Analyses of the assemblages from the floors of Upland Mogollon pithouses show that variation in artifact frequencies may be attributed to differences in the intensity of abandonment and post-abandonment formation processes, such as caching, scavenging and trash dumping. The proportion of pithouses that contain caches or de facto assemblages is provocatively constant across sites—roughly 18 percent. This observation may be useful for refining estimates of the populations of sites or regions, for recognizing the size of social groups, or for identifying the abandonment sequences of pithouse villages. Prior studies that attribute variation in the frequencies of different classes of artifacts to functional differences in the uses of pithouses are rejected on the grounds of methodological inadequacy.

The jackknife technique is applied here to measures of diversity in an archaeological context. As described, the technique requires no assumptions about the underlying structure of the data being analyzed and, thus, is offered as an alternative to simulation and regression approaches. Most important, with jackknifing it is possible to attach statistical significance to differences in diversity, allowing for more meaningful comparisons between archaeological assemblages.

Late Paleoindian and Early Archaic subsistence behavior in the Western Great Lakes is an important research issue that has been hindered by a lack of zooarchaeological remains, as well as disagreements over the nature of the paleoenvironmental record and human foraging behavior. Prior reconstructions of early subsistence behavior have centered on a focused, big-game hunting strategy, despite very little solid evidence. Recently, two archaeological sites in northern Wisconsin containing Late Paleoindian faunal material have been excavated, the Deadman Slough site (47PR46) and the Sucices site (47DG11). The data from these sites, and similar recently discovered sites in northeastern North America, suggest that Late Paleoindian and Early Archaic peoples employed a generalized foraging strategy, utilizing a broad range of animal species from a wide array of environmental settings. This new archaeological evidence is utilized in conjunction with detailed paleoenvironmental data and information from cultural ecological studies to develop a model of Late Paleoindian-Early Archaic subsistence behavior for the Western Great Lakes.

Baker Village was a Fremont horticultural community occupied between about A.D. 1030 and 1250. The residents of Baker Village built at least five pithouses and seven aboveground storage structures arranged around a much larger, centrally located building. The spatial patterning of faunal remains indicates that more ungulate and leporid bones were recovered from floors, hearths, and middens in the Central Structure than in the pithouses and surface storage structures. These data may support the interpretation that private ceremonies or feasts were held inside the Central Structure. Together with evidence of community planning, reduced mobility, and relatively low population size, the data also indicate that an influence-based political hierarchy probably existed within Baker Village.

Radiometric and visual techniques are compared as quantitative methods for determining pottery color. An analysis of 52 prehistoric sherds selected at random from a multicomponent site indicates an increase in the accuracy and efficiency in determining color using a spectroradiometer over subjective visual observations. Further, radiometric data can be transformed to CIE chromaticity coordinates and Munsell color from spectral reflectance curves and analyzed directly to access quantitative accuracy. The color, or spectral reflectance, of filter paper samples and a subset of the sherds measured by a standard field radiometer were strongly correlated with measurements of color derived from a low-cost, PC-based color sensor traditionally used in graphic arts applications. Radiometric data were compared with visual observations of Munsell color conducted by two archaeologists. The two methods were most similar in estimates of value and chroma. The human observers differed widely in their estimates of hue. The radiometric approach provides more consistent and exact measurements of color than does visual observation, providing archaeologists with an efficient, effective, and a potential low-cost method to determine an important common attribute of artifacts.

Data from human paleofecal samples can be used to address a variety of questions, primarily the reconstruction of diet, but also the analysis of nutrition, health, technology, and behavior Statistical analyses of constituents can be used to broaden the potential of paleofecal data, as well as to detail cuisine and to address larger issues of settlement/subsistence models. This potential is illustrated with a cluster analysis of paleofecal constituents from three late prehistoric period sites along the northern shore of ancient Lake Cahuilla, located in the Coachella Valley of southern California. These data were used to test competing settlement/subsistence models: one of large permanent lakeside villages dependent on lacustrine resources, and the other of seasonal, rather than permanent, lakeshore occupation. In addition, the analysis revealed additional details of diet and cuisine in the late prehistoric period.

The California School of Midden Analysis represents a long-standing tradition of using weight, rather than minimum number of individuals (MNI), to analyze shell recovered from archaeological sites in California. This method originated at the University of California, Berkeley, in the early twentieth century and continues to the present, in spite of the advent of counting measures such as MNI and NISP (number of identified specimens) in faunal studies. We argue that MNI estimates are more reliable than weight as a measure of taxonomic abundance for most research issues being addressed with California shell data. Examples using both weight and MNI measures for shell from California coastal sites produced divergent results. This disparity shows that weight measures produce potentially misleading interpretations regarding the importance of marine habitats exploited and the diet of the site’s occupants.

Sullivan and Rozen's (1985) debitage typology has been proposed as a method for measuring the effects of variation in lithic reduction by describing “distinctive assemblages.” This is in contrast to many traditional analytical methods oriented toward identifying the effects of lithic reduction techniques on individual flakes. Debate over the use of the typology has focused primarily on the ability of the typology to accurately measure variation in lithic reduction behavior, and secondarily on the role of experimental studies in archaeology. In this paper I present an analysis designed to estimate the reliability and validity of the typology. An experimental design is developed to permit data collection with minimal analyst induced random or systematic error. Principal components analysis and the coefficient theta demonstrate that the typology provides reliable or replicable results when applied to debitage assemblages of similar technological origin. Further principal components analysis suggests that the instrument is of limited utility in recognizing effects of variation in reduction activities associated with highly vitreous lithic raw materials. A means of expanding the typology and increasing its accuracy in archaeological pattern recognition is presented.

In a recent synthesis of style theory, Carr (1995) proposed a model based on attribute hierarchies, which reveal social patterns. The present study applies Carr's model of style to a large sample of bicymbal copper ear spools, a diagnostic “Hopewell” artifact class of the Middle Woodland period (ca. 150 B.C.—A.D. 400) in eastern North America. After ear spool attributes are defined and ranked for their visibility, a seriation of the ear spools is developed and tested for time and space correlations. Results are consistent with the interpretation that the size of social groups participating in ritual events increased over time, while the technical requirements for ear spool durability decreased. The “visibility” of ear spool attributes relates to patterns of group interaction at the level of the site, sub-region and region, thus supporting Carr's model. The model has limitations when bridging from archaeological data to ethnographic interpretations, although our results indicate that exchange of finished goods and technology was less important within the context of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere than the construction of Hopewell ideologies.

McGuire and Saitta (1996) give voice to widespread dissatisfaction with artificial dichotomies that lead to the classification of historic and late Prehispanic puebloan societies as “egalitarian” or “hierarchical” in organization. They suggest a solution, a dialectical approach, that rejects processual archaeology in general, although not in its entirety. Another alternative approach, proposed here, relies on the concept of heterarchy (e.g., Crumley 1994), which, surprisingly, has not yet been used in southwestern archaeology. The proposed use of this concept does not involve rejection of a processual framework or represent a comprehensive critique of McGuire and Saitta's proposed dialectical approach.

Schiffer (1996) recently proposed that, despite some incompatibilities, considerable common ground exists between behavioral archaeology and evolutionary, or selectionist, archaeology. He concludes that there is no fundamental reason why the two approaches cannot work in concert to explain human behavioral change. There are, however, several important reasons why the two programs, at least as currently conceived, cannot work together in any thoroughly integrated fashion. Although both programs employ inference, behavioral archaeology conflates the distinct roles of configurational and immanent properties, searches for nomothetic answers to questions about human behavior, overlooks historical contingency when inferring and explaining the nature of past behavior, and in some cases seems to fall back on vitalism as the mechanism of change. Evolutionary archaeology employs immanent properties inferentially, explicitly acknowledges the importance of the historical contingencies of configurational properties, explains human behavior as being time- and spacebound, and calls upon selection and drift (transmission) as the mechanisms of change. Any attempt to integrate the two approaches must begin by addressing these basic differences.

A series of eight replication experiments tests the proposition that human trampling of stone flakes can produce edge damage that mimics deliberate retouch. Retouchlike edge damage, breakage, and other forms of macroscopic mechanical damage were observed on large numbers of pieces in all trampled sets. Experiments measured the relative contributions of three variables-raw material, artifact density, and substrate-in generating damage. Results indicate that while all three factors contribute to some degree, substrate plays the most decisive role, and that artifacts are more likely to exhibit damage if trampled on an impenetrable substrate. It was further found that trampling transforms flakes into pseudo-tools that can be classified as formal tools using a standard typology. Many of these are notched and denticulate pieces, indicating that special caution is needed in behavioral interpretations based on these tool types, and that the European Paleolithic Denticulate Mousterian industry requires critical reassessment.

An artifact ascribed to the Anasazi culture (dated here to 920 ± 35 B.P.) is unique in its integrity, construction technique, style, and materials, including multiple yucca ropes with attached adult scarlet macaw feathers joined to a Sciurus aberti (tassel-eared squirrel) pelt and hide straps. We applied methods from anthropology and molecular biology to ascertain the origins of materials and manufacturing technique. The cytochrome b gene from the ancient DNA of the pelt was sequenced in its entirety. This gene was unique as defined by new nucleotide substitutions that distinguished it from the other S. aberti alleles. Phylogenetic trees constructed by both neighbor-joining and maximum parsimony methods are consistent with this unique allele being most closely related to genes from two extant American Southwest S. aberti subspecies and more distantly related to Mexican S. aberti genes. Our observations support the conclusion that the entire artifact was constructed in the American Southwest using native materials, including the squirrel pelt and scarlet macaw feathers. This contradicts a prior hypothesis that the feather rope component was assembled before being traded north from Mexico.

Rautman's critique of our article “Although They Have Petty Captains They Obey Them Badly: The Dialectics of Prehispanic Western Pueblo Social Organization” (McGuire and Saitta 1996) provides us with an opportunity to clarify some points about our theoretical perspective. Rautman shares our dissatisfaction with attempts to characterize Prehispanic western pueblo social organization as either egalitarian or hierarchical. She, however, questions our dismissal of processual theory and our advocacy of a dialectical approach to the problem. She proposes instead an alternative approach that relies on the concept of heterarchy. We have little problem with the use of heterarchy as a descriptive label for late Prehispanic pueblo social organization, but we desire a more dynamic understanding of that organization than the concept of heterarchy allows. We find that understanding in a dialectical approach.

In the deep recesses of “3rd Unnamed Cave,” a karst cavern in Tennessee, evidence for an ancient association between dark zone cave art and chert mining has recently been documented. The art comprises petroglyphs on the ceiling of a chamber more than 1 km from the cave entrance. On the floor below the art, natural sediments were excavated prehistorically to obtain high-quality chert nodules. Radiocarbon age determinations place the mining during the Terminal Archaic period. Studies in lithic technology, geoarchaeology, and petroglyph description are presented.

Prehistoric marine mammal hunting is of interest to archaeologists worldwide because these animals were exploited by a wide range of coastal societies. Sorting out the roles of particular groups of fauna in prehistoric economies requires detailed attention to the analysis of the entire faunal assemblage. Although marine mammals typically provided large quantities of fat and protein and were desirable prey, they were not always central to the diets of the groups that exploited them, particularly in temperate zones. To evaluate effectively the importance of marine mammal exploitation, scholars should calculate the relative contribution of these animals to the economy, identify changes in hunting techniques, determine the relationship between fauna and other aspects of society, assess changing environmental conditions, and consider alternate explanations for those relationships. A large body of research on the northern Channel Islands of California demonstrates that fishing was relatively more important than marine mammal exploitation in subsistence and in stimulating sociopolitical and technological developments. Recent attempts to credit marine mammal hunting as a driving force in the invention of the plank canoe and the evolution of a chiefdom in the Santa Barbara Channel area misunderstand environmental factors and site histories in this region. Rather than assuming that a pan-Pacific Coast set of traditions existed to exploit these taxa, we see evidence of local and regional differences rooted in variable cultural settings, physiographic and oceanographic conditions, and available technologies. Data from the Santa Barbara Channel are used to explore the relationships among marine mammal use, sociological change, and environmental change.

Recently, the Flote-Tech machine-assisted flotation system was introduced as a new technique for processing soil samples in arid environments and areas with limited or no access to water resources. This system uses water recirculation in a closed loop between a water reservoir and a flotation tank, aided by diffused air, to extract archaeological botanical remains from soil samples. The paper presents two experiments conducted to assess macroremain recovery rate, flotation rate, and the potential for cross-contamination between soil samples. In addition, Flote-Tech recovery and flotation rates are compared with rates achieved using IDOT manual and SMAP machine-assisted systems. The first set of experiments using the original 1-mm screen in the flotation box received high ratings for large, medium, and small seeds, but rated poorly for very small seeds. After installing a .5-mm screen, a higher percentage of small and very small seeds was recovered. Flotation rates for the customized Flote-Tech system ranked high, matching flotation rates for SMAP systems and out-performing manual IDOT systems by a factor of four to eight. In addition, a distinct advantage of the Flote-Tech system over other machine-assisted and manual systems is the elimination of cross-contamination between samples.