Although the Mixteca region has witnessed a long period of human occupation from before village societies were established to the present, traditional archaeological narratives tend to simplify this history by emphasizing singular points of origin and radical moments of change. Based on decolonial perspectives, we examine how persistence may be a more suitable framework for understanding the long history of human occupation in the region. Using information from three archaeological projects, this article analyzes the enduring histories of household practices at the site of Etlatongo in the Nochixtlan Valley. We focus on the construction of domestic spaces over three different periods in the long occupation of the site: during the latter half of the Early Formative (1400–1000 BC), the late Middle Formative (500–300 BC), and the Postclassic (AD 900–1500s). By analyzing the changing continuities of domestic practices at Etlatongo, this study contributes to scholarship examining the persistence of Indigenous communities in Mesoamerica.

Many archaeological arguments are based on artifact identification, but to be replicable the categories must be well defined, with researchers able to consistently identify the relevant attributes. If data are to be compared across projects or researchers, the same training and reference material should be available. Standardized visual guides for specific artifact types and contexts are valuable tools for improving identification by individuals and reducing inter-operator variation. To standardize shell temper description within Pensacola Mississippian pottery, we describe the development of a visual guide based on replicated shell-tempered pastes. We created 98 unique fired clay briquettes, varying in measured ways across four variables: shell type, particle size, particle density, and whether shell was still present or leached. The resulting briquettes were imaged and arranged for quick comparison with archaeological materials. To test the utility of this guide, we conducted a survey among professional archaeologists, assessing their confidence in and success with identifying shell temper attributes with and without the guide images. The results of the survey demonstrate the effectiveness of such tools for collaborative archaeological research. We describe the general method for producing this type of guide, which may be adapted for different pottery temper types, and provide our own images for use by others studying shell-tempered pottery.

In STEM fields, women tend to leak out of the pipeline to the professoriate. In archaeology, however, robust databases and chronological control reveal that there is no leakage from earning a PhD to tenure-track positions. Nor is there a leak from assistant professor to associate professor. Nevertheless, men get hired as faculty in PhD programs more often than women. This is important because PhD programs are research-intensive and train future leaders. Furthermore, women PhD students have women as advisers more than often men and report advantages to this arrangement. Yet with fewer women faculty in PhD programs, women mentors are in short supply. Potential solutions to these problems target areas where bias can intervene. Specifically, job search committees should (1) wait until late in the process before consulting letters of recommendation, (2) standardize the valorization of coauthorship for both men and women, and (3) prioritize applicants who match the job description when creating long lists. Finally, implicit bias training is critically important, and mentoring should be continuous and enthusiastically positive.

What happens to material knowledges and practices in the aftermath of involuntary uproot and relocation? How do displaced newcomers weave their lifeworlds, knowledges and practices into a novel context in the early stages after arrival? Anchored in a contemporary prism case in Zimbabwe, this archaeological study employs a temporally layered approach to displaced communities in southern Africa experiencing intense mobility in a dense political landscape with one or more dominant political entities. Extending the temporal scope and analytical relevance back to at least the early nineteenth century ce, our primary aim is to understand craftspeople’s practical problem-solving when coping with loss and absence while seeking to re-weave their social webs. The case examples share a common focus on earth materials (mud, soil, clay), stone and wood—easily available, low-cost or cost-free materials frequently used by displaced and refugee communities. Key analytical concepts are epistemic encounters, social memory, resistance and Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics. The approach seeks to merge two domains that are rarely combined: craftspeople’s engagements with their socio-ecological landscapes and the relevance of ancestral commemoration.

Cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology is a multimillion-dollar industry in Canada and the lead employer for archaeology graduates. Yet, the growth of and the challenges facing the Canadian CRM industry remain poorly documented. We therefore designed and distributed a job satisfaction and labor market survey to Canadian CRM practitioners with the goal of understanding how industry professionals feel about their positions and the health of the industry as well as what they believe are the most pressing challenges facing the Canadian CRM industry. These data indicate that the sector has grown faster than the supply of labor, that owner-operators are faced with difficult challenges related to the staffing required for the scale and volume of work, and that employees in the CRM sector are experiencing frustration with working conditions, compensation, and the preparation that postsecondary training offers. In this article, we attempt to determine the size of the Canadian CRM industry and highlight the challenges faced within the industry that must be addressed for CRM in Canada to attract and retain professional archaeologists.

From the fifth century onward, the creation of monumental ‘Big’ Buddhas (dafo 大佛), carved from living rock, became a significant cultural and religious phenomenon across Asia. This paper takes the Sichuan Basin as a case study, given its high concentration of rock-carved religious (RCR) sites. Notably, the number of monumental Buddha sculptures in the region increased significantly between 700 and 1200 ce. This paper examines the extent to which the construction of these Big Buddhas represents the appropriation of Buddhist RCR sites by non-local political and religious elites as a form of social control, and it is herein proposed that these social and religious elites commissioned and maintained such projects to reinforce authority and integrate local religious practices into institutional Buddhism. Since the construction of Big Buddhas required vast resources, labour and coordination, this paper examines those Big Buddhas which were left unfinished in order to understand the criteria for both success and failure, while also considering how these sculptures, as acts of social appropriation, mediated between the mundane and the divine, the imperial periphery and the centre, functioning as both spiritual symbols and political instruments.

Muluchtzekel is a large site in the Puuc region of the northern Yucatan with construction episodes dating from the Middle Preclassic through the Terminal Classic period, strategically located on the border between the hilly Bolonchen district to the south and the Valle de Santa Elena to the north. Aided by lidar-derived digital terrain models, systematic survey of Muluchtzekel has led to the identification and ground-truthing of dozens of limestone quarries. The quarries range in size from a few meters in diameter for the smallest pit quarries to over 50 m in length for the longest ledge quarries. This paper presents spatial and contextual evaluations of quarry and annular pit-kiln shapes, sizes, and locations across the site, as well as excavation data from a large ledge quarry. Findings suggest that the higher status inhabitants of Muluchtzekel could count on having access to high-quality architectural stone regardless of where they chose to build their residences. The paper concludes with a discussion of two possible models for the socioeconomic organization of limestone quarrying at Muluchtzekel: one that posits a decentralized, household-level extraction industry, and the other, a highly centralized system in which authorities controlled stone processing and architectural display.

An enduring challenge for the human evolutionary sciences is to integrate the palaeoanthropological record of human evolution and speciation with the archaeological record of change and differentiation in hominin lifeways. The simplest hypothesis, and therefore an attractive hypothesis, is that change is made possible by, and reflects, evolutionary change in the capacity of individual humans. The very long-term trend of increasing diversity and sophistication of technical and social lifeways (albeit with noise and periods of stasis) reflects long-term trends of increasing cognitive capacity linked to bipedality, followed by body size increase, encephalization and slow life history. We suggest instead that the long-term trend sees a gradual decoupling of human lifeways from the intrinsic capacities of individual people. We develop this view through an analysis of the Middle Stone Age and behavioural modernity, arguing that these depend on mosaics of social and individual factors, none clearly connected to specific evolved changes in individual humans.

The Pelagatos volcano is situated within the Sierra Chichinautzin Volcanic Field (SCVF), 20 km southeast of Mexico City. Previous radiocarbon (14C) dating has revealed that the age of the Pelagatos volcano ranges from 2.5 ± 0.1 to 14.1 ± 0.2 ka BP (1σ). The analysis of additional cosmogenic radionuclides, such as in situ 10Be, facilitates the confirmation of the geochronology of any geological phenomenon by determining exposure ages in quartz minerals. This study proposes a new chronology for the exposure of the Pelagatos volcano rocks by in situ analysis of 10Be in olivine samples collected from five locations. The average 10Be ages in olivine from Pelagatos rocks range from 3.95 ± 0.97 ka to 5.7 ± 1.4 ka (1σ), with a mean age of 4.6 ± 0.9 ka and 4.9 ± 0.9 ka for flow 1 and flow 2, respectively. These results are consistent with previously reported 14C ages, confirming the reliability of the 10Be exposure ages obtained in this study. The in situ dating of 10Be in olivine minerals presents a viable alternative for elucidating the volcanic history and estimating the timing of the next eruption in this volcanic field.

The close relationship between the “Shiji jie” (Exposition of Historical Records) chapter of the Yi Zhoushu (Remaining Zhou Documents) and the “Wangzheng” (Portents of Destruction) chapter of the Han Feizi has long been recognized, but prior to this, the precise nature of the connection has been unexplored. This article presents a comparative study structured around an annotated translation of these two texts. The “Shiji jie” describes how King Mu of Zhou fell asleep and dreamed of a set of instructions for how to avoid the mistakes made by other dynasties and states that led to their decline and fall. This “mirror for princes” text is thought to have inspired Han Fei to create his own version, which has traditionally been read as a series of abstract warnings, describing situations which could lead to disaster for the monarch. This article argues that what Han Fei was actually doing was presenting a series of riddles for the reader to guess, each of which alludes to a specific historical event. The “Wangzheng” thus reframes the “Shiji jie” in terms of both style and content, creating a new literary work.

This conversation began as a roundtable at the 2023 joint meeting of the American Anthropological Association and the Canadian Anthropology Society in Toronto. The roundtable was part of the Executive Program and was intended as a follow-up to Kisha Supernant’s keynote presentation, which was entitled ‘Truth before transition. Reimagining anthropology as restorative justice.’ Considering the sensitive nature of the topic, we responded to a selection of written questions from the audience rather than taking open questions. The discussion was webcast, then transcribed and redacted. This article includes a portion of the question period as well as a contextual introduction that was not part of the initial conversation.