Research in experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, geoarchaeology, and vertebrate taphonomy has appreciably increased our general understanding of the formation processes—cultural and natural—of archaeological sites. In synthesizing some of these recent advances, this paper focuses on the traces of artifacts and characteristics of deposits that can be used to identify the formation processes of specific deposits. These observational phenomena are grouped into three basic categories that structure the presentation: (1) simple properties of artifacts, (2) complex properties of artifacts, and (3) other properties of deposits. Also considered is the way in which prior knowledge can help the archaeologist to cope with the large number of processes and the nearly infinite combination of them that may have contributed to the specific deposits of interest. Several analytical strategies are proposed: (1) hypothesis testing, (2) multivariate analysis, and (3) use of published data to evaluate formation processes. This paper demonstrates that the identification of formation processes, which must precede behavioral inference and be accomplished by any research endeavor that uses evidence from the archaeological record, can become practical and routine.

Although the concept of significance has been widely discussed in cultural resource management, the origin of the idea and the epistemology underlying it have remained unexamined. This paper outlines the history of the significance concept in historic preservation and traces the current view of significance to the empiricist-positivist school of Western philosophical thought. Flaws in the arguments of this school, and in the logic of the significance concept, are raised and discussed. Potential approaches for dealing with aspects of the significance dilemma are proposed.

The Late Preclassic Maya center of Cerros, northern Belize (300 B.C. to A.D. 150) has revealed evidence of a sophisticated water control system. Canals and raised field platforms have been examined inside the community center. An underlying limestone caprock was systematically removed during the quarrying of monument fill to maintain adequate drainage in the community. The result was a man-made relief or watershed across the entire core site area. The role of present and past microenvironments at Cerros is addressed.

Six types of rock features have been identified in a northwestern California mountain range. The features, including cairns, alignments, hearth rings, stone circles, rock stacks, and semicircular enclosures (tsektsels) form a complex in association with traditional trails and mountain high points. Combined ethnographic and archaeological research reveals this complex to be associated with patterns of traditional religious activity involving power quests, ritual and medicinal training, and individual prayer among the Yurok and their neighbors. The complex can be traced from prehistoric beginnings to the present time, indicating the persistence of this ideological pattern through a period of severe cultural change associated with Euro-American settlement of northwestern California. It is not known yet whether the complex is unique to northwestern California or is manifested over a wider region.

This brief review is intended to acquaint the reader with recent research and thought on the European Mesolithic. The period is characterized by hunter-gatherer adaptations between the close of the Pleistocene and the introduction of food production. A number of developments support an argument for a rapid intensification of human subsistence and settlement practices and organization, prior to the utilization of domesticated plants and animals.

It is argued that the reliability of archaeological inferences based upon artifactual assemblages is in part a function of the methods used to quantify the assemblages. Using ethnoarchaeological data, this proposition is tested by comparing associated artifactual assemblages with the presence or absence of specialists in individual households. Assemblages are quantified in terms of absolute frequency, diversity, and proportional frequency. The correlation between each measure and the presence or absence of specialists is assessed. The analysis reveals assemblage diversity to be one of the strongest and most consistent indicators of specialization and further reveals an inherent flaw characteristic of proportional frequencies.

The possibility that prehistoric peoples employed heat treatment of chert and flint as an integral part of their lithic tool production technology is a matter that has long been debated. While previous thermoluminescence (TL) investigations of the heating phenomenon concentrate on finished artifacts, this study investigates the TL stored in biface retouch flakes which are an abundant by-product of the Paleoindian fluted point manufacture. One hundred and seventy-five retouch flakes from three excavated squares at the Parkhill Paleoindian site are examined and compared with their relatively distant geological source. Accidental heating does not satisfactorily explain the fact that the overwhelming majority of the flakes appear to have been heated. We conclude that chert heating at this archaeological site was purposeful.

Jade artifacts have been recovered from a wide variety of contexts throughout the Maya Lowlands. Intact artifacts are usually recovered from tombs, burials, and dedicatory offerings. For the most part, the intact jade artifacts from Cerros, a Late Preclassic Maya center in northern Belize, fall within this range. However, the majority of Cerros jades are broken and were recovered from contexts that deviate from the normal Late Preclassic Maya pattern of jade consumption and disposal. In three locations at Cerros, quantities of jade were broken and scattered about. Such activity occurred during the abandonment of masonry and perishable structures and is interpreted here as being a form of termination ritual.

The Convention on the Law of the Sea, the culminating document of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, received favorable votes from 130 States in April 1982. The United States voted against approval. Articles 149 and 303, which address archaeological and historical objects found in various ocean zones, are compromise measures with ambiguous texts that are subject to interpretation. Archaeologists generally, not simply underwater archaeologists, should be concerned with these provisions because they could set an unfortunate precedent for future international negotiations involving cultural resources, and because they may apply to inundated prehistoric sites as well as to shipwrecks.

As president of the Society for American Archaeology. Richard E. W. Adams chose his Incoming Remarks to challenge other archaeological societies. As past president of the Society of Professional Archeologists. I question some of Adams's recollections and assertions. I reject his implied conclusions and argue that, although limited, SOPA has performed far more successfully than could have been expected. Finally, I suggest that the ideal relationship between the SAA and SOPA is neither competitive nor parasitic, but symbiotic.

Braun and Plog's approach to understanding change in “tribal” social networks is critiqued with respect to (1) certain bridging arguments about the social meaning of particular evidential trends, and (2) certain conceptual biases regarding the nature of “tribal” social relations. Aspects of an alternative strategy for making sense of “tribal” social dynamics are discussed.

Bettinger and Baumhoff proposed an explanation for the spread of Numic language groups in the prehistoric Great Basin by appeal to models of optimal foraging and the processes of adaptive competition. In an effort to continue their discussion, I offer comments on their selection and use of Great Basin archaeological evidence, and their use of optimal foraging models. Finally, I identify other problems amenable to their general perspective.

Criticisms of our model of the recent spread of Numic speakers into the Great Basin center on the ambiguity of linguistic evidence and apparent similarities between Numic and Prenumic settlement and subsistence patterns. We argue that the linguistic data are only one part of a larger body of ethnographic data that support the hypothesized spread of Numic speakers and that the adaptive similarities noted between Numic and Prenumic are only of the broadest sort and do not vitiate the assumptions of our model. In particular, we suggest that it is the intensity with which a resource is used, not the mere use of that resource, which is important in understanding competitive replacement among adaptive strategies.

In his review of my monograph, Prehistoric Pueblo Settlement Patterns: The Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico Site Survey, E. Charles Adams makes several misstatements, questions some of my methods of data presentation, and asserts that the site densities reported are too low. An endeavor is made to answer his criticism.