In this article, we explore transformations and continuities in cosmology and cultural landscape structure across Pueblo history in the US Southwest. Many researchers have directly compared the archaeology of the society centered at Chaco Canyon (ca. AD 850–1140) in northwestern New Mexico with ethnographic documentation of Pueblo communities from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This approach makes it difficult to understand how cultural transformation played out in the intervening centuries. Here, we investigate this history by comparing Kin Nizhoni, a Chaco-era Great House community in the Red Mesa Valley, with Wiyo’owingeh, a post-Chacoan community in the Rio Grande Valley. We find that the built environments of both sites expressed similar cosmological principles, but architectural expressions of these concepts became less explicitly marked over time. We also find that this similar cosmology was mapped onto different social structures, with a focus on elite architecture in the Chaco era as opposed to communal dwellings with spatially separated shrines in later Pueblo contexts. We close by proposing a connection between the functions of Chacoan Great Houses and later Pueblo World Quarter Shrines. Overall, our findings underscore the utility of cultural landscape studies for tracing relationships between religion and society across North American Indigenous histories.

The plaza is one of the most important elements of the built environment for bringing people together in the Pueblo World of the US Southwest. Yet, the myriad ways in which plazas were designed and used vary greatly through time. Although plazas have been significant components of Ancestral Pueblo site layouts for hundreds of years, nearly every research study has been based on the enclosed plazas of the Pueblo IV period. In this article, we evaluate variation in 861 plazas from the Pueblo World dating from AD 800 to 1550. Our analysis of settlement size, plaza area, and degrees of plaza accessibility demonstrates that the spacious plazas emblematic of the Pueblo IV period were built to accommodate more people than the resident population, suggesting the origins of the feast-day-type ceremonialism seen in contemporary Pueblo communities. Our analysis suggests that this is a relatively recent phenomenon, because plazas in earlier Chaco great house communities were built to be more exclusionary, and thus activities held within them were more restricted.

The first Coronado expedition site discovered south of Zuni, in Arizona, represents the first European settlement in the American Southwest—a place called Suya (San Geronimo III). Investigations have revealed an impressive assortment of early sixteenth-century artifacts and features. The structured layout is reflected in concentrations of both household- and battle-related artifacts. Artifacts and substantial adobe-and-stone structures indicate a diversity of residential activities and the presence of a sizable and varied group of people who expected to stay. They brought a range of household goods that are not appropriate for a traveling expedition but that are of the type expected in a settled context where social maneuvering and status display characterized daily life. Suya’s occupants had access to a range of European household goods and weaponry, including the most expensive guns (matchlocks, wheel locks, crossbows, bronze cannon). Weapons and ammunition provide evidence of a battle, as do their fragmentary nature and clustered distribution. Documents convey that this was the first successful Native American uprising in the continental United States. This site exhibited attributes characteristic of a Coronado expedition settlement, so viable alternative explanations were sought, including other entradas. Work has proceeded for five years, revealing the richness, extent, and complexity of the site.

Here, we explore variation in a new record of archaeological house-floor sizes from the southwestern United States relative to spatially explicit time series estimates of local precipitation. Our results show that inequality becomes more severe during periods of high precipitation. This supports the theory suggesting that inequality may emerge where resources are dense, predictable, and clumped within heterogenous and circumscribed environments. Our findings indicate that wealth inequality may emerge among populations with similar subsistence adaptations as a result of local socioenvironmental variation.

This paper explores a new direction for archaeological historiography by applying the Yale approach in deconstruction to a selection of archaeological texts discussing the Neolithization process in Norway. Focus is on the cultural-historical research paradigm and publications from the period 1906–38. The analysis discovers that scholars from this period did not consider foragers and farmers to be essential social identities in the past; foragers could become farmers, and farmers could turn back to foraging. Some scholars argued that farming was practiced before the Neolithic period, while others promoted a sense of care and awe towards prehistoric foragers. On the basis of these readings, it is argued that previous accounts of the cultural-historical research paradigm in Norway focused too narrowly on the social contexts of older research. A change of focus from contexts to the texts themselves and how they present the world can explore further the complexity of this research period.

The production and circulation of common wares during the late antique period in North Africa has been largely overlooked by past scholarship, despite their potential to shed light on late antique production, workshop organisation and regional ceramic economies. This paper provides the first detailed study of a distinctive type of late antique, wheelmade common ware, the so-called African ‘painted ware’ (APW). It first presents a critical overview of the distribution of painted wares and their typology, decoration and chronology based on existing publications. It then develops a typology of vessel shapes, but also decoration patterns based on a large, well-preserved assemblage of painted ceramics recently excavated by the DAI, INP and UCL at the archaeological sites of Bulla Regia and Chimtou in the Medjerda valley, Tunisia. To understand the composition, technology and provenance of the wares, petrographic and chemical analysis was conducted on 57 painted sherds from the two sites. The results suggest the existence of a production centre in the Medjerda Valley, with potters using local calcareous clay tempered with sand, while the decoration was obtained using iron-based pigments. Comparison with published painted wares at other sites contributes to an initial insight into regional distribution patterns of the painted ware.

Ozette Lake, located on the Olympic Peninsula of western Washington, is ideally situated to provide a sedimentary record of past earthquakes along the northern portion of the Cascadia subduction zone. The lake stratigraphy is punctuated by turbidites, with characteristics typical of those triggered by earthquake shaking as seen in other lakes worldwide. Sediments deposited in Ozette Lake over the past 1300 years between earthquake events show decadal-scale variations in color, magnetic susceptibility, clay content, organic carbon content, density, and computed tomography (CT) intensity. Applying the dynamic time warping technique reveals a strong correlation of CT intensity to historical, instrumental measurements of regional cool-season precipitation, indicating that sediments in the lake preserve a high-fidelity record of decadally averaged fluvial sediment discharge and climate. Correlation of CT intensity patterns from older strata preserved deeper in the lake stratigraphy to two independent, regional paleo-precipitation reconstructions similarly suggests that the sediments record decadal variations in hydroclimate. We provide radiocarbon-independent dates for the past four northern Cascadia subduction earthquakes that are within the uncertainty of a radiocarbon age-depth model but are more precisely estimated by placing earthquake-triggered turbidites in the context of wet and dry periods in these tree-ring- and oxygen-isotope-based reconstructions. Paleoclimate-based constraints on the age of event layers in this and other regional lakes have the potential to help address ongoing questions about past ruptures on the Cascadia subduction margin.

A 13,500-year-old record from Langohr Wetland in the Gallatin Range of southwestern Montana offers new insights into the vegetation and fire history at middle elevations within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Pollen data suggest that following deglaciation, a tundra–steppe established until warmer and wetter conditions than before could support Picea parkland. The development of an open, predominantly Pinus mixed-conifer forest from ca. 9300–7000 cal yr BP suggests warming summer temperatures led to an increase in forest cover and fire activity; the increase in tree abundance supported infrequent, stand-replacing fires approximately every 600 years. Picea and Pseudotsuga increased their presence at ca. 7000 cal yr BP, and the mixed-conifer forest became denser during the Mid- and Late Holocene, suggesting summers became cooler and wetter. The additional fuel load led to increased fire activity, with stand-replacing fires occurring approximately every 350 years in the Late Holocene. The forest surrounding Langohr Wetland experienced less change in vegetation composition and structure and fewer fire episodes than other low- and high-elevation sites in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The stability of this forested ecosystem over thousands of years is likely a result of its cool mesic mid-elevation setting, limiting the frequency of intense fire episodes.

This study explores early domestic life at the historic Yoruba site of Orile-Owu. Excavations and ethnography reveal insights into diet and food processing, medicinal practices and the daily routines of occupants during the mid-fifteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries AD.

Cultural Property Agreements (CPAs) between the United States and foreign governments help to stop criminal activity at US borders by keeping looted and stolen art and artifacts out of American markets. Under US and international law, the United States can join CPAs to prevent looted and stolen antiquities and artifacts from entering the US art market, thereby fighting the illicit trade while allowing the legal trade to continue and even thrive. Moreover, bilateral agreements aim to lessen global demand for illicitly obtained or looted objects—especially because the United States makes up 42% of the legal global art market—while increasing responsible cultural exchange. The United States has signed CPAs with a growing number of countries around the world—generating mutual respect, strengthening global law enforcement, and protecting archaeological heritage in situ. From its inception, a key priority for the Antiquities Coalition (AC) has been shutting down markets to illicit antiquities, while increasing responsible cultural exchange. This article discusses the importance of barring antiquities traffickers from the multibillion US art market through legislation, international agreements, and executive orders—protecting both American consumers and our world heritage.