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.

In his interpretation of the introduction of the calumet ceremony into the southeastern U.S. in this journal, Brown (1989) has perpetuated a common error that the lithic nickname "catlinite" correctly describes any of the red Plains pipestones from the three well-known midwestern localities he cites. In truth, the mineralogy of each of the pipestones from those three geologic sources (provenances) are distinct from one another, and that of catlinite is diagnostic. Although most of the artifacts he evaluates are probably true catlinite, many of them might not be. Unless archaeologists know of what material an object is made, they do not know from where the material originated; thus they cannot know who obtained the material nor how the artifact reached its archaeological location (provenience).

Samples of organic matter and rock varnish from seven rock-art sites in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming and Montana were collected for dating purposes. Petroglyphs sampled include Dinwoody-style figures, shield-bearing warriors, and other well-known Plains rock-art motifs. Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating of 10 petroglyphs yielded dates from the Early Archaic to the Protohistoric periods. A strong numerical relation between varnish leaching and time was found for petroglyphs older than 1,000 years, permitting the derivation of a cation-leaching curve (CLC) and calibrated cation-ratio (CR) ages for 15 different petroglyphs. No clear numerical relation between varnish leaching and time was found for petroglyphs less than 1,000 years old, possibly due to historical damage or past environmental conditions. As a result, calibrated CR ages could not be derived for six petroglyphs, and they are considered to be only younger than 1,000 years. Although further research is needed to establish whether one CLC can be used for all petroglyphs in the region, these studies constitute the first numerical chronology for rock art in the Bighorn area. Results indicate the occurrence of spatially discrete, but temporally concurrent styles in the Bighorn Basin during the last 800-900 years.

In a recent article, Spielmann et al. (1990) cited Spanish abuse of Indian labor and food stores as a major cause of dietary change at Pecos Pueblo. Of equal or greater significance were Old World diseases, which reduced the population of Pecos and other Pueblos and which necessarily impacted subsistence strategies.