Southwestern archaeologists have debated the nature of late Prehispanic western pueblo social organization for nearly a century. Were the fourteenth-century pueblos egalitarian or hierarchical? This issue remains unsettled largely because of the oppositional thinking that has informed most contributions to the debate: that is, the tendency to frame questions about Prehispanic sociopolitical organization in dichotomous “either-or” terms. We critique this approach to the problem and examine one of the most prominent controversies about Prehispanic social organization: the Grasshopper Pueblo-Chavez Pass controversy. We propose an alternative approach rooted in a dialectical epistemology, and a theory of social life that emphasizes the lived experience of people. What impresses us most about late Prehispanic western social organization is not that it was egalitarian or hierarchical, but that it was both. We discuss how this basic contradiction between communal life and hierarchy was a major internal motor driving change in these pueblos.

In this paper we argue that archaeologists and anthropologists should be aware of forces that encourage the separation of archaeology from anthropology. Sociological, organizational, and intellectual factors that do not necessarily have disciplinary separation as their logical consequence can nonetheless have a cumulative effect that moves the relationship between the subfields of anthropology in the direction of greater or lesser independence. We compare the relative strength of certain factors that could either encourage or discourage the perpetuation of four-field anthropology in Canada and the United States.

Diversity in archaeology's social theories is desirable, but factioning of the discipline into antagonistic, paradigm-based camps undermines the scientific enterprise. In order to promote efforts at building bridges between different theoretical programs, this paper examines relationships between behavioral archaeology and evolutionary (selectionist) archaeology. Potential common ground is brought to light, incompatibilities are critically examined, and possible synergies are explored. It is concluded that there is no fundamental reason why these two programs cannot work in concert to achieve the goal of explaining behavioral (or evolutionary) change in human societies. Whether productive relationships can be established between other programs remains to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

At its April 10, 1996, meeting the Society for American Archaeology Executive Board adopted the Principles of Archaeological Ethics, reproduced below, as proposed by the SAA Ethics in Archaeology Committee. The adoption of these principles represents the culmination of an effort begun in 1991 with the formation of the ad hoc Ethics in Archaeology Committee. The committee was charged with considering the need for revising the society's existing statements on ethics. A 1993 workshop on ethics, held in Reno, resulted in draft principles that were presented at a public forum at the 1994 annual meeting in Anaheim, California. SAA published the draft principles with position papers from the forum and historical commentaries in a special report distributed to all members, Ethics in American Archaeology: Challenges for the 1990s, edited by Mark J. Lynott and Alison Wylie (1995). Member comments were solicited in this special report, through a notice in SAA Bulletin, and at two sessions held at the SAA booth during the 1995 annual meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The final principles presented here are revised from the original draft based on comments from members and the Executive Board.

North American archaeologists see the study of the Emergent Mississippian period (ca. A.D. 800—1000) as critical for understanding the development of the Mississippian chiefdoms (ca. A.D. 1000—1500) of the American Southeast. Past research has frequently sought to explain that development in terms of generalized explanations, whose key variables become evident during the Emergent Mississippian period. Through an example in northwest Georgia, we argue that the Emergent Mississippian phenomenon is best understood by focusing on regional histories and multiscalar processes.

This paper considers problems inherent in constructing typologies based on subdividing artifacts using clustering algorithms that assume a paradigmatic structure (as do most, if not all, currently used algorithms) and presents an alternative method based on a taxonomic, rather than a paradigmatic, structure for the artifact classes. The method is exemplified by analysis of an assemblage of utilized flakes from a series of late prehistoric habitation sites in the central highlands of Peru. These flakes were previously analyzed using more intuitive, traditional methods but without identifying any satisfactory groupings within the assemblage. Similarly, paradigmatically based clustering algorithms applied to the entire data set and using the several variables measured over these flakes were also unable to extract meaningful groupings. In contrast, the method presented here was able to (1) construct a partition of the flake assemblage into groups that also made intuitive sense to the practitioner, (2) have functional interpretation assignable through a model of transmission of forces from agent to object acted on, and (3) produce units differentially occurring across the several subsites from which the utilized flakes were obtained, i.e., units that add another dimension to the analysis of activities represented by the archaeological assemblage. Although demonstrated with utilized flakes, the method has general application.

Two recent developments in southwestern archaeology are brought together in this paper. First, theoreticians have begun to argue that the archaeological record should be viewed as the product of selection-driven evolution. Second, tree-ring research has produced a highly detailed history of climate for a large area of the northern Southwest. We view the record of climatic oscillations and extreme events as a record of the strength of selection favoring stabilization of specialized agricultural strategies in the arid northern Southwest. Published data from Black Mesa provide a cultural record of sufficient precision to permit comparison with the climatic record, while new data from Vermillion Cliffs, southern Utah, document one local end-product of an evolutionary sequence shaped to an important degree by the long-term variability of climate. Anasazi occupation of many regions failed to persist through the “Great Drought” of the 1270s. From a local perspective, this extreme climatic event caused adaptations shaped by selection prior to the 1270s to fail; from a broader temporal-spatial perspective, however, the drought must be seen as part of the selective regime that shaped subsequent human adaptation to the northern Southwest.

This paper continues the discussion of objectivity, subjectivity, and the place of evidence in archaeological argument begun by Wylie (1992a), Little (1994), and Fotiadis (1994). First, it describes my expectations concerning Indian women’s resistance to tribute cloth extraction in Aztec and colonial Mexico. Then, it explains how I tested my expectations against several bodies of archaeological data. Finally, it analyzes how I did and did not alter my initial beliefs in the face of a gap between the expected and the actual data. This study supports earlier conclusions by Trigger (1989) and Wylie (1992b) that data are somewhat independent of the archaeologists who collect them and that data have some impact on the larger edifice of assumptions that archaeologists bring to their research.

The mortar and pestle, technologically linked to intensive acorn economies, appeared initially in low frequencies over a large portion of California ca. 4000-3500 B.C. Three sites on the Big Sur coast of central California illuminate the circumstances surrounding the advent of this new technology, which initially supplemented hand stones and milling slabs. Excavation results suggest that ca. 3500 B.C. production of hunting-related flaked-stone tools increased relative to ground stone, and hunted resources became more important, as part of a transition from a highly mobile, selective use of the coastal resources, heavily focused on gathering, to a less mobile, more intensified lifeway. Obsidian hydration profiles indicate that interregional exchange increased at the same time. Evaluation of alternative mussel collection techniques further indicates that shellfish-harvesting strategies became less efficient at this juncture, promoting the emergence of a processing specialization, concomitant with increased hunting intensity. These transitions apparently mark the appearance of lineal descent organization and the system of gender-specific task appropriation observed at European contact.

A fragmentary specimen of Cucurbita sp. has been recovered from an early context at the Sharrow site in central Maine. Directly dated to the mid-Holocene epoch on the basis of an accelerator mass spectrometer assay of 5695 ± 100 B.P. (AA-7491), this squash or gourd represents one of the earliest such finds in eastern North America. It greatly expands the distribution of mid-Holocene Cucurbita beyond previous finds in the Midwest, Midsouth, and Southeast. Three alternative hypotheses derived from this discovery are that (1) Cucurbita represents a previously unrecognized native plant in the far Northeast; (2) it was present in Maine as a trade item or an unintentional introduction; or (3) it was present as the result of early cultivation, whether introduced from Mesoamerica or elsewhere in eastern North American outside of Maine. Current evidence suggests that the first two hypotheses are unlikely. This leaves open the possibility that the presence of early Cucurbita at the Sharrow site represents the introduction of a cultivated plant into Maine during the mid-Holocene.

We know a great deal about how prehistoric pots were made and used but surprisingly little about how long they lasted in service. Vessel use life, however, is an important component of ceramic assemblage formation. A growing body of ethnoarchaeological data shows that the directly measurable “primitive property” of vessel size—in its various dimensions—is positively related to use life and that height and weight are the most reliable predictors of use life. Results offer the provisional prospect of estimating use life of archaeological vessels from their size.

Debates about the importance of marsh resources to prehistoric human subsistence in the western Great Basin are longstanding. Recent questions regarding the natural vs. cultural origin of fish remains in lakeside archaeological sites further impede understanding of ancient subsistence patterns. Taphonomic study of a huge assemblage of tui chub (Gila bicolor) remains from an archaeological site in Stillwater Marsh, western Nevada, was undertaken to identify agents of deposition in marsh settings. The Stillwater fish remains showed limited surface modification-cut marks, burning, and digestive etching and staining—and thus these attributes were not useful indicators of origin. Fish mortality profiles, reconstructed by regression analysis of body size, indicates cultural selection of young/small fish rather than natural catastrophic mass death. The low survivorship of vertebrae in the chub assemblage suggests differential treatment of cranial and postcranial body parts by cultural agents. The Stillwater site fish assemblage represents a vast number of small fish; the presence of small tui chub from archaeological sites throughout the western Great Basin suggests that prehistoric fishers targeted relatively small chub in the subsistence quest.

Because the landscape on which prehistoric people lived was dynamic and continually changed, the record of prehistoric activities across the landscape has been differentially preserved and destroyed. Insightful reconstructions of human organizational (settlement) systems from the archaeological record require a full understanding of the geological forces and history that have shaped that record. The landscape histories of the North Dakota Badlands and the stream systems of southern Arizona illustrate these points and the importance of geoarchaeological investigations to properly interpret the archaeological record.

Valle del Azufre is a newly discovered source of high-quality obsidian in central Baja California, which exhibits the most intensive exploitation of any known source in the greater United States Southwest and Northwest Mexico. Over 15 subsurface trenches and at least one adit occur at the source. Evidence for the prehistoric distribution of Valle del Azufre obsidian is presented based on energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometry characterization of the source material and artifacts from the Baja California peninsula. Despite the intensity of exploitation at the source, the distribution of Valle del Azufre glass appears to be largely restricted to the central part of the peninsula.