A series of hypotheses concerning the subsistence role of prehistoric sunken field agriculture are developed and evaluated in light of distributional studies of sunken fields along the entire Peruvian coast and excavations at one sunken field locality in the Chilca Valley. Our data suggest that (1) sunken fields occupy distinctive natural topographic lows; (2) sunken field agriculture developed late in the prehispanic sequence; (3) sunken field cultivation was a minor field system which, except at Chilca, was never extended to anywhere near the limits of its small potential; and (4) the factors which stimulated the initial construction of sunken fields at Chilca remain poorly understood.

The cave recently discovered underneath the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico, is analyzed both according to historical written sources and reports of cults to cave deities, prominent in Mexico for millennia. Different cave rites are discussed in an effort to determine the function of the grotto. The Teotihuacan cave is compared with the mythical Chicomoztoc, Seven Caves, place of creation in ancient Mexican mythology. The author suggests that the cavern may have determined the site for the building of the Pyramid of the Sun and that later Aztec accounts of rulers being buried underneath the pyramid may have been based upon fact.

The habitat and technology of Hogup Cave, Utah, is one of the most complete, longest and well analyzed archaeological records in the world. In this paper, data from the Hogup Cave report are analyzed to determine how much cultural change in the subsistence system can be accounted for by environmental change. The model used is causal in concept. Path analysis suggests that approximately 50% of the cultural change at Hogup can be attributed to environmental change.

The value and need for the micro-seriation of archaeological data are discussed, and a non-typological approach is described. Excavated and surface material from the Cibola region of New Mexico are seriated by two different techniques: factor scores and multidimensional scaling. The results are compared with stratigraphic and dendrochronologic data. It is argued that the methods produce useful results and that time differences of about a decade can be determined.

All reported findings of anthropomorphic clay figurines from the lower Pecos region of Texas are synthesized. Considerations are given to figurine chronology, technology, morphology, and function. The finds made with adequate chronological control occur in the Middle Archaic period, from about 2000 B.C. to 200 B.C. A brief description of the Lower Pecos Archaic cultural system is presented in order to place the figurines in a context for functional analysis.

The figurines are hand-shaped, usually unfired, and represent both males and females. Painted or incised decorations are restricted to female forms; socio-cultural explanations for this pattern are explored. The specific uses of the figurines remain indefinite.

A temporal framework for the Kansas City Hopewell complex has been created by seriating rim sherds from four sites, within a 20-mile radius, in the Missouri River Valley to the north of Kansas City. Data used in the sedation are formal and decorative attributes of the rims. The k-means clustering technique, and an option which allows sherd locations in n-dimensional space to be plotted two-dimensionally, was used to generate the seriation. Tests of the seriation, as an essentially temporal ordering, are by means of stratigraphy, radiocarbon dates, and comparison with the ceramic sequence of the Illinois River Valley.

An apparent similarity in settlement pattern change in portions of the Khuzestan region, Iran, and the Middle Northern Rio Grande region, New Mexico, is described. A model is formulated as a series of hypotheses of correlation to test the validity of this supposed change in the Middle Northern Rio Grande region. Test implications of this model dictate the establishment of a survey transect. Site data is gathered from the transect using museum records, published reports and a stratified, random sample site reconnaissance. The "site weight index" is described and used to render this site data into comparable numerical form. A phi-coefficient statistic is applied to this data, and the first model is rejected. An alternative model of settlement change is derived and used to reinterpret Northern Rio Grande prehistory in general.

A new technique involving microscopy distinguishes wild from domestic camelids in collections from archaeological deposits in the Atacama Desert. Results of the faunal analysis provide additional critical data which allow a more complete reconstruction of the changes in economic and settlement patterns and of the cultural processes these changes may have involved.

Some of the richest and most varied archaeological information in North America lies on desert surfaces of the Greater Southwest and Great Basin. Because these sites are erosional exposures, it has been common to discount them and to overlook the opportunities they afford. This article outlines procedures which have proved successful in studying an extensive area of Paleo-Indian sites at China Lake, California. These procedures may be adapted to similar desert regions elsewhere.

There seems to be little doubt that major population shifts occurred in Northern Ontario and Manitoba following the Iroquois wars of the seventeenth century and the advent of the fur trade. These movements have tended to blur pre-contact ethnic boundaries. Although recent archaeological reports have provided much needed data, differing interpretations of that data have only further obscured the issue. For instance, while some scholars have argued that Blackduck Focus sites in western Northern Ontario and northern Minnesota were occupied by Algonkian-speakers (either Ojibwa or Creej, others have interpreted the materials as having an Assiniboin authorship. In support of the latter view, we analyze both the archaeological and early ethnohistorical data. From these sources we conclude that, at contact, the Ojibwa extended no further west than Michipicoten Bay, while the Cree occupied most of Northern Ontario except for a strip of about 50 mi north and south of the present International border west of Lake Superior which was Assiniboin territory. Proper determination of ethnic boundaries is of theoretical importance to studies of cultural ecology and social organization.

A settlement pattern study is made of 160 prehistoric habitation sites along the Klamath river in northwest California to determine what environmental factors regulate site placement and population density. Topographic variables, especially gradient, were found to serve as negative criteria in limiting the possibilities of site location. Differential access to anadromous fish was found to function positively in favoring site placement and high population density. This finding supports Baumhoffs hypothesis that Karok population levels could be accounted for by available fish resources alone (Baumhoff 1963).

This archaeological and botanical study of maize (Zea mays) represented on Zapotec funerary urns is relevant to studies of the development and spread of prehistoric cultures, and of the evolution of maize agriculture. In the Valley of Oaxaca, circa A.D. 600-1200, the Zapotecs attached models of actual ears of maize to their ceramic funerary urns. The high frequency of the depiction of Nal Tel on the urns suggests that Nal Tel had important symbolic associations for the Zapotecs. It was found that the races Chapalote, Harinoso de Ocho, and a type of dent com had a much wider geographical distribution in Precolumbian times than they do today.