Diversity in archaeology's social theories is desirable, but factioning of the discipline into antagonistic, paradigm-based camps undermines the scientific enterprise. In order to promote efforts at building bridges between different theoretical programs, this paper examines relationships between behavioral archaeology and evolutionary (selectionist) archaeology. Potential common ground is brought to light, incompatibilities are critically examined, and possible synergies are explored. It is concluded that there is no fundamental reason why these two programs cannot work in concert to achieve the goal of explaining behavioral (or evolutionary) change in human societies. Whether productive relationships can be established between other programs remains to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

This paper considers problems inherent in constructing typologies based on subdividing artifacts using clustering algorithms that assume a paradigmatic structure (as do most, if not all, currently used algorithms) and presents an alternative method based on a taxonomic, rather than a paradigmatic, structure for the artifact classes. The method is exemplified by analysis of an assemblage of utilized flakes from a series of late prehistoric habitation sites in the central highlands of Peru. These flakes were previously analyzed using more intuitive, traditional methods but without identifying any satisfactory groupings within the assemblage. Similarly, paradigmatically based clustering algorithms applied to the entire data set and using the several variables measured over these flakes were also unable to extract meaningful groupings. In contrast, the method presented here was able to (1) construct a partition of the flake assemblage into groups that also made intuitive sense to the practitioner, (2) have functional interpretation assignable through a model of transmission of forces from agent to object acted on, and (3) produce units differentially occurring across the several subsites from which the utilized flakes were obtained, i.e., units that add another dimension to the analysis of activities represented by the archaeological assemblage. Although demonstrated with utilized flakes, the method has general application.

A fragmentary specimen of Cucurbita sp. has been recovered from an early context at the Sharrow site in central Maine. Directly dated to the mid-Holocene epoch on the basis of an accelerator mass spectrometer assay of 5695 ± 100 B.P. (AA-7491), this squash or gourd represents one of the earliest such finds in eastern North America. It greatly expands the distribution of mid-Holocene Cucurbita beyond previous finds in the Midwest, Midsouth, and Southeast. Three alternative hypotheses derived from this discovery are that (1) Cucurbita represents a previously unrecognized native plant in the far Northeast; (2) it was present in Maine as a trade item or an unintentional introduction; or (3) it was present as the result of early cultivation, whether introduced from Mesoamerica or elsewhere in eastern North American outside of Maine. Current evidence suggests that the first two hypotheses are unlikely. This leaves open the possibility that the presence of early Cucurbita at the Sharrow site represents the introduction of a cultivated plant into Maine during the mid-Holocene.

Debates about the importance of marsh resources to prehistoric human subsistence in the western Great Basin are longstanding. Recent questions regarding the natural vs. cultural origin of fish remains in lakeside archaeological sites further impede understanding of ancient subsistence patterns. Taphonomic study of a huge assemblage of tui chub (Gila bicolor) remains from an archaeological site in Stillwater Marsh, western Nevada, was undertaken to identify agents of deposition in marsh settings. The Stillwater fish remains showed limited surface modification-cut marks, burning, and digestive etching and staining—and thus these attributes were not useful indicators of origin. Fish mortality profiles, reconstructed by regression analysis of body size, indicates cultural selection of young/small fish rather than natural catastrophic mass death. The low survivorship of vertebrae in the chub assemblage suggests differential treatment of cranial and postcranial body parts by cultural agents. The Stillwater site fish assemblage represents a vast number of small fish; the presence of small tui chub from archaeological sites throughout the western Great Basin suggests that prehistoric fishers targeted relatively small chub in the subsistence quest.

Valle del Azufre is a newly discovered source of high-quality obsidian in central Baja California, which exhibits the most intensive exploitation of any known source in the greater United States Southwest and Northwest Mexico. Over 15 subsurface trenches and at least one adit occur at the source. Evidence for the prehistoric distribution of Valle del Azufre obsidian is presented based on energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometry characterization of the source material and artifacts from the Baja California peninsula. Despite the intensity of exploitation at the source, the distribution of Valle del Azufre glass appears to be largely restricted to the central part of the peninsula.

Ball courts are well-known features of Mesoamerican societies and of the Hohokam culture of the American Southwest. In both cases, the courts are argued to have served a range of ritual, economic, and political purposes. Ball courts have long been known to exist in the northwestern Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora as well as in the adjacent portion of New Mexico, although they have never been extensively described or interpreted. This paper presents a large, new set of ball court data for the area around the great Prehispanic center of Paquime (or Casas Grandes), Chihuahua. These data suggest that the region around Paquime may have been characterized by a relatively low level of political centralization, regardless of the social and economic alliances that existed among neighboring communities.

The anatomical details of a birth scene depicted on Classic Mimbres (A.D. 1000-1150) bowls from southwestern New Mexico can provide clues to gender relations in Classic Mimbres society. The scenes show an infant emerging facing forward (unusual in human birth) with its arms up (virtually unknown in human birth). These details suggest that the scene was painted by someone unfamiliar with the birthing process. Ethnographically, men rarely see human births. Thus, it is likely that the birth scene, and perhaps other Mimbres pottery designs, were painted by men.

In 1953 human remains and a new type of Paleoindian artifact were discovered eroding from a "blowout" in a small dune field along Monahans Draw, near Midland, Texas, on the Southern High Plains. The projectile points became the type “Midland” collection. Stratigraphy, radiometric dating, paleontology, and geochemistry suggested that the artifacts and bones dated to at least 10,000 B.P. and that the human remains were possibly as old as 20,000 B.P. The researchers believed that the human bones were from below a red sand that in turn was below a Folsom occupation. The dating of the human remains has long been problematic, however, and recent attempts to apply U-series dating further confuse the story. Geoarchaeological investigations were carried out at the site from 1989 to 1992 to reevaluate the geochronology, with particular reference to the age of the skeletal material. We reach several conclusions: (1) there are two Red Sands; (2) the human remains are from below the upper Red Sand, but the Folsom material is from above the lower Red Sand and, therefore, the Red Sand stratigraphy is not relevant to the age of the human remains; (3) the human remains were associated with the valley-margin facies of a lacustrine carbonate that is well dated in the region and rarely is > 10,000 B.P.; and (4) all numerical dating methods applied at the site produced unreliable results. We find no compelling evidence that the human remains from the Midland site are older than Folsom age; they may be contemporary with or younger than the Folsom occupation.

Fire hearths associated with prehistoric Native American occupation lie within the youngest buried lowland soil of the estuaries along the Salmon and Nehalem rivers on the northern Oregon coast. This buried soil is the result of sudden subsidence induced by a great earthquake about 300 years ago along the Cascadia subduction zone, which extends offshore along the North Pacific Coast from Vancouver Island to northern California. The earthquake 300 years ago was the latest in a series of subsidence events along the Cascadia subduction zone over the last several thousand years. Over the long term, subsidence and burial of prehistoric settlements as a result of Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes have almost certainly been an important factor contributing to the limited time depth of the archaeological record along this section of the North Pacific Coast.

Snow has recently challenged the in situ theory of the origins of the Northern Iroquois, arguing that it is a controlling model that does not account for certain linguistic, social, ceramic, and settlement anomalies he identifies in the record of prehistoric Iroquoian development. He proposes a migration model that purports to respond to these anomalies. Data recently gathered from a project focusing on the Princess Point Complex of southern Ontario shed light on Snow’s hypothesis for a migration after A.D. 900. These new data do not support Snow’s migration scenario, at least as this model concerns Ontario and Princess Point.

Crawford and Smith have developed important new evidence that bears on the hypothesis that the Northern Iroquoians migrated into the lower Great Lakes region sometime after A.D. 900. Clarification of the Princess Point Complex in Ontario forces a revision of the hypothesis. While an Appalachian origin for the Northern Iroquoians and their subsequent migration is not rejected, new evidence strongly suggests that the population shift took place three centuries earlier than I previously proposed. The situation calls for both further refinement of paleodemographic theory and new empirical research into Owasco and other earlier Northern Iroquoian complexes.