The argument is presented here that lithic artifact assemblages can be made to yield considerable information on prehistoric behavior patterns, often despite a lack of associated organic material. To illustrate this point, an example has been taken from the Mesolithic settlement of Bergumermeer in the northern Netherlands, from which only prehistoric ground features, stone, and small bits of carbonized remains have been preserved. Proceeding from a functional use-wear analysis of the collection, a four-stage analytical procedure was instituted, employing ethnographically derived models of seasonality, expected resource exploitation, and hunter-gatherer population parameters. This structure enabled the author to provide estimates of several aspects of the prehistoric behavior of the Mesolithic group, including activities, methods of tool prehension, tool use-life and discard rate, number of animals exploited, population of the settlement, and minimum duration of occupation.

The role of environmental versus sociopolitical factors in establishing the characteristics of Maya settlement in Petén, Guatemala, has been debated, but evaluations have been hampered by a lack of diachronic data. Archaeological surveys and excavation conducted within a larger historical ecology project focused on the twin lake basins of Yaxhá and Sacnab, in northeast Petén, have provided a diachronic perspective on the settlement debate. In this area early settlement decisions appear to reflect topographic or environmental concerns, but the evolution of civic-ceremonial authority in the region caused deviations from this pattern.

This paper describes the results of an investigation of internal Nahua lexical diversity and speculates on the possible implications for Mesoamerican culture-history. Data for glottochronological calculations were obtained from 25 different Nahua communilects ranging in location from Sinaloa in western Mexico to El Salvador. The absolute chronology derived from this lexicostatistical technique proved highly sensitive to a number of discontinuities in the Mesoamerican sequence. Nahua linguistic divergences correlated with such significant events as the demise of the "Classic civilizations," Toltec and Aztec expansionist periods, and the Spanish conquest. Although the correlation between absolute and glottochronological years remains theoretically controversial, the results of this and other similar studies indicate a high potential for the practical applications of this technique in holistic anthropological research.

Rapidly evolving computer technology can play a significant role in all phases of future archaeological research. Technical trends are summarized, including hardware (data processing and storage), software (languages and data management), and data processing and entry. The utility and benefits of these new techniques are explored in relation to several current archaeological projects.

Spiral ("green bone") breakage has been suggested as an indicator of human activity by some workers. Our examination of broken ungulate long bones from six paleontological localities in western Nebraska, however, shows that such fractures commonly occurred in the Miocene and Pliocene, long before the advent of man in North America. Pseudotools also occur frequently in these sites. We postulate that spiral breakage, including the production of pseudotools, may be due to trampling by animals.

Our study demonstrates that neither spiral breakage nor gross morphology, alone or in combination, is diagnostic of human activity. Problematical examples must be accepted or rejected wholly upon the basis of patterned wear on the supposed tools.

Site formation processes must be understood before the goals of archaeology can be attained. Modern and historical populations are examined here to construct a partial model of discard behavior, one formation process. Findings indicate that both sedentary and migratory populations discard materials outside their use location and that only some migratory peoples discard material elements at their use location.

Widely held notions about the effects of heat treatment of flakeable stone were tested by agitating matching sets of regularly shaped pieces of heated and raw chert. The tests indicate that heat treatment changes some of the variables that control flake formation although not necessarily in ways that make flintworking "easier." It appears that in order to realize an advantage to the practice, the flintknapper must call on individual skill to make technical readjustments.

Although archaeomagnetic dating seems straightforward in principle, there are practical limitations which are not generally understood. Unlike rate-dependent processes such as isotopic dating, archaeomagnetic dating requires the construction of a master record of geomagnetic secular variation. Error is inherent in such a master curve due to statistical uncertainties regarding both the magnetic directions and ages of the samples used to create the curve. The master curve itself is thus best represented as a ribbon rather than a line. Features being dated have their own error of measurement of magnetic direction, and deriving a date involves an interpretation based on the relation between the oval of confidence for the unknown and the ribbon representing the master curve. Thus a practical precision limit for archaeomagnetic dating is about ± 20 years under optimal circumstances, but the limit will generally be higher. Our pilot study revealed no major discrepancies between our work and the curves of DuBois (1975).

Age-at-death data on over 2,000 burials from two pueblo sites in New Mexico are subjected to demographic analysis. Prior studies are reviewed to illustrate deficiencies and qualifications in the data base and the analytical method. The skeletal assemblage is subdivided into seven samples by chronological phase, and life tables are constructed. Aspects such as mortality and life expectancy are then examined for each phase and a diachronic model of demographic structure is developed for Pecos Indians between A.D. 1150 and 1700.

The literature to 1979 on North American Indian rock art has been analyzed. It was found to be characterized by a high degree of dispersion, an erratic growth pattern before 1950 followed by an exponential mode of growth thereafter, and a low proportion of multiple-author works. The growth in literary output over the years was largely attributable to an increase in the number of authors, whereas the article/author ratio changed only slightly with time. The proportion of works dealing with general topics rose from 16.4% before 1970 to 41.6% thereafter while the proportion of site reports decreased accordingly. Although all rock art regions participated in the numerical growth of the literature over the decades, their relative proportions varied with time. The Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Eastern Woodland had the greatest number of works with regional emphasis; these three regions accounted for more than 50% of the total literary output. As an instrument of scientific information exchange, the rock art literature in North America appears to be in a comparatively early stage of development and maturation, a feature it shares with the communication system in the social sciences in general.

Forty-two obsidian artifacts from the Chantuto Zone, Chiapas, Mexico, have been analyzed by neutron activation analysis, and fifteen artifacts were reanalyzed using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. These artifacts date to the Chantuto phase (3000-2000 B.C.), late in the Archaic period, and to a later period or periods. These analyses have made it possible to compare the two methods of analysis and also have made it possible to assign an obsidian source to each artifact. It has been shown that the majority of the obsidian originated from Tajumulco, with smaller amounts coming from El Chayal during the Chantuto phase and from El Chayal, San Martin Jilotepeque, and Pachuca during the late period.

The authors of this response believe that problem-oriented significance for archaeological sites can be accommodated within the existing National Register criterion. In addition, the authors feel that closer relationships between the archaeological community, federal agencies, and the State Historic Preservation Officers will result in the preservation of archaeological sites.

Barnes et al. raise a number of points relating to the National Register of Historic Places, only some of which are relevant to our initial discussion of archaeological significance in 1977. Archaeological significance can be supported by any of the four Register criteria, not only by the single criterion presented by Barnes et al. The role and initiative of all archaeologists in the decision-making process leading to significance determinations cannot be underestimated.

New data from the South American lowland tropics are used in support of a recent argument extolling the potential of fish utilization in major floodplains. The discussion will cover five points: (1) major floodplains in general, and the Amazon and Orinoco floodplains in particular, have similar characteristics that make them biologically productive regions; (2) high fish productivity and the use of mass-fishing techniques in floodplain regions are characteristics of lowland South America; (3) the ecological dynamics of the seasonally inundated savanna are particularly productive and propitious for seasonal exploitation using mass-fishing techniques; (4) differences in species composition and fish size may have implications for seasonal and spatial variations in fish exploitation; and (5) substantial biases are apparent against the retrieval of small fish remains using traditional archaeological recovery techniques.

Salmon (1978) has discussed the role of systems theory and systems explanation in archaeology. Her article raises several salient points, such as the difficulties inherent in depending upon general systems theory to solve all archaeological problems. We would argue, however, that her conclusion, to wit, that general systems theory and mathematical systems theory are of no relevance to archaeologists, is overdrawn and that systems explanations offer archaeologists a valuable means of examining complex cultural phenomena.