Archaeologists have held a lengthy debate around the question of complex sociopolitical organización in the prehistoric American Southwest. Recent theory, though, urges scholars to “unpack” the properties of complexity. In this paper a southwestern regional center is compared with one on the northern Mesoamerican periphery in terms of properties generally associated with sociopolitical complexity: population size, labor investment in monumental construction, extent of road systems, mortuary practices, and symbolism of integrative facilities. Contrary to the conception of Mesoamerican societies as larger and more politically centralized, Chaco Canyon appears to have been organized at a larger scale than La Quemada. Yet it is argued that La Quemada was more hierarchically structured. Correctly evaluating complexity in both nature and degree is not only theoretically significant, but has implications for particular models of long-distance interaction between such large centers.

Archaeology is poised to play a pivotal role in the reconfiguration of historical anthropology. Archaeology provides not only a temporal baseline that spans both prehistory and history, but the means to study the material remains of ethnic laborers in pluralistic colonial communities who are poorly represented in written accounts. Taken together, archaeology is ideally suited for examining the multicultural roots of modern América. But before archaeology’s full potential to contribute to culture contact studies can be realized, we must address several systemic problems resulting from the separation of “prehistoric” and “historical” archaeology into distinct subfields. In this paper, I examine the implications of increasing temporal/regional specialization in archaeology on (1) the use of historical documents in archaeological research, (2) the study of long-term culture change, and (3) the implementation of pan-regional comparative analyses.

People use food and food-related behavior to express and reinforce a multitude of social relations. We examine subsistence remains and pottery recovered from several different social-status and functional contexts in the Moundville chiefdom. Differential distributions of plant and animal remains suggest that elite members of the society received food as tribute. The analyzed contexts also differ in the ratios of serving ware to cooking ware and in the relative frequencies of the functional types of serving vessels present. Greater emphasis was placed on the presentation of food in elite contexts, and the types of vessels used to serve or display food varied depending on whether the context was public or private. This patterning in food remains and pottery assemblages from different contexts is complex and cannot be explained by a single dimension of variability. Rather, to account for the patterns it is necessary to consider the evidence in terms of the ways people used food in different social settings.

Specialization encompasses many ways to organize craft production, ranging from small, household-based work units to large workshops. Distinctive types of specialization develop in response to various social, economic, and environmental factors, including the demand for crafts, the social relations of producers, and the support base for artisans. These factors in turn influence manufacturing technology. Thus, different types of specialization can be characterized by a “technological profile,” which reflects relative labor investment, skill, and standardization. An analysis of Prehispanic ceramic technology in the central sierra of Peru demonstrates how these technological profiles can be used to identify the ways ceramic production was organized to provision consumers with utilitarian and luxury pottery. As we demonstrate in our analysis of pottery recovered in the Yanamarca Valley, utilitarian Wanka-style cookwares and storage jars were produced by independent household-based artisans, while imperial Inka-style jars were produced by locally recruited corvee labor working for the state.

The pithouse-to-pueblo transition in the southwestern United States is widely viewed as a period combining increasing sedentism and agricultural dependence. This paper argues that sedentarization and degree of agricultural dependence need not be directly linked across the transition, and that two kinds of preservational biases influence the appearance of a linkage. First, sample size effects result from better archaeobotanical preservation at large, relatively sedentary pueblos, compared to pithouse settlements that are often smaller and less intensively occupied. Second, differences in storage technology increase the likelihood of carbonization of domesticates at pueblos. Quantitative paleoethno-botanical data from the Dunlap-Salazar pithouse site and Robinson site pueblo in south-central New Mexico illustrate these problems. Dunlap-Salazar has lower quantities of domesticates in its flotation samples than Robinson pueblo. When preservational differences are taken into account using ratios or ubiquity counts, however, the contrast between the sites disappears. These findings have methodological implications, suggesting that casual qualitative or even quantitative comparisons between pueblo and pithouse sites in the Southwest (or analogous sites in other parts of the world) may be misleading. The results also suggest that the commonly accepted direct association between lower mobility and higher dependence on crops in pueblos in contrast to pithouse sites requires reevaluation.

Analysis of the animal bones recovered from the excavations of residential contexts at Chavín de Huántar reveals a mixed economy that included the herding and hunting of camelids (llama and vicuña) at Chavín de Huántar as early as the Urabarriu Phase (900–500 B.C.). It also suggests that a pattern of trade in dried llama meat (ch'arki) from high altitude environments (punas) to lower ones had developed by the Chakinani phase (500–400 B.C.), while the consumption of hunted animals (especially deer) sharply declined in importance. During the apogee of Chavín de Huántar (400–200 B.C.), socioeconomic stratification is reflected in differential access to tender meat from younger animals. The role of Chavín de Huántar in the spread of camelid pastoralism and the importance of highland vs. tropical rain forest animals in Chavín ideology is discussed as well.

Certain aspects of what archaeologists have traditionally called stylistic variation can be understood as the result of the introduction of selectively neutral variation into social-learning populations and the sampling error in the cultural transmission of that variation (drift). Simple mathematical models allow the deduction of expectations for the dynamics of these evolutionary mechanisms as monitored in the archaeological record through assemblage diversity and interassemblage distance. The models are applied to make inferences about the causes of change in decorative diversity and interassemblage distance for Woodland ceramics from Illinois.

A regional systems approach has become a mainstay for examining intersocietal interaction in the prehistoric Southwest, although problems with the approach exist. Particularly problematic for the model is how smaller-scale societies might have interacted with larger-scale societies. As a case study in comprehending “areas in between,” I examine the Animas phase (about A.D. 1150-1450), located in extreme southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northeastern Sonora. Considerable controversy exists over the relationship between Animas phase sites and the much more imposing remains found at and near Paquίmé (Casas Grandes) in northwestern Chihuahua. This debate is explored through two contrasting theories about smaller-scale societies: (1) that they are relatively stable and autonomous remnants of older social systems or (2) that they are dependent peripheries marginalized by core areas. Neither of the models appears to adequately explain the mosaic of features that the Animas phase possesses. A more dynamic model is proposed that recognizes the presence of regional interaction, the low efficiency and high costs of interactión for the prehistoric Southwest, and the sources of power of small-scale social systems.

Rio Grande Anasazi in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries A.D. mulched hundreds of garden-sized plots with pebbles to increase soil moisture, reduce erosion, extend the growing season, and increase crop yields. This paper reports on the construction and configuration of pebble-mulch gardens in New Mexico, focusing particularly on those in the Galisteo Basin. Surfaces adjacent to these gardens were scraped and pits were excavated to collect gravel, which was placed over garden surfaces in layers 5 to 11 cm thick. Gardens averaged 15 x 23 m in size, although both size and shape were highly variable, and they collectively covered an area of 41,000 m2 Although this unique agricultural strategy has been shown to be effective, construction was limited to sites with natural gravel deposits, pebbled surfaces inhibited the recycling of crop wastes, and such gardens never became as widely used as more traditional field forms.

Emil Walter Haury (1904–1992) played a key role in the definition of southwestern archaeology. Raised in a Mennonite academic community in Kansas and educated at Bethel College, the University of Arizona, and Harvard University, Haury participated in the development of dendrochronology and gained extensive archaeological field experience with Byron Cummings and Harold Gladwin. Inspired by A. V. Kidder, he contributed greatly to our knowledge of Clovis, Archaic, Mogollon, and Hohokam. His definition of southwestern archaeology continues to be the foundation for the study of prehistory in the Southwest.

Comparative rank-size analyses reveal highly variable courses of urbanization in ancient Mesopotamia and the southern Levant during the fourth through early second millennia B.C. While traditional rank-size methods do not consider the effects of archaeological sampling, we propose a revised approach based on Monte Carlo simulation, which incorporates site-recovery rates and demonstrates the advantages of “full-coverage” survey. We highlight the rapid development of urban primacy in southern Mesopotamia’s heartland (Adams 1981) and the more static rural integration of the Diyala hinterland (Adams 1965). In contrast, Bronze Age urbanization in the southern Levant describes a mosaic of urban and rural systems following independent trajectories. We call for greater attention to small sites, which often define the shape of rank-size distributions. Our approach illuminates modest cases of urbanization in terms of structure, rather than simply of reduced scale, and avoids a tendency to categorize such cases as derivative.

Precipitation reconstructions based on bald cypress (Taxodium distichum L. Rich) annual growth ring data collected from locations near the Savannah River valley, coupled with a series of simple models of storage capability, are used to calculate the agricultural food reserves potentially available each year from A.D. 1005 to 1600 to local prehistoric Mississippian populations. The resulting food reserve estimates suggest that interannual variation in rainfall during the growing season may have resulted in both extended periods of food surplus and food shortfall. We hypothesize that prolonged episodes of agricultural food surplus and shortfall had a pronounced impact on the historical trajectories of these chiefdom societies. This argument is supported by historical accounts describing the impact of drought during the period of Spanish settlement at Santa Elena (A.D. 1565-1587), and offers a possible explanation for some of the major changes observed in the late prehistoric archaeological record in the Savannah River valley, including the emergence, expansión, and decline of several mound centers and the eventual abandonment of a large portion of the basin. The study indicates the value, and potential, of analyses linking archaeological, historical, and dendrochronological data in the southeastern United States.

Two geographic information system (GIS) techniques for displaying, analyzing, and interpreting geophysical data were recently applied at two archaeological sites in northern New Zealand; a pre-European Maori pa (fortification), and a late nineteenth-century European fortification. A GIS was used to stretch and filter the conductivity data from the pa to accentuate subtle contrasts and clearly delineate boundaries between areas with contrasting conductivity readings. Magnetic susceptibility data and two different bands of conductivity data from the historic fort were used as input for a GIS-based unsupervised classification. The classification delineated five spatial entities, several of which corresponded to known archaeological features. The interpretability of the geophysical data in relation to conventional visual analysis of conductivity contour maps was enhanced through the use of the GIS procedures outlined.

The archaeology of the Northern Iroquoians has been described in terms of an in situ development out of Point Peninsula culture for half a century. Recently recognized anomalies prompt revision of the in situ hypothesis in favor of one allowing for the derivation of Northern Iroquoians by migration from Clemson's Island culture following A.D. 900. Multifamily dwellings and maize horticulture are argued to have been adaptive advantages that facilitated the incursion. Migration is found to be a viable alternative, and gradualist assumptions about the origins of matrilocality and horticulture are challenged. An alternative hypothesis provides a clear source and beginning date for subsequent development and illuminates some demographic mechanisms. The case illuminates both the processes by which societies propagate across time and space and the independent inferential processes of archaeologists.

Marine paleotemperature is a significant factor in the subsistence productivity of many coastal regions and may be an important factor in the evolution of maritime societies. A California paleotemperature model, spanning 8,000 calendar years, correlates periods of high sea surface temperatures with decreased marine subsistence productivity. A recent case study involving this model identified warming conditions between A.D. 1150 to 1300 as a major cause of subsistence distress for dwellers of the northern Channel Islands. These results are questionable, based on a comparison with data from other sites and periods of high sea temperature. Research at the Little Harbor site, one of the most extensively researched in the Channel Islands, shows that high sea temperature about 5,200 calendar years ago may have introduced warm-water faunas but not starvation conditions. Evidence from other sites occupied during subsequent warming cycles, including the event between A.D. 1150 to 1300, points to similar conclusions. Understanding the effects of long- and short-term ocean temperature cycles, a focus on only a small segment of the Holocene paleotemperature curve, and weak evidence that food abundance was affected by sea temperature are problems that must be overcome before the validity of the paleotemperature model can be accepted.

The traditional architectural styles of the Apalachee of northern Florida and Spanish colonists in the New World represent distinct approaches to the organization of domestic and community space and reflect different attitudes toward public and private activities. To the degree that the Apalachee became Hispanicized or that the Spaniards in Apalachee adopted aspects of aboriginal lifestyles during the seventeenth-century mission period, we might expect to see changes in architecture and community organization. Archaeological and ethnohistorical data from Apalachee Province indicate that the shapes and spatial arrangement of native and European domestic structures changed very little as a result of contact. This suggests that each group maintained a distinct identity in the realm of residential organization, despite the profound changes that both the Apalachee and Spaniards made in other aspects of their lives as a result of European colonization in La Florida.

The Vermilion Lakes site in Banff National Park, Alberta, has yielded cultural remains suggesting a possible sheep-hunting focus during the Paleoindian period and providing evidence for windbreaks or shelters dating as early as 10,300 B.P. Debris flows at this site have separated and preserved six or more cultural components dating between the mid-eleventh and mid-tenth millennia before present. Paleoenvironmental evidence suggests that most of these components date to a period of severe climate. Accelerator and conventional carbon dating of these strata suggest that, for at least part of this time, the detail of the temporal sequence is beyond the resolution of these techniques. Apparent 14C inversions can best be explained by 14C plateaus during key periods of the site's occupation.