A chronological sequence for the introduction of the major categories of loom weaves in the Initial period and Early Horizon of prehistoric Peru reveals a process of experimentation that begins with primarily suprastructural and discontinuous decoration and culminates with the achievement of designs that are wedded materially to the weave. Three major innovations allowed for this dramatic advance: (1) the use of multiple heddles, which is found surprisingly early in the sequence; (2) the recognition of the full potential of the “cross” to vary the selection of the warps from the fixed order in the heddles, and (3) the related application of the complementary principle, in which one colored yarn is substituted for its partner in a contrasting hue. Through the elaboration of these truly revolutionary discoveries, the last limits to artistic freedom were removed and weaving technology rapidly advanced to include the full repertoire of loom-weave classes known in the Andes.

Pearson's coefficient of linear correlation, r, sometimes is used to express the similarity between two archaeological collections when each collection is characterized by the percents of the artifact types it includes. Examples show that r can be extremely misleading when used in this way, and patterns of similarity among a group of collections can be wildly misrepresented. The Brainerd–Robinson statistic is one example of a similarity coefficient that is much better than r for comparing collections.

Through detailed paleoethnobotanical data analysis, this paper discusses the agricultural production of the prehistoric Sausa people of the Andean central highlands in the context of their autonomous regional political organization. This pattern then is compared with changes in agricultural production when the Sausa were part of the Inka empire. The evidence implies that the Inka not only required local residents to work for state production but also influenced individual household production and access to resources. The data suggest that the Inka intervened in local production at the household level, perhaps even requiring individual groups to produce crops for the state on their own lands. Paleoethnobotanical data are best used for discussions of crop production, yet by selecting specific subsets of data a view of crop consumption also is provided. Paleoethnobotanical data from household floors are compared to more direct stable-isotope data from human bones, again providing evidence for how the Inka affected the Sausa diet.

In Re-Constructing Archaeology (1987a) and Social Theory and Archaeology (1987b), Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley argue for an antiscience radical archaeology as critique. They use deconstructionist sceptical arguments to conclude that there is no objective past and that our representations of the past are only texts that we produce on the basis of our sociopolitical standpoints. In effect, they contend that there is no objective world, that the world itself is a text that human beings write. This is a form of subjective idealism. Their critique is a nihilistic attack on all objective knowledge.

The official cape of the Aztec emperors characteristically is pictured with a blue, geometric design. A pictorial codex illustrates tribute textiles incorporating a portion of that same pattern. These sixteenth-century Aztec weavings came from geographic areas previously part of the twelfth-century Toltec empire; it is from that revered power that this motif derived. The imperial blue cloak of the Aztec rulers thus served as their “charter,” reflecting the empire's legitimacy based on the emperors’ claim to a Toltec genealogy. The design’s Nahuatl name plus recent dyeing experiments indicate the creation of the emperors’ cloak involved the deliberate inclusion of a labor-intensive tie-dye technique in order to produce a specific motif that carried a powerful symbolism. This design’s occurrence in other contexts confirms its importance and indicates the motif had pre-Toltec origins relating to geopolitical/mythological bases of authority in ancient mesoamerican societies.

Simulation of the effects of sample size on diversity was proposed by Kintigh (1984) as a method for investigating assemblage variability. We suggest several modifications to Kintigh's method that recognize (1) the distinction between the diversity and typological composition of an assemblage and (2) differences in the nature of sample size effects on various measures of diversity. These revisions enabled us to identify significant chronological trends in animal resource diversity during the Neolithic of central Europe.

Rapid replacement of Cibola Whiteware bowls by Roosevelt Redware bowls is documented at Chodistaas, an 18-room pueblo ruin in the American Southwest occupied from A.D. 1263 until its burning in the 1290s. This example from prehistory illustrates how controlling for formation-process variability enhances estimates of the rate of ceramic change. The Chodistaas case underscores the importance of the prehistoric record for understanding the intricate relation between ceramic variability and past behavior and for contributing to the development of ceramic theory.

The results of a detailed analysis of the faunal remains from the slave dwelling known as Building “o” at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s well-known Virginia plantation, do not conform with the expected slave quarter faunal pattern in that more complete carcasses and higher quality cuts of meat are represented. The bone assemblage contrasts with the lower quality meats found in the Storehouse at Monticello, which also is thought to have been occupied by slaves. This raises the issue of differences in meat diet within the slave community at Monticello, and it is suggested that either higher status or a complex taphonomic history involving the deposition of mixed plantation refuse may explain the patterning that is present.

The massively fortified ceremonial center of La Quemada on the northern mesoamerican frontier has long been thought to date primarily to the Postclassic period. New evidence now supports the contention that La Quemada's florescence was earlier and perhaps longer than previously recognized. Four lines of evidence support this conclusion: (1) reevaluation of Armillas’ published 14C dates, (2) regional survey data, (3) new 14C dates from excavations on a large village site near La Quemada, and (4) recent chronological refinements in the Chalchihuites area for identifying the temporal position of tradewares. Several implications of this are discussed in terms of mesoamerican core-periphery relations.

Numerous distinctly hooked silicified hairs are produced in pods of common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris). Similar phytoliths were found in six dicot species native to the central Great Plains in an extensive reference collection of both cultivated and wild plants. Statistical analysis demonstrates that many of the hooked hairs produced in common beans are significantly wider near the tip than those produced in the other species. Bean phytoliths were identified at a late prehistoric village in central Kansas based on this distinguishing characteristic.

As the state of Georgia marks the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of Hernando de Soto, we reflect on the other actors in the encounter. The King site, a Native American village in the sixteenth-century chiefdom of Coosa, yielded an unusually high crude death rate of 36 per 1,000. We attribute the elevated mortality to casualties from a clash with the Spaniards. Twenty percent of the King site skeletons exhibit injuries-deep gashes and cuts across two extremities–inflicted by steel weapons. Although enemies of the Coosa possessed some European weapons, the demographic profile of the fatalities–young women and middle-aged males and females–implicates the Spaniards. Comparison with European battle casualties supports the notion that the Spaniards were responsible for the injuries. The chronicles reveal de Soto’s army to have been the likely perpetrator. The victims probably either resisted enslavement or attempted to free others from enslavement. The site offers the first archaeological evidence of Spanish violence in the interior Southeast.

Differences in analytical sensitivity, precision, and accuracy exist among techniques and laboratories involved in the chemical analysis of archaeological ceramics. Large differences in these analytical parameters become significant in the formulation of data bases where comparability of the data is being sought. Small differences become significant when comparing pottery produced from clay resources located within a discrete geological environment. To better assess and report on the analytical results being obtained from laboratories, neutron-activation analysis and X-ray fluorescence are discussed relative to the level of precision required for ceramic characterization studies, the use of standards, and the preparation and submission of samples for commercial laboratory analysis.

Using bone-chemistry data, this project sought to assess the degree of dietary change that occurred among eastern border Pueblo populations due to prehistoric food exchange with hunter-gatherers on the Plains and to the arrival of Spanish colonists. In so doing we introduce a technique for dietary reconstruction that determines the range of diets compatible with bone-chemistry data from a particular population. The data are derived from samples of modern and archaeological plants and animals collected from the area surrounding Pecos Pueblo, and from archaeological humans recovered from Pecos itself. Bone-strontium concentrations were measured to monitor the relative proportions of meat to vegetables in the diet. Carbon and nitrogen stable-isotope ratios in food items and in bone collagen were measured to monitor the dependence on maize and bison meat. The results do not provide support for the hypothesis that bison replaced mule deer in the diet during the period of significant Plains-Pueblo trade. If bison, whose diets are relatively enriched in 13C had replaced mule deer, an increase in average δ13C values should have occurred. This, however, was not observed. A decrease in carbon-isotope values in the historic period suggests that either bison meat or maize or both decreased in importance in the Pecos diet and that dependence on wild plants increased.

Population density increases whenever a population grows more rapidly, or shrinks more slowly, than the area it inhabits; areal contraction therefore accelerates density increase. This consideration not only reinforces Dickson's (1987) suggestion that circumscription by anthropogenic environmental destruction contributed to the rise of some early states; it also implies that rate of density increase should be distinguished, as a motor of sociocultural evolution, from density itself. In light of this distinction the rise of the state in southwestern Iran, and occasional instances of high density among nonstate societies, are not necessarily inconsistent with population-pressure theories.

La Identification of maize phytoliths from the Preceramic Vegas and Formative period Real Alto sites, Guayas Province, Ecuador, has raised the issue of the antiquity of maize in Ecuador. This paper reviews how maize is identified using phytoliths and addresses criticisms of this technique. Our reexamination of the original Vegas and Real Alto samples using Piperno's three-dimensional variant method confirms the presence of maize in western Ecuador by at least 5000 B.C. Remains of charred maize from other sites suggest that more than one race was being utilized by the Formative period.

The examination of stone-tool edges for blood-antigen residue is a relatively new technique in the archaeological analysis of lithic material. To date, a number of different methods have been employed to determine the species of origin of residual blood, such as Ouchterlony double-diffusion (Ouchterlony 1968) and radioimmunoassays (RIAs) (Lowenstein 1985, 1986). These techniques have been of limited use due to problems of sensitivity, cost, and applicability to archaeological field conditions. Enzyme immunoassays (EIAs) utilizing a nitrocellulose protein-binding membrane have shown that it is possible to retain both specificity and sensitivity in a technique that can endure the rigors of archaeological field work and the vicissitudes of differential preservation (Tersak and Hyland 1988). However, due to cross-reactivity, species identification of blood residue using immunological techniques can be problematic when it is necessary to distinguish individual species within a single genus or family. Recent work has shown that careful refinement of antisera can eliminate cross-reactivity, thereby increasing specificity (Berkeley Antibody Company, personal communication 1987). This refinement is accomplished by absorbing any antibodies from the antisera that may cross-react with antigenic sites held in common by closely related species. The ramifications of the successful implementation of this technique are discussed in terms of Paleoindian artifact function as well as paleoeconomic, paleoenvironmental, and paleodietary reconstruction using a case study from the Shoop site in central Pennsylvania.

Bifacial-reduction experiments suggest that the characteristics of flake-size distribution can be employed to detect bifacial-reduction activities at archaeological sites. However, data on bifaces in various stages of completion as well as on by-product flakes are necessary for detailed analysis of the biface-manufacturing sequence.

Grass-tempered bowls made by the forbears of historical Karoo Bushmen between ca. A.D. 1500 and 1800 were decorated with many different stamp-impressed motifs. Five of the seven observed motif groups appear to be distributed randomly across the 2,000 km2 study area in the upper Seacow River valley, South Africa. When their percentage frequencies per site cluster were mapped, however, localized concentrations appeared. The validity of the percentage concentrations is tested here by unconstrained cluster analysis, which is not subject to the closure effect. Also, several other tests, all avoiding the use of percentage frequency maps, are introduced as alternative ways to deal with unevenly distributed sites and scarce artifacts or traits unevenly distributed among the sites themselves. The results demonstrate that percentage-frequency mapping can produce occasionally spurious and misleading patterns. Because stratigraphic evidence is scarce and inconclusive, and direct dating of sherds has not yet been conducted, a test also is proposed for determining contemporaneity of motif groups.

During the past 20 years a growing number of archaeologists have focused their investigations on contact and early historic-era sites in the New World. Frequently the most difficult aspect of these studies is the accurate identification of a site's age, function, and cultural affiliation from recovered material remains. Concurrent with this research has been an increasing concern for the conservation and preservation of the fragile objects recovered from these sites. One of the most important classes of artifacts for the dating and cultural identification of sites are coins. In this study we review a variety of nondestructive surface-enhancement techniques that were undertaken for the detailed examination of worn coins recovered from the seventeenth-century Marquette Mission site in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

A carved segment of mammoth ivory recently recognized in a faunal collection from the Clovis type site at Blackwater Draw, New Mexico, reveals for the first time techniques employed by Clovis Paleoindians for working ivory and adds a new trait element shared between the archaeological cultures of the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic and the late Pleistocene Clovis complex of North America.