Techniques for pragmatically interpreting arrays of radiocarbon dates are given. These include weighted averaging, statistical rejection of data, and the evaluation of contemporaneity. Commonly encountered situations are discussed with several actual examples to illustrate these procedures. This paper is Contribution No. 70, Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona.

The Navaho Reservoir District is an arbitrarily defined unit of salvage archaeological research located in northwestern New Mexico and adjacent portions of Colorado. As such, it is used here as a data source for the study of ninth and tenth century population dislocations due to climatic change and river erosion. The affected Pueblo farming peoples migrated by means of slow, steady upstream drift. Violent land competition between the agrarian communities is offered as an explanation for the use of the leap-frog rather than wave strategy in population relocation.

A detailed discussion is presented of the archaeological value of the scale remains of fish. The various forms of scales are presented along with a discussion of the morphological characteristics of these elements. A brief summary of the past uses to which fish scales have been put within archaeology is presented and the use of fish scales to estimate the size of the fish and the minimum number of individuals represented, as well as their use as seasonal dating devices is also discussed in detail. In addition, the limitations of scale remains in each of the above areas of interpretation are also presented.

Classification is discussed as a procedure for maximizing information about a cultural system from archaeological data. This concept is made rigorous by defining typologies in terms of assumptions about patterning among variables that result from different artifacts being manufactured for use in different activities. Interval-scaled and nominal-scaled variables are considered independently, as the problem to be solved is different in the 2 cases. For continuous variables, the question is what divisions can be made, and for nominal variables, it is what divisions should be made. Two definitions for typologies are given, 1 for continuous variables and 1 for nominal variables. Cluster analysis and analysis of interaction and residuals in contingency tables are outlined as procedures for discovering types with continuous and nominal variables, respectively. Examples of each technique using archaeological data are given.

Archaeological records of the fourth and third millennia B.P. in eastern New England, from Massachusetts to Maine, evidence the initiation and spread of intensive shellfish exploitation from a Late Archaic forest and riverine-oriented economic base. Changes in the degree of exploitation of several shellfish species follow the economic shift during Early and Middle Woodland times. Ritchie and Snow have recently explained these changes as the result of a single process of purely internally initiated cultural evolution involving a systematic expansion of exploitative techniques and the subsistence base. Evidence from the Boston Harbor area, Massachusetts, and from paleoclimatic, ecological, and paleoecological literature are presented in arguing that such an explanation is unwarranted. An alternative framework, emphasizing the primacy of ecological factors, is presented.

Despite almost 100 yr of research on the Yucatan peninsula, including several major archaeological and ethnohistoric projects, an organized synthesis of the pre-Late Postclassic culture history of this region has yet to appear. In the present paper, a trial coordination of the accumulated archaeological and ethnohistoric materials dealing with the eighth through twelfth centuries A.D. is presented, and a culture historic framework for this period is suggested.

The investigation reported here tested the use of a computer to assist in an ongoing archaeological excavation and survey. To provide rapid computer results, a remote terminal at the site was connected by telephone service to a time-sharing computer some 300 miles distant. Techniques developed and evaluated ranged from initial program preparation and testing through evaluation of field procedures in an environment involving an interactive computer. The ability to generate requested information rapidly enough to aid in tactical decisions affecting field procedures on a daily basis was demonstrated.

An exchange network based on long-distance export of Spondylus and Strombus, two mollusks native to coastal Ecuador, united the sierra and coast of both Ecuador and Peru during a long period of Andean prehistory. The gradual expansion of the export area is sketched, using evidence from three successive periods: (A) 2800 to 1100 B.C., (B) 1100 to 100 B.C., and (C) 100 B.C. to A.D. 1532. Each of these periods corresponds not only to an enlargement of the exchange sphere, but also to a striking change in the sociocultural status and role of the two shellfish in highland Ecuador and in Peru. This series of qualitative changes is related to evolutionary sociopolitical developments in the central Andes. Chávin is seen as a pristine state, linked to the later Huari and Inca empires through their common use of Spondylus and Strombus shells as symbols of the oracles that were important integrative mechanisms in the evolution toward large-scale societies.

This article is based on 2 observations. First, I note the quality of certain traditional archaeological studies, focusing on evaluation of results obtained and of information used. Second, I observe the incoherence of many of the constructions of "analytical" archaeologists, who sometimes naively imagine that it is possible to substitute sophisticated algorithms for analysis of the logic and archaeological meaning of problems in prehistory.

The goal of this work is twofold: (1) to set up a model for analysis of traditional archaeological works that resolves the linguistic and logical difficulties encountered during extraction of the information they contain; and (2) to give an example of the way in which "description" and "calculation" may be integrated into a logical analytical scheme, so that the problem of "interpretation" (that is, of proceeding from formalisms to meaning) is resolved without reproducing the shortcomings of traditional discourse. These shortcomings include a preponderance of personal intuition, an absence of explicit justifications, and numerous incoherences.

This paper is meant to be a contribution to efforts to reestablish the bases of archaeological reasoning in their historical continuity, beyond the mechanistic oppositions tending to mask the dialectic between "new" and "traditional" archaeology.

The paper is translated from its original French by Claudine Farrand.

This paper presents a quantitative method for estimating the total live weight of fish based upon linear measurement of various skeletal elements. The method has the advantage of being both highly accurate and indicating the confidence limits of the estimates. The method is based upon Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's concept of “… weigh[ing] the animal with a measuring-rod…” (Thompson 1917, in Bonner 1966:16).

One kind of R-mode analysis, the examination of the co-occurrence of particular artifact classes across a number of collections, facilitates the identification of recurrent artifact clusters. Its use with proportional data, however, requires the safeguard of equalizing collection sizes, which in turn may necessitate the use of some statistic other than the product-moment coefficient of correlation. Two examples of R-mode analysis are given, both using an average-linkage clustering procedure. The first uses proportional data from unmixed collections of a southwestern Alaskan phase of the Arctic Small Tool tradition, permitting a definition of artifact groups that may represent specialized activities, and highlighting 1 cluster that may have specifically temporal significance; some results of factor analysis are compared. The second example employs presence-absence information from surface-collected ceramics from Tlaxcala, Mexico, and makes possible a refinement of the ceramic sequence.

In recent years, the importance of seasonal dating in archaeology has been widely acknowledged. To this end, relatively sophisticated methods of determining the season of death of cockles (Chione stutchbury) from coastal midden sites in New Zealand, have been developed. These methods can only be applied when the midden deposits contain cockles and those middens are normally found in the vicinity of lagoons, sandy beaches, or estuaries. However, the Echinodermata are endemic to the rocky shore sub-tidal zone, and recent research in New Zealand on one species of echinoid (Evechinus chloroticus) has defined growth patterns which are seasonally dependant. This research has provided the basis for exploring a method of determining seasonal dates for midden deposits containing Echinoidea. This method, when fully developed, should prove useful for extracting seasonal data from middens which do not have any cockles, and will provide a further means of cross-checking seasonal dates.

An archaeological project's achievement depends on the efficiency of its management. Efficiency tends to be greater with delegation of administration to a qualified specialist. Such administration is economical for all but isolated and shoestring projects. Yet it is uncommon. Reasons and means for improvement are suggested.

The occurrence of the jaguar in the arts and myths of North American cultures has been attributed to influence from Mesoamerica. A brief review of available zoogeographic and cultural data suggests greater integration between the physical and mythological presence of the jaguar in North America than previously thought.

Popular misconceptions relative to atlatl functions are identified. The manner in which an atlatl functions to increase spear impetus is explained and illustrated. Its performance is tested by experiments and resulting data are provided. These data indicate that the atlatl provides approximately 60% increased spear thrust. Experiments fail to indicate any benefit derived from the use of atlatl "weights."

An attempt is made to view an assemblage of stone tools as something in the process of being generated over time. A formal model is developed which includes variables such as activities and tool types and also draws attention to somewhat less visible variables that enter into the formation of an assemblage such as the dropping rates of tools and mapping relations between tool types and activities. Implications of the model for the interpretation of correlation coefficients which are often used in the quantitative analysis of assemblages and also for the "functional" argument are discussed.