Documentary research combined with field study has made possible the reconstruction of the sociopolitical organization of the Late Prehispanic Chimu and Chimu-Inca polities of the North Coast of Peru. Many aspects of the management of the large-scale irrigation networks of the region are integrated into that organization. Rights to the water of a particular canal–and to the lands it watered–can be shown to have been vested in socio-political groups which occupied different hierarchical positions according the size of the canal. Maintenance, repair, and distribution of the water were carried out by these groups; there was no centralized state bureacracy to oversee hydraulic affairs. Understanding the organization of the canal system permits a series of hypotheses for the reconstruction of ancient territorial units and the organization of settlement patterns within them.

The concept of middle-range theory, arising over three decades ago in sociology, is reviewed. The concept was proposed as an approach to theorizing, urging consolidation of high-order theories with low-order empirical studies. The critical elements in such hierarchies are theories of a middle-range of abstraction. However, most current conceptions of “middle-range theory” in archaeology are far more narrowly conceived. Derived primarily from Binford's work, they continue the New Archaeology's attempt to develop a materialist epistemology for archaeology. In this view, principles of site formation processes are nearly synonymous with “middle-range theory.” The dangers to theory-building of this approach are outlined. Examples of middle-range theory that expand our capacity for explanation of cultural behavior are presented.

SEM micrographs of seeds from four tobaccos historically cultivated by aboriginal groups in the Eastern Woodlands and adjacent Great Plains of North America are presented. The tobaccos considered are Nicotiana rustica L., N. attenuata Torr., N. bigelovii var. quadrivalvis (Pursh) East, and N. bigelovii var. multivalvis (Lindley) East. Micrographs of seeds from herbarium collections are compared with micrographs of carbonized tobacco seeds from the Extended Middle Missouri component at the Travis I site, and tobacco is reported from the Dirt Lodge Village site, both in South Dakota. The archaeological specimens compare most favorably with N. bigelovii var. quadrivalvis (Pursh) East, the tobacco historically cultivated by the Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa. These results strengthen the evidence for trade contacts and cultural interaction by Middle Missouri tradition populations with groups to the west and provide new data on the temporal perspective for the cultivation of N. bigelovii var. quadrivalvis (Pursh) East in the Middle Missouri subarea.

A decade of intensive archaeological survey of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming has revealed one stratified Paleoindian site along with several thousand sites of later age. This site is only a remnant of a much larger one. It has four cultural levels that include Clovis, Folsom, Agate Basin-Hell Gap, and Alberta-Cody respectively, with intervening sterile deposits. The site location and the taphonomics of the bone bed in the Alberta-Cody level suggest that the site was associated with the procurement of large animals. Interdisciplinary investigation of the site indicates that past geologic activity is largely responsible for the scarcity of Paleoindian sites in the basin. The history and basic philosophy of cultural resource management in this area are reviewed. Currently, land ownership is divided between federal and state agencies and private operators, such that the surface may be privately owned while the subsurface is federally owned. The argument is made for a future cultural resource management program for the Powder River Basin that is strongly oriented toward research in contrast to the present policy of inventory and avoidance of archaeological sites.

Criteria for recognizing technological and use-wear modifications have been used to identify “bone expediency tools” by archaeologists who analyze bone assemblages recovered from sites where butchering of animals took place. These criteria are here reviewed and then used to identify bone pseudotools in cervid bone assemblages completely formed by non-human processes and recovered from the blast zone around the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington. The procedures for identifying stone tools and bone tools share similar strengths and weaknesses that seem to originate with the logical criteria used for recognizing modifications to the objects under study. Less equivocal inferential identifications of bone objects as “tools” can be facilitated by turning to the problem of constructing testable hypotheses about the way patterns of use-wear modifications to bone tools can be expected to appear in the archaeological record.

The activities of the Inca state in the Xauxa region of the Peruvian central highlands were partially supported by the stockpiling of agricultural, gathered, and craft goods in over 2,000 storehouses, distributed among 52 architectural complexes. The spatial organization and architectural standardization of the storage facilities suggest that the accumulation and disbursement of these goods within the province was centrally managed, but that material support for state projects was somewhat dispersed. Documentary sources indicate that the native Huanca population produced the goods stored and played a role in managing the storage system. Test excavations in six storehouses recovered all major prehistoric highland crop taxa–including maize, quinoa, potatoes, and lupine–and fragments of Inca storage vessels.

Trailed and incised drawings on the mud-covered walls of an East Tennessee cave have been identified as the artwork of Mississippian Indians who visited this sanctuary about 800 years ago. These unique drawings, called “mud glyphs” because of their similarity to certain petroglyphs found in the southeastern United States, include abstract designs, symbols, zoomorphic forms and anthropomorphic figures. Symbols such as the forked eye and the “bird-man” anthropomorphic representation correlate with six radiocarbon dates on torch charcoal that range between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries A.D. The occurrence of thousands of superimposed elements on the walls indicates that Mud Glyph cave was a Mississippian period sanctuary and further suggests that certain southeastern caves during this period were used for ritual activities rather than for mining as they were during earlier Woodland and Archaic times.

Phytolith analysis in archaeology suffers from a lack of taxonomic data on silicified forms in plant domesticates and related wild species. This study presents the results of a comparative analysis of phytolith size and morphology in maize (Zea mays L.) and wild grasses. Grass phytolith morphology is highly diverse. By combining the criteria of size and three-dimensional form of cross-shaped phytoliths, one can discriminate between maize phytoliths and those of wild grasses, including teosinte. This method for identifying archaeological maize was tested by analysis of samples from four sites in the Pacific watershed of central Panama. Phytolith spectra from deposits dated by radiocarbon to the early fifth millennium B.C. indicate the presence of maize. The interpretation of the phytolith data is supported by pollen studies.

Metric analysis of an excellently preserved Bison skull with horn cores recovered from a northern Florida river identifies the specimen as an evolutionarily late representative of Bison antiquus. A fragment of chert protrudes from the right fronto-parietal area of the skull. Radiocarbon and biostratigraphic dating place the age of the Bison at about 11,000 years, thereby documenting an association between the animal and Paleoindians. It is likely that the animal was killed and butchered adjacent to a now-inundated water hole.

Cultures are not integral wholes carried by social isolates. We must distinguish between reality culture and ideology-making, and recognize that the creation or dismantling of cultures always goes on within extensive social fields, structured by the dominant modes of production. It is suggested that ideology-making derives from the prevalent mode of production and is entailed in its operations.

Michael Closs's decipherment of an Initial Series from the Xcalumkin area is corroborated by an inscription from Oxkintok, Yucatán, Mexico.

Ongoing gradual uplift of the Pacific watershed of Peru results in water table subsidence. As a mechanical consequence, the form and use of embankment-bound fields evolve through a series of distinct stages. Conflicting interpretations arise as a consequence of different investigators having addressed field structures in different stages of evolution.

Several articles describing the ancient Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal in northern coastal Peru are criticized. Tectonic uplift was probably not the primary cause of the abandonment of the canal construction project. The Chimu were skilled engineers. The Intervalley Canal did function in a limited manner. It is proposed that the canal was built as a political response to social pressures in the Moche Valley caused by environmental stress (drought). Abandonment of the canal construction project took place when drought ended.