Phenomenological archaeologists and GIS scholars have turned much attentionto visibility—who can see whom, and what can be seen—across ancientlandscapes. Visible connections can be relatively easy to identify, but theypresent challenges to interpretation. Ancient peoples created intervisibleconnections among sites for purposes that included surveillance, defense,symbolism, shared identity, and communication. In the American Southwest,many high places are intervisible by virtue of the elevated topography andthe open skies. The Chaco phenomenon, centered in northwestern New Mexicobetween A.D. 850 and 1140, presents an ideal situation for visibilityresearch. In this study, we use GIS-generated viewsheds and viewnets toinvestigate intervisible connections among great houses, shrines, andrelated features across the Chacoan landscape. We demonstrate that a Chacoanshrine network, likely established during the mid-eleventh century,facilitated intervisibility between outlier communities and Chaco Canyon. Itis most likely that the Chacoans created this network to enable meaningfulconnections for communication and identity. We conclude that the boundariesof the Chaco phenomenon are defined in some sense by intervisibility.

Unlike many goods in the eighteenth century, which were wholly imported,utilitarian coarse earthenwares were also produced locally within theAmerican colonies. In the Chesapeake region, it has been suggested thatthese local wares were primarily reserved for those unable to directlyparticipate in the transatlantic credit economy fostered by the tobaccoconsignment system. Rather than relying on ambiguous visual attributes toidentify these wares, this study utilized elemental analysis via LA-ICP-MS.Coarse earthenwares from domestic plantation contexts of varying socialstatus were assigned to production zones based on shared elementalcomposition with a reference dataset. This reference dataset incorporatedsherds from historic earthenware production sites across the mid-Atlanticand in Great Britain, representing 12 geologically distinct productionzones. The results emphasize the diversity of coarse earthenware sourcesthat Chesapeake residents accessed, both local and imported. There was asteady decrease in the use of imported wares in favor of domestically madeproducts over time. There were no sharp differences among plantationhouseholds of different statuses, suggesting that these everyday wares wereequally accessible to all, perhaps via plantation provisioning strategies.The omnipresence of local wares is evidence for the pragmatic and politicalstrengths of local production.

Diversity is generally valued, although it sometimes contributes todifficult social situations, as is recognized in recent social scienceliterature. Archaeology can provide insights into how diverse socialsituations play out over the long term. There are many kinds of diversities,and we propose representational diversity as a distinct category.Representational diversity specifically concerns how and whether differencesare marked or masked materially. We investigate several archaeologicalsequences in the U.S. Southwest. Each began with the coming together ofpopulations that created situations of unprecedented social diversity; someresulted in conflict, others in long-term stability. We trace howrepresentational diversity changed through these sequences. Specifically, wereview the transregional Kayenta migration to the southern Southwest andfocus empirical analyses on regional processes in the Cibola region and onpainted ceramics. Results show that, initially, representational diversityincreased above and beyond that caused by the combination of previouslyseparate traditions as people marked their differences. Subsequently, insome instances, the diversity was replaced by widespread homogeneity as thedifferences were masked and mitigated. Although the social causes andeffects of diversity are many and varied, long-term stability andpersistence is associated with tolerance of a range of diversities.

Much attention has been paid to the role of increased food production in thedevelopment of social complexity. However, increased food production is onlyone kind of agricultural process, and some changes in agronomic practiceswere geared toward stabilizing production or counteracting periodicshortfalls. The intersection between these latter strategies andsociopolitical development are poorly understood, while the long-term valueof risk management strategies is often hypothesized but empirically not welldemonstrated. We address these issues using recent archaeological data fromthe Samoan Archipelago, Polynesia. We investigate variability in, and thedevelopment of, one type of agricultural infrastructure: ditch- and-parcelcomplexes. In the context of Samoa’s high-volume rainfall, recurrentcyclones, and steep topography, these novel risk management facilitiesoffered production stability and, by extension, long-term selective benefitsto both emergent elites and the general populace. Their effectivenessagainst known hazards is demonstrated by hydrologicai modeling, while theirlong-term success is indicated by increased distribution and size over time.Additionally, based on their morphologies, funetional properties,chronology, and spatial patterning, we argue that this infrastructure couldhave been effectively used by emergent elites to gain political advantage,particularly in conjunction with environmental perturbations that createdproduction bottlenecks or shortfalls.

Archaeologists working in the Salish Sea (Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound)region of the Pacific Northwest have unearthed human burials andnon-mortuary features dated to 4000–3500 cal B.P. containing tens and evenhundreds of thousands of stone and shell disc beads. Several sites arereported here, including burials recently excavated from site DjRw–14located in the territory of the shíshálh Nation. We argue that the discbeads constituted an important form of material wealth at this time, basedon the amount of labor that would have been required to produce them and thecapacity for beads to accrue in value after their production. A model ofmaterial wealth-based inequality is developed for a period much older thanmany archaeologists working in the region have previously thought.

Although the Mississippian standard jar, a specific vessel form found inmany parts of the Mississippian cultural world, has long been recognized asa utilitarian cooking pot, the important connection between this ceramicform and maize has largely been overlooked. By focusing on the Mississippiansite of Moundville located in the Black Warrior valley of west-centralAlabama, I propose that the Mississippian standard jar was not simply ageneral cooking pot, but instead a specialized culinary tool used tonixtamalize maize. As such, both the vessel and the plant were part of acohesive ancestral hominy foodway. This relationship is demonstrated in twoways: first, by articulating both the hominy foodway and the antecedent nutfoodway practiced between A.D. 1020–1260; and, second, by exploring changesin the morphology and use-alteration patterns of the MoundvilleMississippian standard jars recovered from contexts dating to the MoundvilleI-III phases(A.D. 1120–1520). The relationship between vessel and fooddemonstrated here suggests a practice- and taste-based model for thesynergistic relationship long recognized between maize and the emergence ofthe Mississippian civic-ceremonial center of Moundville.

Were Early Agricultural period (2100 B.C.–A.D. 50) maize cultivators inSouthern Arizona sedentary farmers or seasonally mobile forager-farmers?Ethnographic analogs and ethnographically derived middle range theorysupport both claims. One argument for sedentism has been the abundance oflarge subterranean storage pits. These are often presumed to have been usedfor long-term food storage. This study of wetlands-indicator sporesrecovered from those pits indicates that the pits were often saturated andcould not have been used for long-term food storage; these findings supportthe general contention that Early Agricultural period maize cultivators wereseasonally mobile and tried to fit early agriculture into a subsistenceregime focused on wild foods.

Antiquarians of the nineteenth century referred to the largest monumentalconstructions in eastern North America as pyramids, but this usage fadedamong archaeologists by the mid-twentieth century. Pauketat (2007) hasreintroduced the term pyramid to describe the larger, Mississippian-period(A.D. 1050 to 1550) mounds of the interior of the continent, recognizingrecent studies that demonstrate the complexity of their construction. Suchrecognition is lacking for earlier mounds and for those constructed ofshell. We describe the recent identification of stepped pyramids of shellfrom the Roberts Island Complex, located on the central Gulf Coast ofFlorida and dating to the terminal Late Woodland period, A.D. 800 to 1050,thus recognizing the sophistication of monument construction in an earliertime frame, using a different construction material, and taking analternative form.

Protohistoric Ancestral Apache Dismal River groups (A.D. 1600–1750)participated in large exchange networks linking them to other peoples on thePlains and U.S. Southwest. Ceramic vessels made from micaceous materialsappear at many Dismal River sites, and micaceous pottery recovered from theCentral High Plains is typically seen as evidence for interaction withnorthern Rio Grande pueblos. However, few mineral or chemicalcharacterization analyses have been conducted on these ceramics, and theterm “micaceous” has been applied to a broad range of vessel typesregardless of the form, size, or amount of mica in their pastes. Our recentanalyses, including macroscopic evaluation combined with petrography andneutron activation analyses (NAA), indicate that only a small subset ofDismal River sherds are derived from New Mexico clays. The rest were likelymanufactured using materials from Colorado and Wyoming. Seasonal mobilitypatterns may have given Dismal River potters the opportunity to collect micaraw materials as they traveled between the Central Plains and Front Range,and this has implications for the importance of internal Plains socialnetworks during the Protohistoric and Historic periods.

Bayesian chronological modeling is used to investigate the chronology ofbastioned palisades during the precolumbian period in the Midwestern andSoutheastern United States. Nine precolumbian settlements in the Midwest andSoutheast with bastioned palisades have been subject to scientific dating(Angel Mounds, Annis Village, Aztalan, Cahokia Mounds, Etowah, KincaidMounds, Jonathan Creek, Moundville, and Southwind). Complete radiocarbondatasets from these sites are presented within an interpretative Bayesianstatistical framework. The results provide a glimpse into the history ofMississippi period (A.D. 1000–1700) fortifications with bastions andindicate that the analyzed fortifications were built and maintainedpredominantly in A.D. 1200–1400. This finding suggests a greaterinstitutionalized role for defense and warfare in post-A.D. 1200Mississippian societies. Additionally, modeling results further indicatethat the investigated Mississippian centers continued to maintainfortifications for generations after their construction.