In 1584, Baltasar de Obregón described the people he met in the Casas Grandes Valley (CGV), Northwest Chihuahua, Mexico. He juxtaposed these “rustic” people with the sophistication of the ancient builders of Paquimé who had lived in the CGV. Seventy years later, the Spanish missionaries called the people in the CGV “Suma” and enlisted them to build Mission San Antonio de Padua de Casas Grandes. Scholars have examined Obregón's and later administrators’ accounts to argue that the Suma were a small-scale society and unrelated to the ancient people of Paquimé (~AD 1200–1430). We reevaluate this interpretation. First, we contextualize the documentary evidence within contemporary frameworks. Second, using data from the 1958–1961 Joint Casas Grandes Expedition, we compare Paquimé and Suma material culture. We argue that the Suma were likely long-term residents of the Valley, organized into horticulture villages, and exhibiting cultural practices linked to Paquimé. After critiquing previous arguments about Suma origins, we consider how this criticism relates broadly to exploring Native Americans’ reactions to colonial settings.

Ohio Hopewell is an archaeological concept that is known worldwide but that suffers from “a disarray of radiocarbon results” (Lynott 2015:60). Here, we establish a comprehensive dataset of 425 14C dates from Ohio Hopewell sites and apply formal chronometric hygiene criteria to all dates. We then iteratively assess the temporal placement and span of the six most important Ohio Hopewell sites—the Hopewell Mound Group, Liberty, Mound City, Seip, Tremper, and Turner. A staged relaxation of hygiene criteria for our best three categories (Classes 1–3) permits alternate but generally consistent conclusions. As the first large-scale analyses of Ohio Hopewell temporality since the publication of IntCal20 (Reimer et al. 2020), the available data show a ritual complex that begins 90 or more years later than generally has been recognized circa 2010 14C BP, or as Bayesian modeled, AD 90–120. Our analysis reveals site histories of differing spans, more late dates than early dates, and with most Hopewell activity ending across these sites circa 1640 14C BP, or as Bayesian modeled, AD 395–430. An increased consideration of contingency in contemporary temporal reckoning increases the utility of the historical narratives that we as archaeologists can construct.

The ubiquity and durability of lithic artifacts inform archaeologists about important dimensions of human behavioral variability. Despite their importance, lithic artifacts can be problematic to study because lithic analysts differ widely in their theoretical approaches and the data they collect. The extent to which differences in lithic data relate to prehistoric behavioral variability or differences between archaeologists today remains incompletely known. We address this issue with the most extensive lithic replicability study yet, involving 11 analysts, 100 unmodified flakes, and 38 ratio, discrete, and nominal attributes. We use mixture models to show strong inter-analyst replicability scores on several attributes, making them well suited to comparative lithic analyses. Based on our results, we highlight 17 attributes that we consider reliable for compiling datasets collected by different individuals for comparative studies. Demonstrating this replicability is a crucial first step in tackling more general problems of data comparability in lithic analysis and lithic analyst's ability to conduct large-scale meta-analyses.

Two types of features at the Late Archaic period Poverty Point site in Louisiana—large timber post circles and repetitively used activity surfaces later covered by mounding—are examined as spaces that were the products of historical event sequences involving their construction, their entwined but differing ritual uses, and their final deconstruction or removal. This approach is a particularizing, historicizing way of approaching the features of this monumental hunter-gatherer site, an alternative to a more generalizing view in which its totality as a site or “place” is seen as the interrelated product of many historical acts over time or as a mosaic of historically created and used “spaces.” Analysis of these feature types suggests that spaces of ritual activity in the larger site were used differently, involving different types of events and serving different functions in a developing, perhaps shifting, larger ritual landscape.

Military garrisons in North America were provisioned with a diet based primarily on domesticates. A relationship between colonial diets and nationality has been an assumed truism, encouraging the belief that colonial diets were static and predetermined by European norms and leading to devaluation of colonists’ adaptability and agency. We challenge that perspective using zooarchaeological data on soldiers’ diets at 49 American fortifications in North America. Statistical comparisons reveal that some sites relied heavily on provisioned livestock, while others did not. Dietary patterns were significantly impacted by accessibility, length of occupation, garrison size, and local infrastructure. This evidence suggests that reliance on wild game was an adaptive response to local environmental and cultural factors influencing the accessibility of preferred domesticates, regardless of nationality.

Modified teeth and jaws have long been recognized as important ceremonial objects during the Middle Woodland period of eastern North America. Direct evidence for the manufacture of the objects is exceedingly rare because they are typically recovered from mortuary contexts or ceremonial caches. Here, we present multiple lines of evidence pointing to the manufacture of modified teeth and jaws at the Moorehead Circle post enclosure within the Fort Ancient Earthworks. The convergence of protein residue, lithic use-wear, and faunal data indicate that bear and likely canid bones were modified by artisans working within the Moorehead Circle. These findings add an important new layer of understanding to our knowledge of these objects, human–animal relations, and craft production in the Middle Woodland.

At the Painted Coulee site (24JT86), pictographs depicting both atlatl and bow technology are present. We utilized plasma oxidation followed by accelerator mass spectrometry to directly radiocarbon date the organic material in two paint samples. A red painting of an anthropomorph with a shield and a possible atlatl in conflict with a fleeing person holding a bow was dated to 1790 ± 50 RCYBP (cal AD 120–390). Another red anthropomorph wearing snowshoes and holding a bow was dated to 1710 ± 45 RCYBP (cal AD 240–425). Radiocarbon dates for underlying oxalate minerals provided maximum ages for the paintings that are consistent with the direct ages. This early example of Plains Biographic rock art is significant because it illustrates a scene between a Late Archaic shield-bearing warrior with a possible atlatl and an anthropomorph with a bow and arrow at a time when bows first came into use on the Northwestern Plains.