The archaeological study of Native Americans during colonial periods in North America has centered largely on assessing the nature of cultural change and continuity through material culture. Although a valuable approach, it has been hindered by focusing too much on the dichotomies of change and continuity, rather than on their interrelationship, by relying on uncritical cultural categories of artifacts and by not recognizing the role of practice and memory in identity and cultural persistence. Ongoing archaeological research on the Eastern Pequot reservation in Connecticut, which was created in 1683 and has been inhabited continuously since then by Eastern Pequot community members, permits a different view of the nature of change and continuity. Three reservation sites spanning the period between ca. 1740 and 1840 accentuate the scale and temporality of social memory and the relationships between practice and materiality. Although the reservation sites show change when compared to the "precontact baseline," they show remarkable continuity during the reservation period. The resulting interpretation provides not only more grounded and appropriately scaled renderings of past cultural practices but also critical engagements with analytical categories that carry significant political weight well outside of archaeological circles.

Archaeologists often portray Cahokia as the center of a chiefdom. A minority view is that Cahokia was the center of a state. These competing views are considered here, and an alternative model is presented, that Cahokia might be considered the center of a theater state. This model agrees with other models that Cahokia was an economic and political center, but also emphasizes Cahokia's role as a center of ritual. In the theater state model, the power of a state lies more in its ceremonies than in its armies. People came to Cahokia, helping to build it and feed it, not because they were coerced but because they wanted to be part of the drama. This view of Cahokia is not presented in order to replace all other models but, rather, to stimulate archaeologists to rethink what Cahokia might have been like. Geertz's theater state model suggests an alternative, non-Western view of the state that might be useful in reconsidering other archaeological complex societies as well.

Along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Georgia, hunter-gatherer groups substantially altered the landscape for more than three millennia (ca. 4,200-1,000 B.P.) leaving behind a distinct material record in the form of shell rings, middens, and burial mounds. During this time, these groups experienced major changes in sea level and resource distribution. Specifically, we take a resilience theory approach to address these changes and discuss the utility of this theory for archaeology in general. We suggest that despite major destabilizing forces in the form of sea-level lowering and its concomitant effects on resource distribution, cultural systems rebounded to a structural pattern similar to the one expressed prior to environmental disruption. We propose, in part, the ability for people to return to similar patterns was the result of the high visibility of previous behaviors inscribed on the landscape in the form of shell middens and rings from the period preceding environmental disruption. Finally, despite a return to similar cultural formulations, hunter-gatherers experienced some fundamental changes resulting in modifications to existing behaviors (e.g., ringed villages) as well as the addition of new ones in the form of burial-mound construction.

Recently it has been suggested that variation in the form of Early Paleoindian projectile points across North America was the result of drift rather than regional adaptation (Morrow and Morrow 1999). Here, we test this hypothesis quantitatively with matrix correlation statistics. Using a sample of Early Paleoindian point assemblages from across the continent we attempt to correlate variation in point shape with several measures of late Pleistocene period regional variation including net primary production, prey availability, prey selection, and prey body size. We find no significant correlations between point shape and measures of regional variation, suggesting that functional modifications to points within specific regional biomes were minimal. We do find evidence of spatial autocorrelation as the regional variation in point shape correlates positively with geographic distances among sites, a pattern consistent with recent, shared ancestry. Our findings provide support for the drift hypothesis posed by Morrow and Morrow (1999). We interpret these results as suggesting that despite the wide variation in regional environmental conditions across late Pleistocene period North America not enough time elapsed during the Early Paleoindian period for these local selective gradients to have led to significant changes in point shape.

In this article, we use pronghorn dental age data to document pronghorn hunting strategies at Hogup Cave, Utah, and explore their relationship with a widespread late Holocene trend in increasing large-game abundances noted in archaeofaunal contexts throughout western North America. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that at Hogup Cave, pronghorn hunting methods changed from a middle Holocene strategy dominated by encounter hunting of individual animals to a late Holocene strategy emphasizing large-scale communal hunting. Our analysis suggests that ancient hunters visiting Hogup Cave most likely employed small-scale encounter hunting during the fall and winter months and that this subsistence pattern varied little between the middle and late Holocene. Moreover, while hunting strategies appear to have remained generally similar throughout the 8,800-year occupational record at Hogup Cave, artiodactyl abundances show a dramatic increase relative to smaller, lower-ranked prey in late Holocene strata, suggesting that a temporal shift in the favored hunting strategy, by itself, cannot explain this trend in every context.

It is often unclear whether an archaeological animal bonebed was formed by a mass kill of individuals from a single prey population or through the accumulation of a number of separate kills which occurred over a long time period or at multiple locations. The isotope ratio variation within animals from an archaeological bonebed can be used to investigate this question by comparing the isotope ratio variation within an archaeological assemblage to the variation within modern populations. If the archaeological variation exceeds that expected within a single population, then an accumulation is indicated. Otherwise, a single mass kill or a series of kills from a single population over a fairly short time period is more likely. This technique is demonstrated using carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope ratios to characterize the amount of variation within pronghorn tooth enamel from six archaeological sites in southwestern Wyoming. The results indicate that the Austin Wash and Trappers Point sites are the result of an accumulation of pronghorn from multiple populations, while the Firehole Basin, Gailiun, and Boars Tusk sites do not show evidence of accumulation and therefore may be the result of mass kills. The Eden-Farson site formation characteristics are currently indeterminate.

Direct dating of artifacts is preferable to dating via association in most archaeological situations. In this article we describe and discuss the first application of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to directly date temper particles in shell-tempered pottery. This method can be applied to ceramics from around the world that are tempered with freshwater or marine shell. To assess the method, we examine 34 new or previously reported dates (AMS dates on shell temper, paired luminescence dates from the same ceramics, and associated radiocarbon dates on other biotic materials) from seven sites in a variety of geological settings in the state of Mississippi. The results show that a freshwater reservoir effect is present in most cases. Other potential complicating factors include variable carbon input and metabolic uptake rates over space and time and the effects of burning during temper preparation or pottery firing. Despite these problems, the method holds promise for dating surface materials, museum specimens, and burial accompaniments; for investigating settlement patterns; and for other areas of research.

The Crowfield site, excavated in 1981–82, would be a small typical Early Paleoindian campsite except for the added presence of a plough-truncated pit feature containing 182+ burned and destroyed stone artifacts. This paper reports on the latest insights into the feature contents based on continuing attempts to cross-mend fragments, as well as detailed analyses of the spatial distribution of artifact pieces within the feature itself. These results reinforce earlier conclusions that the items were burned where found, represent a cache of still functional tools and preforms, and were purposefully destroyed. They confirm that the site represents the best evidence to date for sacred ritual by eastern North American fluted point users. Contrasts with other reported early sacred and secular caches are documented that highlight the uniqueness of the assemblage. It is argued that these contrasts indicate the Crowfield feature assemblage more closely approximates a transported, functioning tool kit, as opposed to the surplus, seasonal and insurance gear, or offerings, that dominate other early caches.