An understanding of the mechanics involved in flake formation provides an opportunity for deriving more behavioral information from flake and flake scar morphology. The mechanics of flake formation are directly relevant to the identification of prehistoric flaking techniques and stone tool use. In this paper we provide a model of flake formation that accounts for much of the variation in flake morphology. Flakes can form in a number of ways and despite popular belief they are not all of the conchoidal variety. The bending flake is common in use wear though it is often misidentified as a conchoidal flake. A third major type of flake, the compression flake, is a common product of bipolar impact. To account for the wide variation in flake morphology we follow a tripartite scheme of flake formation comprising initiation, propagation, and termination phases, within which different mechanisms can operate.

Carneiro (1970) asserts that social and environmental "circumscription" were primary stimuli for the emergence of the archaic state. He presents the environment as an essentially fixed set of natural conditions which impose constraints upon society. However, paleoenvironmental research and contemporary experience indicate that desertification, deforestation, salinization, and other salient environmental conditions confronting early states were neither fixed nor natural, but apparently dynamic products of direct human ecological intervention. This paper reviews evidence from southern Mesopotamia and suggests that Carneiro's thesis be amended to include changing patterns of "artificial" circumscription brought about by anthropogenic environmental destruction.

Ceramic vessels with goblet-like stems have been identified in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Iroquoian sites in southern Ontario. Material and technology indicate local origin for these wares. It is suggested that they were modeled on the French Catholic chalice and used by the Iroquoians for magical or healing rituals. This constitutes a rare example of European-Indian religious syncretism demonstrable in the archaeological record.

Analysis of Middle Woodland paleoethnobotanical assemblages from south-central Tennessee yielded evidence of variation and change in human and plant niche expression. A coevolutionary framework for understanding the mutually effective relations between human behavior and plant ecology and genetics is applied in an effort to explain why the Middle Woodland paleoethnobotanical record is expressed as it is. Focus upon a limited suite of taxa associated with secondary succession, cultivation, and domestication make clear the need to understand the ecology and morphology of taxa being considered, as well as the occupational history of the sites in question.

Tarascan metallurgy was not only a complex technology, but a significant marker of elite social status and a major source of wealth for the ruling dynasty. Reanalysis of ethnohistoric material, when coupled with new cartographic and archaeological data, provides insight into the structure and role of copper, silver, and gold production in the Protohistoric Tarascan State. The increasing political centralization of the Tarascan State in the last century before European contact resulted in the emergence of new forms of exploitation of mineral resources, tempered by the technological and transport constraints of a prehispanic civilization.

The data presented here, by providing examples of resource diversity in Belize, add support to the current consensus that a basis indeed exists in the Maya Lowlands for placement of research emphasis on elucidating patterns of local or intercommunity exchange as a step toward understanding socioeconomic integration. The point also is made that any generalized model of exchange will fail to shed light on lowland integration unless patterns are defined for exchange that operated at the local or inter-community level. It is suggested that these patterns be sought against a backdrop of differential resource distribution.

The use of dry metallic powder is suggested as a means of enhancing photography of obsidian or glassy stone tools.

Methods for recognition of site formation processes are slowly being developed. Ethnoarchaeological data on refuse disposal suggest that comparison of the distribution of large and small objects across a site may be an interpretive method because size is often a factor in determining whether an object becomes primary or secondary refuse. To test this in the field, I carried out microdebitage analysis on soil samples from a stone circle site in the Northern Plains. Comparison of the microdebitage and macroflake distributions indicates the utility of microdebitage analysis for study of use and disposal in lithic tool manufacture areas.

Some of the first recorded archaeology done in North America was accomplished by John Rowzéé Peyton in 1774. With two companions, Peyton escaped from jail in Santa Fe. Using a compass and a copy of the Delisle map of 1703, he made his way to an Osage camp on the Missouri River and thence to St. Louis. En route, he stopped to excavate in a burial mound. His interpretation of the mounds he saw is one of the first recorded instances of the Mound Builder myth. There is reason to suspect that Peyton may have been responsible for the origin of the myth, as an oral tradition among the educated elite of the American colonies.

A five day conference on Apachean ceramics was held at the University of Colorado, Boulder from July 29 through August 2, 1985. The format of this conference consisted of a workshop with a series of open discussions rather than formal papers. Results of this conference included a reorganization of Brugge's (1982) Apachean ceramic taxonomy. The participants concluded that more than one source was responsible for the development of Southern Athapaskan ceramics. Furthermore, the development of this technology occurred, in most cases, as a complex in conjunction with a horticultural and/or pastoralist system.

The water control system at Hierve el Agua, Oaxaca, originally described by Neely (1967), has been widely accepted as an early example of crop irrigation. Various lines of evidence including chemical analysis of the water support an alternative hypothesis that the canals and terraces were designed for salt production through solar evaporation.

The Mexican ("Aztec") 365-day calendar and the Western Maya (Yucatec) 365 day calendar in use at the time of the Spanish conquests of Mexico and the Yucatan have an invariable relation to each other. The first nine mesomonths (named 20-day intervals) of the Yucatec 365-day calendar are coterminous with the last nine mesomonths of the "Aztec" calendar. The proof reconfirms the validity of the modified Thompson (584,283) correlation between Mesoamerican and European calendars.

National Register of Historic Places criterion (d) for significance is based solely on the theoretical and substantive knowledge of the discipline. Archaeologists continue to misuse and abuse the term and do not understand its meaning in terms of the cultural resource management process. In so doing, archaeologists often place federal agencies and state historic preservation offices in a quandary as to proper management decisions. Misuse of the concept of significance in the formulation of a research design may seriously jeopardize or curtail making important contributions to the discipline. In addition, the failure to understand the concept of significance may not provide the basis for rational decisions concerning data redundancy, collection strategies, predictive modeling, and mitigation. Problems are compounded when archaeologists employed by federal and state agencies do not understand significance and the cultural resource management process.

A recent article by Rogers (1986) hypothesized that spurred end scrapers were a temporally diagnostic artifact indicating Paleoindian occupation in Kansas. Examination of the distribution of this artifact in northeastern Colorado indicates that, besides being a part of Paleoindian assemblages, it also occurs in Middle Archaic (McKean complex) and Dismal River contexts.

In presenting a case for the viability of llamas on the desert coast of northern Peru in prehispanic times, Shimada and Shimada (1985) suggest that alpacas might also have been adapted to the coastal environment. Alpacas are primarily wool producers however, best adapted to the high altitude pasturelands of central and southern Peru. Wool yarn used in coastal textiles, it is argued, was imported from the highlands. While coastal llama herding is an aspect of regional self-sufficiency, alpaca wool yarn was important in the long distance exchange networks which, in later Andean prehistory, distributed rare materials and products for elite consumption.

This brief note points out two problems in the comment by Topic et al.: the assumption that alpaca were valued only for their wool, and the questionable application of ethnographic and Inkaic husbandry models in culturally and environmentally different settings. Important to resolving these and other problems is improvement of our ability to differentiate alpaca and llama from preserved and sampled osteological and fiber remains.

The recently published reconstruction of Hernando de Soto's route through the southeastern United States, and of the chiefdom of Coosa (Hudson et al. 1985), is critiqued. The researchers' estimates of time traveled by the expedition, their use of certain vague or unreliable sources, and their interpretation of archaeological data are questioned. These problems weaken their claims that their reconstruction is better than the Soto route originally proposed by Swanton. Of particular concern is their seeming naivete regarding the correlation of archaeological and ethnographic cultures.

C. Clifford Boyd, Jr. and Gerald F. Schroedl find fault with our use of both historical and archaeological evidence in our reconstruction of the paramount chiefdom of Coosa. Herein we answer their criticisms by discussing our overall research strategy and by clarifying our use of historical documents, the Spanish league, and archaeological information. We also point out some of the more obvious errors and misinterpretations in the work of the U.S. De Soto Expedition Commission.

Pedoturbation by moles at archaeological sites in the Upper Galilee of Israel is offered to supplement data published by Bocek (1986).