Specific questions regarding the antiquity of major midwestern Hopewell culture sites and their role in regional exchange systems are addressed in this paper through the dating (obsidian hydration) and compositional characterization (neutron activation analysis [NAA] and atomic absorption spectroscopy [AAS]) of obsidian artifacts. The analysis of 34 specimens from the Seip, Mound City, and Hopewell sites, Ohio, and the Naples site, Illinois, increases fivefold the number of chronometric dates available from these sites and expands the sample of compositionally identified specimens beyond those resulting from Griffin et al."s (1969) pioneering work. The resulting hydration dates support earlier estimates of the age of these contexts based on 14C or artifact seriation alone. The range of dates (78 B.C.-A.D. 347) and the compositional variety within the sample favors an expanded view of the nature of obsidian trade in the Midwest to include additional western sources, a longer episode of importation, and possible changes in the sources used through time.

The familiar debate concerning Middle Paleolithic variability has opposed stylistic vs. functional explanations based on the assumption that tool types and assemblage groups represent discrete, invariant entities. Middle Paleolithic variability, however, actually occurs continuously. Further, recent research shows that raw-material constraints and different degrees of artifact-reduction intensity constitute more basic and observable factors of variability than function and style. Thus, much of the variability in these assemblages appears to have been caused by toolmaking and tool-rejuvenation processes and/or by differential occupation intensity induced by environmental circumstances. The correct interpretation of these Middle Paleolithic assemblages must therefore consider these factors, as well as interregional stylistic drift, function, and diachronic change.

Cobs of the earliest known archaeological maize from San Marcos Cave in the Tehuacan Valley were reexamined to estimate their morphological similarity to extant Mexican maize races. Cursory examination of these 7,000-year-old specimens aroused suspicion that they are not very closely related morphologically to any thus-far-described modern Mexican race. Statistical comparison of the Tehuacan specimens with 30 races of Mexican maize fully confirmed this suspicion. However, the inclusion in our statistical analysis of an extant race of popcorn from Argentina morphologically similar to the Tehuacan specimens indicated that the two were virtually indistinguishable. These findings imply that the earliest maize from Tehuacan already was fully domesticated, its cobs exhibiting a morphology one would expect had maize evolved from teosinte by way of catastrophic sexual transmutation (Iltis 1983).

Pearson's coefficient of linear correlation, r, sometimes is used to express the similarity between two archaeological collections when each collection is characterized by the percents of the artifact types it includes. Examples show that r can be extremely misleading when used in this way, and patterns of similarity among a group of collections can be wildly misrepresented. The Brainerd–Robinson statistic is one example of a similarity coefficient that is much better than r for comparing collections.

Simulation of the effects of sample size on diversity was proposed by Kintigh (1984) as a method for investigating assemblage variability. We suggest several modifications to Kintigh's method that recognize (1) the distinction between the diversity and typological composition of an assemblage and (2) differences in the nature of sample size effects on various measures of diversity. These revisions enabled us to identify significant chronological trends in animal resource diversity during the Neolithic of central Europe.

Differences in analytical sensitivity, precision, and accuracy exist among techniques and laboratories involved in the chemical analysis of archaeological ceramics. Large differences in these analytical parameters become significant in the formulation of data bases where comparability of the data is being sought. Small differences become significant when comparing pottery produced from clay resources located within a discrete geological environment. To better assess and report on the analytical results being obtained from laboratories, neutron-activation analysis and X-ray fluorescence are discussed relative to the level of precision required for ceramic characterization studies, the use of standards, and the preparation and submission of samples for commercial laboratory analysis.

Population density increases whenever a population grows more rapidly, or shrinks more slowly, than the area it inhabits; areal contraction therefore accelerates density increase. This consideration not only reinforces Dickson's (1987) suggestion that circumscription by anthropogenic environmental destruction contributed to the rise of some early states; it also implies that rate of density increase should be distinguished, as a motor of sociocultural evolution, from density itself. In light of this distinction the rise of the state in southwestern Iran, and occasional instances of high density among nonstate societies, are not necessarily inconsistent with population-pressure theories.

Bifacial-reduction experiments suggest that the characteristics of flake-size distribution can be employed to detect bifacial-reduction activities at archaeological sites. However, data on bifaces in various stages of completion as well as on by-product flakes are necessary for detailed analysis of the biface-manufacturing sequence.

This paper examines a poorly understood scene in the Codex Vienna and is based on linguistic and ethnographic studies carried out in Oaxaca, Mexico. The Vienna is one of the few Precolumbian manuscripts to survive the conquest, and its extensive treatment of ritual and religious subjects makes it unique among the Mixtec codices. The scene in question is interpreted in terms of a myth current among present-day Mixtec speakers, which recounts the first sacrifice made by humans, and which links this sacrifice, and all subsequent ones, to agriculture and human death.

Calibrated radiocarbon dates of 19 samples excavated since 1976 at the site of Cuello, in northern Belize, place the Swasey phase (11 dates) and Bladen phase (8 dates) in the Middle Formative period, rather than in the Early Formative, as 10 dates on charcoal excavated in 1975 and 1976 indicated. The post-1976 dates for both phases fall between about 1100 and 400 B.C., and the two sets do not appear to differ significantly. All except 3 of the 35 archaeologically acceptable dates from the later Lopez Mamom and Cocos Chicanel contexts fall within the conventionally accepted ranges for those phases. A mixture of old charcoal from the environment or from an unidentified pre-Swasey occupation with the 1975–1976 samples may explain their early radiocarbon ages, although why such mixing should have affected only the 1975–1976 samples is not known. This reassessment of the early Cuello sequence aligns it with comparable cultural developments elsewhere in the Maya area and suggests that the earliest farming communities of northern Belize perhaps derived from the highlands of Guatemala.

The reburial issue is often characterized as a problem in ethics. This paper points out that ethics are a cultural construct, and, as such, what is sometimes referred to as an ethical conflict is better understood as a conflict in cultural values. With this in mind, we consider mechanisms for the resolution of cultural conflict with particular focus on the nature of negotiation and the necessity of mutual respect. We also consider the ethics of archaeology as they pertain to reburial negotiations. Public education is rejected as a panacea for these problems. We conclude that archaeology must change the way it does business, and we present a prescription for such change.

Odell and Cowan's (1987) experimental study largely confirms and extends results obtained by Lewarch and O'Brien (1981) on the effects of tillage on artifact distributions in the plow zone. In contrast to earlier studies, however, they find no relation between artifact size and lateral-displacement distance. The lack of relation between these two variables may be a consequence of defects in experimental design and analysis and should be considered suspect until better controlled data are available.

The analysis of the results of Odell and Cowan's experiments on tillage-induced artifact movement is flawed. Their use of cumulative averages is defective and does not support the conclusions they have drawn. Their grouping of data for the analysis of the effect of artifact size on displacement is incorrect.

Comments by Dunnell and Yorston (this issue) on our article concerning the effects of tillage on archaeological distributions are, in general, useful contributions toward an understanding of a topic with which most archaeologists must ultimately come to grips. A few of these comments have stimulated a reconsideration of our position on a couple of points, and we hope that this exchange of ideas will clarify the situation for anyone who desires to pursue this research trajectory further.

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating and faunal analysis have served to reidentify an implement, fashioned from what was believed to be a proboscidean fibula, as a cranium and antler section of a modern moose. This reconciles the discrepancy between the generally accepted date for the extinction of mammoths and mastodons (before 10,000 years ago) with the recession of glacial Lake Agassiz from the site after 8,000 years ago.

Gabriel DeCicco's public relations primer, commissioned by the Public Relations Committee of the Society for American Archaeology and published in American Antiquity, is a useful and comprehensive discussion with a serious limitation. DeCicco's (1988) article is a very good technical guide to generating newspaper-based public relations, but it contains only scant consideration of the fundamental questions of what to say, and why to use public relations. In this postscript to DeCicco's primer, I discuss the importance of recognizing these two questions and articulating responses to them.