Most zooarchaeologists employ some type of derived measure of skeletal element abundance in their analyses of faunal data. The minimum number of individuals (MNI) and the minimum number of animal units (MAU) are two of the most popular derived measurements, and each is based on a prior estimate of the minimum number of elements (MNE). Thus, the estimate of MNE from fragmented faunal fragments is the essential foundation for all inferences emanating from MNI and MAU estimates of skeletal element abundance. Estimating the MNE represented by a sample of faunal fragments is a complicated procedure that involves various assumptions, possible mathematical manipulations, and subjectivity. Unfortunately, the reasoning and methods underlying this procedure are unstandardized in zooarchaeology, and even worse, rarely made explicit. We review the scarce literature on this topic and identify two different approaches: the fraction summation approach and the overlap approach. We identify strengths and weaknesses in both approaches. We then present a new method that is based on using image-analysis GIS software to count overlapping fragments that have been converted to pixel images. This method maintains the strengths of the other methods while overcoming most of their weaknesses. It promises numerous powerful analytical capabilities that go far beyond the routines available in spreadsheets and databases. It also offers nearly boundless flexibility in database recoding and extremely complete information storage. Perhaps its greatest strength is that it is based on very intuitive reasoning.

How early human populations in North America maintained reproductive viability is a question that has shaped our research for over a decade. The concept of staging areas, mechanisms for band-macroband interaction, and an examination of how interaction networks could have formed and evolved over the course of the Paleoindian era are all solutions that we have presented.

Foraging strategies of modern hunter-gatherers may not accurately model resource use of specialized big-game hunters. Historic accounts from the Northern Plains of North America indicate that utilization of spring-spawning fish when large mammals were fat-depleted was not universally beneficial. Three independent reports from Europeans and Americans show that a sudden switch from a prolonged diet of lean red meat to fish produces symptoms consistent with lipid (fat) malabsorption. It is hypothesized that plains-adapted hunter-gatherers formed their camps in grassland environments and hunted big game throughout the winter The effects of eating lean meat alone were avoided by utilizing fetal and newborn animals and through the use of stored carbohydrate-rich foods. Groups associated with wooded environments wintered along the margins of the winter grazing range. They followed a diverse strategy with opportunistic use of big game and were able to exploit spring-spawning fish. Archaeological remains from 18 sites from the plains, parkland, and forests of Western Canada were used to test these hypotheses. The faunal assemblages, tools, and identifications of lipid residues from pottery vessels were consistent with the proposed strategies.

The potential interconnections between human settlement systems, subsistence practices, and rapid, high-magnitude transformation of the physical landscape (e.g., earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides) is an important issue of discussion in archaeology. This paper critically examines the argument that prehistoric abandonment of Classic Lillooet pithouse villages of south-central British Columbia, Canada, at approximately 1200-1000 B.P., was linked to one or more catastrophic landslides at Texas Creek that blocked the Fraser River, destroyed salmon resources, and caused the abandonment of this area. Examination of the location and depositional condition of several excavated archaeological sites within the Fraser Valley, as well as reflection on the expected environmental and cultural responses to a catastrophic landslide, challenge previous interpretations of the existence, location, and magnitude of such a landslide event, and indicate that archaeologists need to reconsider deterministic environmental explanations for the abandonment of pithouse villages in the interior of British Columbia.

Evolutionary theory, in consort with Marxism and processualism, provides new insights into the interpretation of grave-good variation. Processual interpretations of burial sites in the American Southwest cite age, sex, or social rank as the main determinants of burial-good variation. Marxist theorists suggest that mortuary ritual mediates social tension between an egalitarian mindset and an existing social inequality. Evolutionary theory provides a supplementary explanatory framework. Recent studies guided by kin-selection theory suggest that humans grieve more for individuals of high reproductive value and genetic relatedness. Ethnographic examples also show that individuals mourn more intensively and, thus, place more social emphasis on burials of individuals of highest reproductive value (young adults). Analysis of grave goods from La Ciudad, a Hohokam site in the American Southwest, supports the hypothesis that labor value, reproductive value, and grief contributed to grave-good differentiation. At La Ciudad, individuals between the ages of 10 and 20 possessed more and higher-quality grave goods on average than any other age group. Grief at the loss of a young adult of high reproductive and labor value may facilitate explanation of mortuary variation at La Ciudad, as well as other sites in the greater Southwest and beyond.

In “The Scientific Nature of Postprocessualism”, VanPool and VanPool (1999) attempt to demonstrate that the sometimes hostile debate between processualist and postprocessualist archaeologies disguises substantive intellectual similarities. The most important similarity is their conformity to a refined definition of science. This definition is based on seven criteria that, as a group, demarcate science from nonscience. VanPool and VanPool pay inadequate attention to critiques of the notion that science can be clearly separated from other forms of inquiry. These critiques come from both within the literature VanPool and VanPool cite as well as from bodies of literature that they do not acknowledge, such as recent sociological, philosophical, and anthropological studies of science. Many of the demarcation criteria can be shown to suffer from overly simplistic accounts of the connections between evidence and hypothesis. Other demarcations do not recognize the social nature of scientific inquiry and the consequent incorporation of interests at various scales. Although VanPool and VanPool believe their criteria of science will promote synergy between processual and postprocessual, this paper questions the conceptualization of these schools and argues that synergy is better accomplished through the appreciation of difference among the various archaeologies and openness to alternative epistemologies.

Three approaches that have been used to investigate assemblage diversity in the archaeological literature-two established and one new-are studied, with a particular emphasis on assemblage richness. It is argued that the established regression and simulation approaches, as often used, are only strictly valid if they assume what they are supposed to test-namely that assemblages are sampled from populations with the same richness or structure. Rarefaction methodology provides an alternative to the simulation approach and suggests that even if the latter is used, sampling without rather than with replacement is preferable. Some potential limitations of a recently proposed approach using jackknife methods are noted, and it is suggested that bootstrapping may be a more natural resampling method to use.

Recently, VanPool and VanPool (1999) propose that postprocessual archaeology can be construed as a scientific practice if archaeologists would simply adopt a ,realistic view- of science. We argue that this ,realistic view- actually misrepresents science and we question the VanPools' attempt to reduce the dynamic practice of science to a series of static traits. We also affirm the incompatibility of the respective confirmation strategies employed by the postprocessual and processual programs.

Loney's (2000) recent paper in American Antiquity contains a critique of evolutionary archaeology that is based on fundamental misconceptions. Perhaps most seriously, she confounds the evolutionary archaeologist's conception of culture as an inheritance system based on social learning with an extreme claim about genetic control over cultural traits.

The comments by Hutson and Arnold and Wilkens challenge our 1999 argument that postprocessual research can be scientific. Both critique our characteristics of science. Arnold and Wilkens contend that postprocessual research is never scientific, because postprocessualists do not evaluate knowledge claims using information derived independently from the claims being evaluated. We argue that Arnold and Wilkens' criticisms are based on an inaccurate characterization of our arguments. We also argue that their claim that postprocessual perspectives do not use independently derived knowledge claims when evaluating propositions about the past is simply incorrect. Hutson argues that science cannot be demarcated from other academic research, so determining whether some postprocessual research is or isn't scientific is a moot issue. We argue that while science does share similarities with other academic pursuits, it remains a useful problem-solving strategy that can be differentiated from non-scientific scholarly pursuits. In addition, we agree with Hutson that a 'synergy through disunity' is desirable within archaeology, but again argue that such a synergy will not be produced through an intellectual conflict phrased in terms of “processual science” vs. “postprocessual non-science”.

Loney's (2000) recent paper claims that American archaeologists have paid scant attention to the study of technological, especially ceramic, change. We argue that, in fact, interest in such change processes has grown greatly in recent decades and that Loney has overlooked much relevant literature. We support our general argument with a catalog of recent behavioral research on technological change.