The Chumash tomol, a sophisticated planked canoe, came into use in the Santa Barbara Channel region of Southern California about 1,500 years ago. It is often assumed that planked watercraft were first developed in the region at about that date. This paper argues, on theoretical grounds, that planked canoes were developed much earlier in Southern California, perhaps as early as 8,500 years ago.

This article is concerned with the social processes involved in the formation of large agglomerated villages in the Neolithic of the Near East and Anatolia, with particular reference to Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The article aims to show that practice theories (dealing with how social rules are learned in daily practice within the house) can be used to interpret the patterning of recurrent construction and use activities within domestic space at Çatalhöyük. The regulation of social practices in the house created village-wide social rules, but it is argued that the habituated behavior was also commemorative and involved in the construction of social memory. Sitewide and house-based specific memories are documented at Çatalhöyük. The evidence for habituated practice and social memory at other sites is briefly discussed, and is argued to be relevant for the formation of settled agricultural societies.

Split-twig figurines, willow branches bent to resemble miniature animals and dating between 2900 B.C. and 1250 B.C., have been found at 30 Late Archaic period archaeological sites in the Greater American Southwest. Two different and geographically distinct construction styles, Grand Canyon and Green River, have been identified for split-twig figurines. Application of ethnographic analogy to the current split-twig figurine archaeological record supports the postulate that the two different styles of split-twig figurines served two different functions. The Grand Canyon-style figurines generally functioned as increase totems whereas the Green River-style functioned as social totems. This is the first example of increase totemism reported for the region. Ritual and social attitudes toward the animal and totem eventually ended and the last split-twig figurine was discarded around 1250 B.C.

Comparing zooarchaeological data for Native American, Spanish, and British occupations with modern fisheries data from St. Johns County, Florida (USA) shows differences in the use of marine resources from 1450 B.C. through A.D. 2000. Changes in biomass contribution, diversity, types of fishes used, and trophic levels of sharks, rays, and bony fishes suggest that the pattern described as “fishing down marine food webs” (Pauly et al. 1998) may have been present in the St. Johns County area as early as the eighteenth century. A change in the size and growth habits of Atlantic croaker (Sciaenidae: Micropogonias undulatus) occurred early in this sequence, indicating an impact on this specific fish. However, overharvesting of fishes is not the only explanation for these observations. Climate and cultural changes are additional explanations for the patterns observed that should receive closer attention. Exploring these alternative explanations is made possible by a zooarchaeological record that permits us to study fishing habits and fish behavior before large-scale industrial fishing began.

Identification of probable bighorn sheep representations at Mound City prompts reconsideration of the Rocky Mountain connection to Ohio Hopewell. Following James Griffin's “one-shot” hypothesis, it is argued that the bighorn finds, along with the imported bulk of obsidian from the Hopewell site, are likely to pertain to a single expedition taking place about A.D. 200.

By 8000 B.P., sea-mammal hunting and open-sea voyages were established at Eel Point, San Clemente Island, California. The early inhabitants of Eel Point depended heavily on sea-mammal hunting and shellfish collecting, rather than the intensive fishing that developed during the Late Holocene along the Southern California coast. Eel Point technological capabilities rivaled those of Late Holocene groups such as the Chumash Indians, including the ability to fabricate sophisticated watercraft. These data question traditional models of progressive maritime cultural development in coastal Southern California, and reveal the need for more empirical methods of assessing the seafaring capabilities of ancient maritime populations.

Traditional approaches to the analysis of skeletal representation in faunal assemblages that employ correlation analyses work well when there is a linear or curvilinear relationship or no relationship at all between the variables under investigation. However, in taphonomic applications in zooarchaeology, these approaches can mask meaningful variation in certain cases where the relationship between the causal variable and skeletal-part representation is one of limitation rather than absolute determination. Such relationships are typified by triangular distributions of points in scatter plots. Using fuzzy-set theory, these relationships can be interpreted more comprehensively by distinguishing necessity and sufficiency relationships between the causal variable and skeletal part representation. Graphs in which data points are distributed in a triangle in the lower-right part of the scatter plot are consistent with an interpretation of necessity, while graphs where data points are distributed in an upper-left triangle are consistent with an interpretation of sufficiency. Such interpretations parallel transport strategies inferred from graphs of utility and representation, and can be applied profitably to graphs of density and representation. In some cases, this leads not only to refinement of the interpretation of density effects, but also to retrieval of economic evidence that might otherwise be overlooked.

Among the various pre-maize indigenous crops of eastern North America, Cucurbita pepo gourd is the most enigmatic. C. pepo gourd remains have been found on mid-Holocene (8000–4000 B.P.) archaeological sites as far north and east as Maine. Their presumably extremely bitter flesh would have made the fruits inedible. Two not mutually exclusive hypotheses for use of the fruit are currently being debated: (1) the nutritious seeds were processed to remove bitterness and consumed, and (2) dried fruits were used as fishnet floats and/or containers for general use. We report on a series of experiments that demonstrate the gourds function extremely well as fishnet floats. These results lend support to the second hypothesis, but do not conclusively prove they were used for this purpose.

Damp et al. (2002:667) quote me as stating “Old fields in New Mexico in the fertile Rio Grande Valley produced maize pollen, typically at levels of less than 2.0 grains per cc (Dean 1998)” (emphasis added). In actuality, my statement reads, “It is not uncommon for as few as five corn pollen grains/g of sample to be the only evidence of a prehistoric cornfield” (Dean 1998:55; emphasis added). There is no “standard correction factor” that will allow sediment weights to be transformed to volumes or vice versa. Pollen concentrations for cultigens in pre-Columbian New Mexico fields can be very small numbers and reproducibility of laboratory methods is crucial.