy site in Ohio, was able to conclude only that blades were used for a variety of tasks, just like bifaces or retouched flakes.

My own research sheds light on this problem, at least in the lower Illinois Valley of Illinois. I have applied intensive use-wear analyses to three Middle Woodland components: the Smiling Dan settlement and two different kinds of ceremonial manifestations from the Napoleon Hollow site. Bladelets were used very differently in these three situations. At the habitation they were relatively unimportant and were used for a variety of tasks, just as at the Murphy site. But in mortuary contexts they were numerically very significant and were employed for a restricted range of tasks—primarily for cutting and scraping soft materials. This conclusion suggests that the blade was an integral part of Hopewell ceremonialism.

Analysis of calcined bone from the Udora site in south-central Ontario, Canada, indicates that the subsistence of Early Paleoindian (Gainey complex) peoples in the lower Great Lakes region included a mix of both large and small mammals: caribou, hare, and arctic fox. The presence of arctic fox and other paleoecological data indicate that the Paleoindian occupation at Udora occurred in a spruce parkland environment between 10,000 and 10,500 years ago, the minimum age of that habitat, or earlier. Evidence that Paleoindian peoples in northeastern North America also hunted caribou suggests that the concept of a “northern” adaptive zone in the greater Northeast (including the Great Lakes region) has some validity; however, the presence of both parkland and forested environments in this zone and presumed caribou behavioral responses to those environments indicate that Paleoindian adaptations to caribou may have been quite variable.

Settlement-pattern studies are plagued by the problem of analyzing site distribution maps for time periods during which not all sites are contemporaneous. In a key insight, Dewar (1991) used counts of sites occupied at the beginning and end of a period to estimate, through simulation, the number of simultaneously occupied sites. While Dewar's treatment is an important contribution, drawbacks to his method are identified and remedies proposed. First, an equation that obviates the need for the simulation is provided. It is then shown that Dewar's method fails to take into account those sites that are both established and abandoned during the period. Finally, this problem is remedied through a modification of the equation that incorporates the single-period sites in the estimate of the number of contemporaneous sites. Application to Valley of Mexico settlement data suggests larger numbers of simultaneously occupied sites and shorter site use spans than were obtained by Dewar.

While Kintigh's (1994) proposed modifications of the methods I described in 1991 for estimating the mean number of simultaneous occupations and mean use span of occupations have certain strengths and weaknesses, they do offer a viable alternative approach. However, I show here that the original and revised methods derive from a different conception of settlement-pattern processes.