The social and economic organization of obsidian procurement has been a topic of particular interest in southwestern archaeology as a result of recent work identifying and characterizing a number of sources throughout Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Recent studies have attempted to explain temporal and spatial variability of obsidian distribution in the larger contexts of regional exchange networks, socially bounded territories, and elite redistributive efforts. This study reviews the current state of research as reflected in three models. Patterns in obsidian source diversity and reduction stage data are assessed relative to model expectations and an analysis of obsidian acquisition and distribution. The likelihood of elite members of an increasingly formalized socioeconomic system playing a role in these processes should be considered, while at the same time noting that kin-based raw material procurement and ritual item mobilization may explain many of the obsidian patterns. The emerging perspective suggests that obsidian moved in a variety of spheres, concurrently serving a number of social and economic purposes. This study highlights the importance of modeling individual, nonlocal commodities before attempting to generate monolithic exchange models.

The potential importance of the Monte Verde site for the peopling of the New World prompted a detailed examination of the collections from that locality, as well as a site visit in January 1997 by a group of Paleoindian specialists. It is the consensus of that group that the MV-II occupation at the site is both archaeological and 12,500 years old, as T. Dillehay has argued. The status of the potentially even older material at the site (MV-1, ∼ 33,000 B.P.) remains unresolved.

Although large-scale canal irrigation technology is commonly associated with the prehistoric Hohokam (A.D. 200–1450) of south-central Arizona, earthen reservoirs were essential for domestic water storage in areas of the Sonoran Desert away from perennial streams. Interpretations of seasonal water storage in prehistoric Hohokam reservoirs are often based on direct analogy with the historic Tohono O'odham (formerly called the Papago). This assumption of seasonal water storage is a hypothesis that should be tested rather than uncritically accepted by archaeologists. Sediments recovered with a hand-driven bucket auger from an earthen reservoir at a large Classic-period (ca. A.D. 1200–1450) Hohokam site (AZ AA:3:32 [ASM]) yielded uncarbonized seeds of an aquatic plant belonging to the genus Lemna (duckweed). The high number of Lemna seeds indicates that water may have been stored on a long-term, perhaps perennial, basis. Analyses of sediments from other reservoirs should generate further discoveries of uncarbonized seeds or other biological remains (e.g., pollen, phytoliths, diatoms, snails) and refine our understanding of prehistoric water storage facilities throughout the world.

Carved and engraved bone pins collected from eight sites along the Middle Mississippi and Lower Ohio Rivers and their tributaries are used to investigate the development of regional-scale social interaction among increasingly more sedentary late Middle Archaic (6000–5000 B.P.) hunter-gatherer groups. The similarity in pin morphology and decoration suggests an increasing level of social integration among groups that were shifting from a residential mobility strategy to a logistically organized one. The development or amplification of intergroup social networks provided access to information and resources that were formerly obtained through more direct forms of intergroup contact. The spatial distribution of selected bone pin styles suggests that these social networks extended over a considerable portion of the southern Midwest. Collectively, these data suggest that regional social networks existed in this part of the Midwest much earlier than previously believed.

The interpretation of noncutting tree-ring dates from archaeological sites often proves problematic, and many sites in the Southwest may be more securely dated if cutting dates can be reliably estimated. Analysis of 54 ponderosa pine and 46 Douglas fir specimens reveals that the relationship between heartwood and sapwood in these species is sufficiently structured that regression analysis can be used to estimate the number of sapwood rings, and by extension the tree's cutting date, on the basis of the number of heartwood rings present on wood specimens. The efficacy of this estimation technique is evaluated on samples from localized and well-dated proveniences at Walpi Pueblo, as well as in light of the aggregate date distribution curve for that site. Results suggest that uncritical acceptance of estimated cutting dates is ill advised, but that when cutting-date estimates (and their associated confidence intervals) are considered in light of contextualizing architectural and archaeological data, they may suggest alternative room construction and repair hypotheses. When considered as part of the aggregate date distribution for a site, estimated cutting dates may identify and augment date concentrations, thereby helping secure the chronometric placement of prehistoric sites in the Southwest.

Five accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) dates on corn (maize or Zea mays) from the Grand Banks site, Ontario, range from cal A.D. 540 to 1030. These are the earliest directly dated corn samples in the Lower Great Lakes region. The presence of corn during the Princess Point Complex, a transitional Late Woodland phase preceding the Ontario Iroquoian Tradition, is confirmed as is an early presence of the Princess Point culture in Ontario. Maize appears to have spread rapidly from the Southeast and/or Midwest to Ontario. The corn cupules and kernel remains are fragmentary, as they are elsewhere in the Eastern Woodlands during this period. The limited morphological data indicate that the corn is a diminutive form of Eastern Eight-Row, or Eastern Complex, maize.

More than 20 examples of probable prehistoric water basins with minimum storage capacities of 10,000–25,000 gallons of water are known in the Mesa Verde region of the American Southwest. The temporal placement of these artificially constructed basins, their exact uses, and their importance as public architecture have been poorly understood. We summarize the general literature on these features, give a detailed account of the excavation results of a dam and basin that we tested and dated, and then synthesize all available data from the gray literature on prehistoric water basins in our area. We argue that water basins and reservoirs in the northern Southwest typically stored domestic water for particular communities and that the first evidence of these public features is probably associated with Chaco-era communities. These features represent early experiments with large-scale water conservation and suggest a long-term commitment to locales by specific communities. Their locations along the canyon edges foreshadow shifts in settlement and increased water conservation strategies that become more pronounced in the later Great Pueblo-period villages-the last villages in this area before the migration of Puebloan people to the south after A.D. 1280.

Three AMS radiocarbon dates on bone collagen from Las Palmas culture human skeletons from the cape region of Baja California are analyzed. Carbon derived from both terrestrial and marine sources necessitates correcting the radiocarbon ages for reservoir effects. Complicating this, however, are (a) the uncertain percentage of carbon of marine origin in the samples and (b) the convergence of the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California, which differ markedly in reservoir values. Computer program CALIB 3.0.3c is used to correct and calibrate the conventional radiocarbon dates in a simulation using varied values for marine carbon and reservoir effects for each sample. This produces substantial variance in the results and, therefore, difficulties for chronological interpretation. For example, reasonable input values for dR and percent marine carbon yield dates that overlap the first European contact (A.D. 1533), despite the absence of historic documentation of the Las Palmas mortuary complex. Further research on reservoir effects and paleodiet is needed in order to interpret radiocarbon determinations on cape region human remains. Moreover, our findings have serious implications for the proper application of radiocarbon dating to samples from other regions subject to reservoir effects.

Simulation can be an effective tool for investigating the demography of small, prehistoric Southwest Pueblo communities. The model presented here incorporates biological and physiological, cultural, and behavioral characteristics and tracks each individual as the simulation of a small population is carried forward through 70 years of annual iterations. Sensitivity analyses are performed for a suite of critical parameter values. Many of parameters and functions are probabilistic, and Monte Carlo techniques are used to obtain statistically significant results. Simulation results are collected on numerous variables that profile the individual and group characteristics such as mortality, immigration to emigration ratio, nuclear family formation, and distribution of population size and mix. Initial success is dependent on the attributes of the founding population and its gender mix. The long-term survival of a small population is extremely sensitive to the mortality schedule, attributes of the founding population, and marriage-residence rules. Small shifts in the age-specific mortality statistics dramatically affect the population growth and the frequency of site collapse. The consequences of inaccuracies in mortality statistics are highlighted.

Harry's recent paper in this journal critiques the use of cation-ratio dating to assess the age of surface-collected artifacts as part of a rejection of this dating technique in general. However, Harry's negative conclusions are difficult to reconcile both with the seemingly successful application of cation-ratio dating as part of the Intermountain Power Project (IPP) in California, the only other project in which surface artifacts have been cation-ratio dated, as well as with Harry's own data. The present comment details substantial differences in (1) the rigor and sophistication of the research designs applied by Harry and the IPP research and (2) the integrity of the sites on which these two projects worked, and points out important components of Harry's data that are inconsistent with her conclusions. Cation-ratio dating is certainly not yet perfected as a dating technique, but the available data indicate clearly that Harry's critique is seriously flawed.

The people of the Thule culture, who entered the Canadian Arctic approximately 1,000 years ago and eventually became the Inuit who today inhabit that region, spent the long winters living in impressive semisubterranean houses constructed of boulders, skins, pieces of cut turf, and the bones of bowhead whales. Most sites contain fewer than 10 houses, but some contain many more, leading to disagreement among archaeologists concerning Thule settlement patterns. This paper reviews the criteria archaeologists have used to identify contemporaneous houses at large Thule sites and identifies a new criterion tested at a site in the High Arctic. The 14 houses at the Porden Point site appear to have accumulated gradually through the abandonment of some houses and the construction of others. Therefore, the impressive appearance today of many Thule sites may not reflect their actual social/demographic nature.

A small collection of gravers from the Fisher site, an Early Paleoindian (Parkhill complex) site in Ontario estimated to date between 10,400 and 11,000 years B.P., produced two previously unrecognized tool types: single- and double-scribe compass and coring gravers. Experimental use-wear studies on replicated tools confirm that the compass and coring gravers were probably used on organic materials for engraving single or concentric circles, cutting thin disks, and boring holes. Although not identified as such, the compass graver occurs widely in North American Paleoindian assemblages and, judging from the presence and context of similar tools in the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic and Siberian Neolithic, may represent a specialized tool designed to express decorative, artistic, or symbolic aspects of Paleoindian culture. Together with other tools in Paleoindian assemblages, the new tool types promise to contribute to comparative studies concerned with the origin, development, and spread of Paleoindian cultures.

Utility-based studies are attractive to zooarchaeologists because they afford the opportunity of investigating economic decisions relative to particular contexts. While a positive relationship between utility and skeletal element abundance is anticipated at residential sites, a reverse utility curve is most common. A popular mechanistic explanation argues that reverse utility curves result from density-mediated destruction of bone, suggesting that utility-based studies will rarely be successful as density-mediated destruction will overwhelm any skeletal element patterning created by differential transport. We show with archaeological and experimental/naturalistic taphonomic data that the mechanistic explanation is overstated. Fauna from Kobeh cave (a Mousterian site) and "Ain Dara (an Iron Age site) both show a reverse utility pattern when estimates of long bone abundance are based just on ends (the procedure followed at all sites that have shown a reverse utility pattern), and all bones are plotted together. When long bone abundance is estimated from the middle shaft portion, the reverse utility pattern collapses and a positive relationship arises. The ubiquity of the reverse utility curve derives in many cases from basing long bone abundance estimates on ends and scatter-plotting the abundance of long bones with non-long bones, thus restricting the analysis to the least dense most spongy bone portions. Long bone abundance estimates must include the middle shaft portion to attain accurate estimates of element abundance. Long bone abundance, when based on shaft portions, can be usefully compared to utility to investigate utility-based models of human behavior.

Two accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates, 5404 ± 552 B.P. (AA-19129) and 2625 ± 45 B.P. (AA-19128), confirm the presence of mid-Holocene and early late Holocene cucurbit (Cucurbita pepo), respectively, at the Memorial Park site (36CN164) in north-central Pennsylvania. This is the second documented occurrence of mid-Holocene cucurbit and the first documented occurrence of domesticated early late Holocene cucurbit in the northern Eastern Woodlands east of the Allegheny Front. These occurrences help to establish the use of cucurbits in the Northeast on a timescale equivalent to that in the riverine interior, with the exception of the very earliest riverine interior dates. The Northeast has contributed little toward our understanding of prehistoric agricultural evolution in the Eastern Woodlands. The Memorial Park cucurbits and the mid-Holocene cucurbit recently reported at the Sharrow site in Maine indicate that greater efforts are needed to document pre-maize agricultural behavior in this area to increase our knowledge of the full range of pre-maize agricultural behavior in the Eastern Woodlands.

Bamforth contends that research conducted into cation-ratio dating at CA-KER-140 was flawed because of (1) a poorly conceived research design, (2) a lack of site integrity, and (3) misinterpretation of the chemical data. He further argues that processes affecting artifact stability at KER-140 were absent from the IPP sites. As a result, he suggests that the conclusions presented in my earlier article are unsound and irrelevant to the interpretation of previously derived cation-ratio dates. In this article I respond to these assertions. Specifically, I demonstrate that Bamforth has failed to establish grounds for dismissing either the KER-140 research design or the chemical results obtained from that study. In addition, I review descriptions of the IPP sites presented elsewhere by Bamforth and conclude that these descriptions support the interpretation of artifact instability at the IPP sites.

Photogrammetric mapping, the creation of detailed maps from aerial photographs, offers advantages to archaeologists that have not been fully utilized in recent years. Photogrammetry provides an efficient and cost-effective way to map extensive, complex sites. Common field problems such as obsolete equipment, unskilled staff, limited field time, and inhospitable field conditions are reduced accordingly. The usefulness of photogrammetry is demonstrated through work at the site of Pueblo Blanco, New Mexico, occupied ca. A.D. 1370-1525. A photogrammetric map was used to calculate total site size and the number of stories in each block of rooms. Further, the map supports an ongoing effort to stabilize the site and monitor the locality for looting and serves as a planning document for management of future uses.

Plog and Hegmon (1993) focus on my research (Leonard 1989) on Black Mesa, Arizona, faunal assemblages as part of a broader critique of the work of a number of researchers who consider the effects of sample size on assemblage richness values. I suggest that their critique is problematic for a number of reasons, primarily statistical, but also because they do not provide an alternative hypothesis for the observed pattern.

Fearn and Liu (1995) reported positive identification of a large Poaceae pollen grain recovered from a lake bed core in Alabama dating to 3500 B.P. as Zea mays. Reinterpretation of old data and new data reported here indicate this identification is questionable. Review of the evidence at hand indicates the most likely identification of the pollen grain in question is Tripsacum, although it could be primitive maize, teosinte, or Zea “indiana,” a hybrid between Tripsacum and teosinte. Until the sample size is expanded and a firm identification can be made, caution is urged in interpretations about the significance of this find for early maize agriculture in eastern North America.

Archaeological and ethnohistorical researchers in California are reaping the rewards from a wealth of new information about precontact and early historical cultural diversity, technologies, and marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Our recent investigations into the later prehistory of the island groups of southern California have centered on processes of sociopolitical evolution, including the emergence of status differentiation, evidence for intensification of craft production, and associated changes in human uses of animal resources as societies became more complex. We have linked some specific changes in diet, labor organization, and exchange to documented climatic disturbances, suggesting that opportunities created by such disruptions may have accounted in part for the timing of changes, but were not their cause in any mechanistic or simplistic sense. A recent American Antiquity report overlooks the primary results of this research and isolates the environmental data from a broad multidimensional model of cultural change in coastal California. We provide an update on the status of Channel Islands archaeology and identify the fundamental problems with approaches that extract and decontextualize environmental processes from cultural processes by assessing limited faunal data sets.

The Phipps site (13CK21) in northwest Iowa contains evidence of interaction between Middle Mississippian and Middle Missouri peoples. Excavations in 1994 uncovered eight features and recovered more than 21,000 sherds and nearly 10,000 faunal elements. The assemblage from one feature includes more than 260 broken and splintered raptor tarsometatarsi, approximately 100 raptor phalanges, and more than 80 raptor talons, plus shell beads, red ocher-stained manos and mussel shell, a bison scapula hoe, and a large quantity of red-slipped sherds. The raptor elements may be the discarded remains from the preparation of a shipment of trade goods destined for Middle Mississippian peoples of western Illinois.