The results of seven months of archaeological reconnaissance in the Tzeltal-Tzotzil-speaking area of Chiapas are described. Occupation is found to have consisted only of a few, small, widely dispersed centers during the Preclassic period. During the latter part of the Early Classic period there is evidence of a considerable increase in population, and by Late Classic times nucleated ceremonial-dwelling centers were widely distributed on steep, easily defended headlands. Despite great variation in the size of individual settlements, it is argued that independent communities rather than regional coalitions were the prevailing form of socio-political organization. This pattern was replaced gradually during the Postclassic period by one in which more intensive use was made of the larger, more strategically located valleys. Closely spaced, functionally interdependent groups of communities emerged, and probably were increasingly subject to new and more coercive patterns of political, as well as religious, control. At the time of the Spanish conquest hostilities and trade with other Mesoamerican groups were increasing rapidly, but the region as a whole still remained relatively tarriant and isolated.

The use of lime mortar in the New World appears to be confined to the area of Mesoamerica. It is, in fact, one of the most important of the several traits charatceristic of this area which have given rise to the concept of Mesoamerica as a distinct cultural unit. The extensive use of lime mortar within Mesoamerica probably played a significant role in the development of more advanced forms of architecture within this area than in other parts of the New World, especially since it was employed ornamentally as well as functionally.

The anatomical details of a birth scene depicted on Classic Mimbres (A.D. 1000-1150) bowls from southwestern New Mexico can provide clues to gender relations in Classic Mimbres society. The scenes show an infant emerging facing forward (unusual in human birth) with its arms up (virtually unknown in human birth). These details suggest that the scene was painted by someone unfamiliar with the birthing process. Ethnographically, men rarely see human births. Thus, it is likely that the birth scene, and perhaps other Mimbres pottery designs, were painted by men.

Robert McGhee (2008) recently argued against the validity and viability of Indigenous archaeology based on claims that untenable “Aboriginalism” supports the entire enterprise. However, he mischaracterizes and simplifies Indigenous archaeology, despite the wealth of literature suggesting that such community approaches have had and will continue to have great value for method, theory, rigorous interpretation, and political value in archaeology.

A semisubterranean cane and grass house was recently excavated at the site of Chilca on the central coast of Peru. The context in which it was found, as well as its associated radiocarbon date of 5370 ± 120 B.P., indicates that the house was made by early preceramic horticulturists. Seven burials were found inside. The remarkable state of preservation in which the house was found provided sufficient data for a full-scale reconstruction of the structure. This small, conical, beehive-type house is the earliest artificial shelter yet reported from Peru.

Obsidian artifacts from Edzna, Dzibilnocac, and Santa Rosa Xtampak in northern Campeche, Mexico, have been analyzed by means of X-ray fluorescence in order to determine their trace element composition. The results are compared to the trace element composition of obsidian sources in Guatemala and Mexico. It is postulated that the obsidian from the three sites in northern Campeche came from highland Guatemala, mostly from El Chayal. Our data are compared to the published data of other archaeological sites in Mesoamerica from which obsidian samples have been analyzed. Finally, obsidian transport routes are postulated between northern Campeche, Mexico, and highland Guatemala.

Iron fragments located during 1969 by the Northwest Hudson Bay Thule Project at the Thuleage site of Silumiut have been subjected to spectrographic, microscopic, microprobe, and neutron activation analyses to determine their origin. Both meteoritic and terrestrial iron are represented and are presumed to have been traded from north-western Greenland. Meteoritic iron is widely spread around Melville Bay, and Norse iron was available from the same area by at least the twelfth century A.D. Norse iron from the Silumiut site is the most southerly known and the earliest radiocarbon dated in the central area. This iron and that from Naujan, Repulse Bay, indicate that native and European metal was an integral, albeit low frequency, part of the central Eskimo tool kit at least 400 yr before Hudson"s discovery of his bay.

North American archaeologists see the study of the Emergent Mississippian period (ca. A.D. 800—1000) as critical for understanding the development of the Mississippian chiefdoms (ca. A.D. 1000—1500) of the American Southeast. Past research has frequently sought to explain that development in terms of generalized explanations, whose key variables become evident during the Emergent Mississippian period. Through an example in northwest Georgia, we argue that the Emergent Mississippian phenomenon is best understood by focusing on regional histories and multiscalar processes.

Engraved and carved bone and stone artifacts capture our imaginations and are known worldwide from archaeological contexts, but they are seemingly rare and oftentimes difficult to recognize. While preservation issues play a role in the limited recovery of early art objects, research on incised stones and bone from the Gault site in Texas demonstrates that an expectation to find such artifacts plays a key role in their identification and recovery. The presence of incised stones found by collectors at Gault alerted archaeologists to the potential for finding early art in systematic excavations. To date, 11 incised stones and one engraved bone of Paleoindian age (13,000–9,000 calibrated years before present) have been recovered and of these, the Clovis artifacts are among the earliest portable art objects from secure context in North America. The presence of incised stone and bone at Gault led to the development of an examination protocol for identifying and analyzing engraved and incised artifacts that can be applied to a wide variety of archaeological contexts.

Early 14C dates from Meadowcroft Rockshelter have engendered debate on the antiquity of human occupation in North America. Although the investigators of this important site conclude that particulate and nonparticulate contamination have not affected the radiocarbon dates, several points of confusion remain in regard to the question of coal contamination. We clarify these issues, provide comparative data from other sites, and recommend specific tests that are necessary to negate or support the issue of "dead carbon" contamination of radiocarbon samples.

Archaeology must come to grips with the basic philosophical problems of science. With this premise in mind, we welcome the recent article on explanation by Fritz and Plog (1970) and offer a review and critique of it with the following points: (1) The D-N model of explanation is not the exclusive explanatory system in science and is in fact subject to extensive discussion and criticism in several areas of science; (2) archaeologists have not employed laws commonly in the past but rather deductive reasoning based on assumed premises; (3) the use of laws in explanation may reduce archaeology to a science of historical exemplification; (4) the research design presented by Fritz and Plog may be modified to include concern for hypothesis formulation, variable identification in the archaeological context, and the interplay of hypotheses and data throughout excavation and analysis; (5) the Meehan system paradigm explanatory model is presented as an alternative to the D-N model; (6) what archaeologists try to explain is relevant to the nature of the explanation.

Excavations at Pottery Mound, a large Pueblo ruin located on the banks of the Rio Puerco in New Mexico, have recovered over 4,000 bird bones representing 50 species. The habitats of these birds include grassland, marshland, canal- and riverbank, Pinyon-juniper forest, and coniferous forest. Instead of attributing this diversity to changing climate or long-distance hunting expeditions away from the pueblo, I employ the "garden hunting" model, which ascribes increased species biomass to areas of human disturbance. At Pottery Mound prehistoric agricultural fields increased insect populations and provided wild and cultivated seeds which attracted a variety of birds. Additionally, irrigation canals extended riparian growth from the river across the floodplain creating more available cover for predators. This ecotone effect allowed avian species to increase beyond their normal numbers and diversity in undisturbed areas. All 50 species at Pottery Mound could have been obtained within a small radius of the site.

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.

A large Gramineae pollen, positively identified as corn (Zea mays), from the sediments of Lake Shelby in coastal Alabama at a stratigraphic level securely dated to 3500 B.P. predates any other evidence for corn in eastern North America by at least 1,000 years. Currently, the most frequently cited and accepted date for corn in eastern North America is approximately 1800 B.P. from macrobotanical remains; however, several paleoecological studies have reported corn pollen in older contexts. The Lake Shelby pollen adds to a growing body of microfossil evidence supporting the presence of maize in eastern North America much earlier than the macrobotanical records indicate. Corn was probably present in eastern as well as western North America by 3000 B.P.

Due to the kind invitation of William C. Eldridge and the Vaccaro brothers, discoverers of the site, I have had opportunities to visit and excavate in this flutedpoint site during the current spring. In part of the work I was accompanied by Theodore L. Stoddard.

In April we went to examine a possible hearth area where concentrations of charcoal had been reported in association with fragments of artifacts and chips of the stone used by the paleo-Indian occupants of the site. The surface which was exposed lay about 12 inches below ground level and well within the horizon of yellow-brown sand. Concentrations of charcoal were irregular in outline and density, and as one trowelled downwards they appeared to separate into fingers suggesting roots. Associated with some of the better preserved charcoal were bits of carbonized bark. We therefore concluded that the charcoal represented the remains of stumps which had burned out in rather recent woods fires, and that association of charcoal and fragments of paleo-Indian artifacts was purely fortuitous.

Prior research on the function of shoe-shaped chultuns found in the southern Yucatan peninsula has focused on their use for household level storage of dry foodstuffs. We found that inter- and intra-site distribution patterns of chultuns do not support the household storage hypothesis. At Tikal only 20-25% of the households had chultuns, and most of these households had two or more chultuns. We believe the distributional data suggest that chultuns were associated with a cottage-level industry in the context of a vending economy. Because the internal environment of chultuns appears favorable for conducting fermentations, we propose that they were used as places to process, and for limited periods to store, fermented foods such as alcoholic beverages and pickled fruits. The greatest demand for chultun products was apparently centered around large urban sites in northeastern Peten and northern Belize where frequent civic/religious festivals encouraged a small to moderate market potential.

Recent studies have suggested that variations in areal distributions of utilized and non-utilized lithic materials can aid in the delineation of functional site areas. Microscopic analyses of experimentally produced and utilized flakes suggest that due to an accumulation of animal fats along the working edge significant numbers of utilized flakes may not display wear indicating use. Factors of lithology and variations in butchering technique are considered and implications for areal patterns explored.

Paleoethnobotanical perspectives are essential for understanding past lifeways yet continue to be underrepresented in Paleoindian research. We present new archaeobotanical and radiocarbon data from combustion features within stratified cultural components at Connley Caves, Oregon, that reaffirm the inclusion of plants in the diet of Paleoindian groups. Botanical remains from three features in Connley Cave 5 show that people foraged for diverse dryland taxa and a narrow range of wetland plants during the summer and fall months. These data add new taxa to the known Pleistocene food economy and support the idea that groups equipped with Western Stemmed Tradition toolkits had broad, flexible diets. When viewed continentally, this work contributes to a growing body of research indicating that regionally adapted subsistence strategies were in place by at least the Younger Dryas and that some foragers in the Far West may have incorporated a wider range of plants including small seeds, leafy greens, fruits, cacti, and geophytes into their diet earlier than did Paleoindian groups elsewhere in North America. The increasing appearance of diverse and seemingly low-ranked resources in the emerging Paleoindian plant-food economy suggests the need to explore a variety of nutritional variables to explain certain aspects of early foraging behavior.

The evolution of material wealth-based inequality is an important topic in archaeological research. While a number of explanatory models have been proposed, rarely have they been adequately tested. A significant challenge to testing such models concerns our ability to define distinct, temporally short-term, residential occupations in the archaeological record. Sites often lack evidence for temporally persistent inequality, or, when present, the palimpsest nature of the deposits often make it difficult to define the processes of change on scales that are fine enough to evaluate nuanced model predictions. In this article, we use the detailed record of Housepit 54 from the Bridge River site, interior British Columbia, to evaluate several alternative hypotheses regarding the evolution of persistent material wealth-based inequality. Results of our analyses indicate that inequality appeared abruptly coincident with a decline in intra-house cooperation associated with population packing and the initiation of periodic subsistence stress. We conclude that persistent inequality in this context was a byproduct of altered social networks linked to a Malthusian transition and ceiling.

Archaeologists have long used the prehistoric inhabitants of the Phoenix Basin in south-central Arizona as an example of a failed or collapsed society, and most prehistorians still assert that Hohokam material culture patterns ended at the close of the Classic period (circa A.D. 1150–1450). Although researchers are increasingly recognizing connections between prehistoric and modern indigenous people, little consensus exists regarding the cause or causes of the dramatic alterations in material culture patterns that occurred in the region. Most archaeologists who have studied the changes at the end of the Classic period, however, have not fully considered the implications of previous and subsequent conditions, including similar and seemingly abrupt shifts in cultural practices that occurred both before and after this time. This paper uses Akimel O'Odham (i.e., Pima) cultural knowledge to contextualize the “Hohokam Collapse.” We show that this perspective of culture history explains the relationship between prehistoric and historic populations and answers many of the long-standing questions regarding cultural variation in the Phoenix Basin.