My object here is to list and briefly discuss the themes which seem most important and most valuable in Albert Spaulding's contributions to archaeological method and theory. I have not attempted to be biographical, to deal with his substantive contributions to North American prehistory, or to be exhaustive in mentioning every good idea and useful suggestion he has put into print. My discussion is also incomplete because the flow of major contributions has not ceased. Al is still busy trying new things (Spaulding 1976) and assessing current archaeological fashions with clarity, vigor, and reason (Spaulding 1973,1974).

The New Archaeology has been said to involve a new view of culture and a heightened appreciation of the way to do science. By way of examining these claims, a review is made of three well known studies in which archaeologists popularly assigned to that movement attempt to relate the distributions of archaeological materials to patterns of post-marital residence. One of the studies is found to be possibly successful, the others probably unsuccessful, and the conclusion is that no such relationship is demonstrated. Although the conceptual framework of the studies is impressive, at least two of them are found to suffer from an insufficiency of rigor in testing their hypotheses. It is suggested that the conceptual framework is not peculiar to the New Archaeology, and that the shortcomings in testing relate to a misapprehension of scientific method.

The rationale of customary "null hypothesis testing" procedures of statistical inference is examined. This approach is not incorrect, but it is prone to misuse and misinterpretation, including neglect of "power" and inappropriate conclusions based on conventional significance levels. The estimation approach, which often seems preferable, is briefly described. The kind of reasoning involved in statistical inference is required whenever we wish to assess the evidence relevant for or against any general proposition, whether we make any formal computations or not, and whether or not we have observed all possible real instances of relevant evidence. Statistical inference is logically unproblematic if we interpret it as a way of assessing the evidence more clearly. But statistical results cannot be directly converted into probabilities of the truth of hypotheses. This requires additional assumptions about appropriate probabilities of the hypotheses prior to consideration of the research evidence.

To frame a model of style valid for archaeology in the general case it is necessary to begin by stripping away all the specialized connotations the word has assumed until there only remain the fundamental tenets without which the essence of the matter would itself dissolve and escape. It is never easy to feel that one has reached the bottom of things. Nevertheless, the pursuit of this exercise over a considerable period of time has gradually led me to three conclusions which I regard as the basic tenets upon which a general model can be constructed. The first is that all theories of style ultimately rest upon two primitive givens: that, whatever else it may entail, style (a) concerns a highly specific and characteristic manner of doing something, and (b) that this manner is always peculiar to a specific time and place. The second conclusion is that, when projected into the realm of archaeology, style in this general sense is the perfect complement of function regarded in an equally general sense.

This paper comprises a survey of selected publications describing various kinds of design analyses applied to pottery from two regions of the world that are relatively well known archaeologically: the U.S. Southwest and the Near East. My purpose is simply to demonstrate some progress, some problems, and some potentialities of this form of archaeological analysis as it has been used in these two geographic areas where painted pottery makes up a large and significant proportion of the prehistoric record.

Nine hundred eighty Early Iron Age graves at Hallstatt, Austria, were excavated between 1846 and 1863. Since then, no really comparable body of material has been discovered in temperate Europe. A report is presented on some initial attempts to reconsider this classic material using quantitative methods. The analyses reported attempt to determine from grave goods the sex, age, status, and the relative date of buried individuals. Graves are graded according to their likely integrity and are described by the types of object they contain. These descriptors are then subjected to some regular forms of data analysis and some provisional general conclusions are drawn.

The evaluation of the significance of archaeological resources, mandated by federal, state, and local statutes, has forced American archaeologists to justify why sites or their contents should be preserved. The currently popular approach toward evaluation emphasizes determination of the relevance of archaeological resources to regional research problems. However, this approach fails to recognize that resources have values to research problems not yet conceived. It is argued, therefore, that evaluation must focus directly on the observational properties of resources. Using Spaulding's article, "Dimensions of Archaeology," as an initial inspiration, five such properties were defined: variety, quantity, clarity, integrity, and environmental context. A recent project in coastal California provides examples of how this alternative approach may be used.

The evolutionary stage designated chiefdom or ranked society is examined for its utility in archaeological research. The concept of redistribution is abandoned as an indicator of chiefdoms. A cybernetic model of chiefdoms is presented, and measures of mortuary differentiation, ritual-regulatory networks, subsistence autonomy, and part-time craft specialization are proposed as indicators of this type of socio-political organization.

Data derived from site survey and excavation in central New Mexico indicate that there is a lack of congruence, or agreement, between material recovered through excavation and expectations derived from environmental, ethnographic and site location information. It is argued that the lack of congruence should not be dismissed but may provide useful insights into past subsistence technology.

Excavations by the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology in 1950 at the Pulcher site in the American Bottoms south of Cahokia, Illinois, reveal a long occupation from about A.D. 500-1300 which was probably not continuous. The major occupation in terms of area and most of the mounds appear to be Late Woodland. A Stirling-Moorehead occupation is known to have occurred in a limited area. This was followed by a southern intrusion of people burying in stone box graves and a "foreign" ceramic complex.