Michael Closs's decipherment of an Initial Series from the Xcalumkin area is corroborated by an inscription from Oxkintok, Yucatán, Mexico.

In recent years most archaeological excavation in North America has been done under contract to national, state or local governments or private agencies. There is no comprehensive bibliographic control over contract archaeology reports and most excavations remain unreported in the scholarly literature on archaeology. One hundred National Technical Information Service (NTIS) contract archaeology reports are discussed in relation to their bibliographic characteristics and criteria that are used for selecting materials for an academic library collection.

This report describes a general purpose diagnostic program for the Maya Calendar Round. Taking as its input any or all of the components of the Calendar Round position, it displays all possible Long Count dates and their Gregorian day equivalents, commencing at any specified Long Count date. Provisions are made in this program to correct for a wide range of spelling errors and impossible combinations. In addition, a number of innovative programming techniques are used to provide fast execution.

A prerequisite to dietary reconstruction based on the trace element content of disinterred bone is the evaluation of postdepositional, or diagenetic, changes in the levels of trace elements contained in the bone. This study describes one method of assessing trace element permeation in disinterred bones from the Black Earth site, Illinois. The levels of several trace elements were determined in 50 samples of bone and associated soil. Correlation coefficients were calculated to evaluate the degree to which variation in the bone levels corresponds to variation in the soil levels. The results suggest that no significant postdepositional exchange of Zn and Mn had occurred at the Black Earth site. Other methods of evaluating permeation and leaching are discussed.

Ongoing gradual uplift of the Pacific watershed of Peru results in water table subsidence. As a mechanical consequence, the form and use of embankment-bound fields evolve through a series of distinct stages. Conflicting interpretations arise as a consequence of different investigators having addressed field structures in different stages of evolution.

A critical aspect in the estimation of human effort embodied in mound construction or in midden deposition is the volume of the deposit. When these deposits are of irregular contour, the use of standard geometric formulae for the determination of volumes of solids is inadequate. Given a basic contour map of a given deposit, a rather precise determination of volume can be calculated by the application of the formula derived from that for the volume of a truncated cone. The use of the formula involves the determination of the volumes between contour intervals, and then adding the successive contour interval volumes. This is done by measuring the areas of adjacent contours and inserting those data into the formula. The procedure can be accomplished by hand, using grid paper or a compensating polar plenimeter, or by computer–either mainframe or micro–by the incorporation of the formula into an existing contour mapping program.

Microcomputers are proposed as relatively inexpensive, portable substitutes for mainframe computers in processing archaeological data. Five types of software packages and an economical hardware system are described. These can facilitate cataloging and sorting data, create two-dimensional tables and graphs, carry out statistical tests, and do word processing.

Studies of ancient Maya water management tend to emphasize consideration of features related either to agriculture or to the provision of communal water supplies in water-poor settings. Ceramic-lined wells in eighth-century Quiriguá, however, constituted household facilities of standardized form, distributed widely in a community where water supplies were always readily available. These wells both expand our knowledge of specialized Maya hydraulic technology and remind us that such inventions are not always the result of threats to survival.

Oral presentation of papers has assumed ever increasing importance as a mode of information dissemination among the professional community. Many oral presentations are diminished in effectiveness by disregard of formal and mechanical aspects of presentation. Discussion of these aspects among professionals is as essential as is formal instruction in them for students.

Salvage excavations in 1977–1978 of Structure E3-7 at Chalchuapa, El Salvador, revealed the structure to have been a multiple-episode Late Preclassic burial mound. The skeletal remains of 33 individuals were found in the construction fill. These remains are interpreted as evidence for human sacrifice. Osteological analysis was performed with the skeletal materials in situ. The individuals whose sex could be determined were adult males. This and other evidence suggests that the E3-7 burials might have been war captives from a “foreign” (non-Chalchuapa) population.

Several articles describing the ancient Chicama-Moche Intervalley Canal in northern coastal Peru are criticized. Tectonic uplift was probably not the primary cause of the abandonment of the canal construction project. The Chimu were skilled engineers. The Intervalley Canal did function in a limited manner. It is proposed that the canal was built as a political response to social pressures in the Moche Valley caused by environmental stress (drought). Abandonment of the canal construction project took place when drought ended.

Forty-nine obsidian artifacts from a Classic period residential group at Nohmul, northern Belize, have been analyzed by neutron activation analysis. The majority of the samples originated from Ixtepeque, and the remainder from El Chayal. Increasing prominence of the Ixtepeque source from the Late Classic into the Terminal Classic (i.e., before and after ca. A.D. 800) suggests greater use of a coastal distribution route known to have originated in the Formative and to have remained in use through the colonial period.

The practice of anonymous reviewing of manuscripts and grant proposals is denounced.

Some points raised by Joyce Marcus's survey of lowland Maya archaeology require further discussion.

Saitta's (1983) comments on a model of the evolution of tribal social networks (Braun and Plog 1982) are discussed. Aspects of the model are clarified and problems with Saitta's interpretations are noted. In particular, we focus on questions concerning the relationship between stylistic variation and social networks and several issues concerning tribal social organization. We also address weaknesses in the alternative approach that Saitta describes.

With good reason, several scholars have challenged the exaltation of long-distance trade as a prime mover in the rise of civilization. However, in dismissing the economic importance of long-distance exchange in the development of Maya civilization, Marcus (1983) has moved too far in the opposite direction.

Errors in Vierra and Carlson's (1981) presentation of Bartlett's test for significance of a correlation matrix are discussed and appropriate corrections offered.