Sixteenth-century Spanish explorers regarded Coosa as one of the most important chiefdoms in the southeastern United States. Using both documentary and archaeological evidence, we have located the main town of Coosa and several tributary towns, as well as some of the frontiers of the chiefdom. The locations of these towns and frontiers are supported by the archaeological recovery of sixteenth-century European artifacts in the postulated area of the chiefdom.

It has commonly been argued that chiefdoms were the dominant form of prehispanic political organization in Lower Central America. Reexamination of the data base, however, reveals that tribal forms of organization were also present in Lower Central America at the time of Spanish contact and before. The salient characteristics of both tribes and chiefdoms are discussed, and criteria for identifying tribes and chiefdoms in the archaeological record are outlined. Data from the Central Provinces of Panama and the Gulf of Nicoya are then examined in light of these criteria. We argue that while a chiefdom form of organization prevailed in Panama, the Gulf of Nicoya was occupied by tribal groups immediately prior to contact with the Spanish.

The systematic study of chipped stone debitage provides important information about prehistoric lithic technology. However, the results of most debitage analyses are unconvincing because of questionable assumptions and inherent flaws in the typologies used to classify the material. After briefly reviewing these problems, we present an alternative approach that does not rely on the presumed technological origins of individual artifacts as the basis for debitage classification and interpretation. An important element of this approach is a typology composed of interpretation-free and mutually exclusive debitage categories. The derivation of this typology is described and the utility of the approach is demonstrated with two Arizona case studies. The TEP St. Johns project provides new data and interpretations about Archaic Period technological and settlement changes while the Pitiful Flats study illustrates how differences in functional and organizational factors affect debitage assemblage variability.

Bogucki's review deals with theoretical directions in current archaeological research in Europe, and Kohl's covers recent fieldwork and analysis in central Asia. It should be emphasized that these reviews are written specifically for the readers of this journal. Their purpose is to provide brief overviews of the topics and to introduce the readers to some of the literature in the field. The authors emphasize issues most likely to be of direct interest to readers working in the Americas and in literature published in English. PSW

This article summarizes recent prehistoric research in western Central Asia (Western Turkestan) or the area of internal drainage towards the Caspian and Aral Seas, stretching from the Pamir massif and Fergana valley in the east to the Caspian in the west, and from the Aral in the north to the Hindu Kush watershed in Afghanistan and the eastern extension of the Alborz chain and the Iranian plateau in the south (Figure 1). This vast area contains distinct ecological zones ranging from high intermontane valleys to piedmont and alluvial plains, yet despite this diversity and its inevitable consequences for cultural development, certain shared features unite the area into a logical unit of analysis. Western Turkestan is a land of interior drainage with access to no seas other than the landlocked Caspian and Aral basins.

The tree-ring dating of baldcypress has been achieved in the southeastern United States, and the first 500 to 600 year long baldcypress chronologies have been developed from remnant stands of old-growth trees. An 800 year long cypress tree-ring chronology based on living trees and extended with long dead submerged logs has recently been dated, demonstrating the feasibility for very long chronology extension using progressively older sources of preserved cypress wood from old-growth trees, historic buildings, prehistoric archaeological sites, and natural deposits of submerged and buried logs and stumps. The longevity, climate sensitivity, and excellent preservation of ancient baldcypress wood make this species the only realistic prospect for millennia-long tree-ring chronologies extending to the mid-holocene in the Southeast, with important potential applications to the tree-ring dating of prehistoric archaeological sites, paleoclimatic reconstruction, and the calibration of independent dating methods.

Two measured and weighed assemblages of lithic debitage were subjected to human treadage, one set on a compact sandy silt (“loam”) substrate, the other on unconsolidated sand. The assemblages were excavated, plotted in three dimensions, and documented for damage. Downward migration of pieces at the loam site was minimal: fracture of small pieces was the dominant damage pattern. Most sand site pieces migrated to 3-8 cm depth; vertical distribution of pieces approximated a normal curve, and edge-damage to larger pieces was the dominant damage pattern. Vertical distribution of artifacts at the sand site approximated a pattern observed in two other trampling experiments and a number of archaeological occurrences. Factors influencing these distributions are discussed.

Analysis of 100 desiccated feces of the Desha Complex (6800–4800 B.C.) from Dust Devil Cave near Navajo Mountain in southern Utah shows high proportions of Chenopodium seed and an absence of parasitic round-worms. Conversely, fecal remains from other sites in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau show high incidences of parasite infection and low frequencies of Chenopodium. The implications of Chenopodium as a vermifuge are discussed.

In this paper we argue that although investigators often address themselves generally to human interaction with deer and the results of such interaction, they often fail to consider a number of related nonhuman factors that bear directly upon deer populations. Thus, such populations are seen and described as static, unchanging, and a given rather than as entities capable of considerable fluctuation and change that affect the human adaptive system. In addition, the related issue of the use and abuse of deer density figures is examined. We conclude that in most instances published density figures used by archaeologists are unrealistically high and in need of reassessment.

In this report I present evidence of a prehistoric trade network that operated between the inland desert and coastal regions of southern California. Jasper, a nonlocal commodity from sources in the inland deserts, was found in large quantities at the Tomato Springs site, a prehistoric coastal village. This lithic material appears to have been of some value to the inhabitants of the coastal region, as evidence indicates that it was procured in quantity for a period of approximately 4,500 years over distances in excess of 175 km. The available data indicate that jasper trade between the inland deserts and the coast does not fit any distance-decay models proposed for trade in spite of the distances under consideration.

The Sun River site (24CA74) near Great Falls, Montana, is significant because the six occupation levels span the millennia of notable climatic change from late Altithermal to Medithermal conditions. Informative paleoenvironmental data enhance the archaeological results. Sun River provides an important means for understanding prehistoric adaptations on the Northwestern Plains between 5200 and 3600 B.P.

Behaviorism is but one part of the broader scope of ethnoarchaeological research and must be joined with historical approaches for proper understanding of the past.

In her review of Ethnography by Archaeologists edited by Elisabeth Tooker {American Antiquity 49:442-443), Patricia Gilman emphasized one aspect of ethnoarchaeology, behaviorism, and faulted many of the contributors for not presenting general explanations of human behavior. Gilman primarily stresses the synchronic study of modern behavior as an analog for past behavior. While this is certainly a worthwhile endeavor for ethnographers, to equate such research with all of ethnoarchaeology is, I think, unduly restricting the definition. Such research is simply ethnography, because it places the researcher as an observer and interviewer in modern communities, examining behavioral and physical relationships among modern data. Rarely do such studies place this research in any evolutionary or historical framework.

Tainter and Lucas misunderstand my position toward site significance evaluation. The source of their confusion is discussed, and comments expanding upon their discussion of the significance concept and its use are presented.