Although most archaeologists recognize that valuable information about the social lives of ancient people can be obtained through the study of burial practices, it is clear that the symbolic nature of burial rituals makes interpreting their social significance a hazardous enterprise. These analytical difficulties can be greatly reduced using a research strategy that draws upon the strengths of a broad range of conceptually and methodologically independent data sources. We illustrate this approach by using archaeological data from cemeteries at Malibu, California, to explore an issue over which researchers are sharply divided: when did the simple chiefdoms of the Chumash Indians first appear in the Santa Barbara Channel area? First we establish the social correlates of Chumash burial practices through the comparison of historic-period cemetery data, ethnohistoric records, and ethnographic accounts. The resulting understanding of mortuary symbolism is then used to generate hypotheses about the social significance of prehistoric-period Malibu burial patterns. Finally, bioarchaeological data on genetic relationships, health status, and activity are used to independently test artifact-based hypotheses about prehistoric Chumash social organization. Together, these independent data sources constitute strong evidence for the existence of a ranked society with a hereditary elite during the late Middle period in the Santa Barbara Channel area.

Abandonments of residential sites by prehistoric farmers are most often explained as failures or responses to poor social or environmental conditions. These perspectives ignore the role of residential mobility among farmers as a regionally sustainable approach to land use. To understand the various reasons for abandonment of residential sites, movement patterns at both site and regional scales must be empirically linked. In this study of the eastern Mimbres area of southwestern New Mexico, we examine the relationship between site and regional occupation patterns. Rather than assume that site abandonment implies regional depopulation and that site abandonments are responses to stress or crisis, we use multiple lines of evidence to document the occupational histories of sites in an effort to evaluate whether the abandonment of villages correlates with regional abandonment. Architectural, ceramic, and chronometric data provide evidence for occupational continuity and growth of small residential sites during the twelfth century in the eastern Mimbres area in the context of the depopulation of large villages. This regional reorganization in settlement suggests a strategy for maintaining regional occupational continuity.

The band-macroband Early Archaic settlement model has had widespread use in Southeastern North American archaeology since its introduction some ten years ago (Anderson and Hanson 1988). Nevertheless, the model has undergone little critical testing. New data from Early Archaic assemblages in North Carolina and South Carolina are used to test the model's posited settlement range and site types. At issue is the role played by the limited distribution of high-quality knappable stone in Early Archaic adaptations. Contrary to the band-macroband model, it is suggested that high-quality tool stone played a more significant role in settlement adaptations than previously recognized. In particular, group mobility incorporated the geological occurrence of preferred tool stone. Moreover, it is argued that the level of tool curation in Early Archaic assemblages is telling us less about forager or collector site types than it is about the differential use of stone raw material. Last, a new settlement model is proposed whereby settlement ranges were not restricted to particular watersheds along the South Atlantic Slope; rather, settlement ranges “mapped on” to an area that varied annually across the landscape according to food availability but generally included regionally significant stone quarries.

The Caradoc site, dating ca. 10,500 to 10,000 B.P., provides a rare glimpse of sacred ritual among the earliest well-documented inhabitants of the Americas. It is a kind of site never before reported, where the majority of the artifacts have been purposefully broken or sacrificed. The site yielded 302, mainly chert, lithic fragments that fit together to form at least 71 artifacts. The material includes an unfluted concave-based point, three bifacial knives, 31 unfinished bifaces, 27 unifaces and nine non-siliceous items. Distributional analyses indicate that: 1) the material was initially spread over an area of as much as 12 m2; 2) the items were constrained in their distribution and could have been in a structure; and 3) the artifacts were broken at the location where they were found.

Changes in river floodplain morphology can have devastating consequences for irrigation agriculturalists. Channel erosion occurred in the late nineteenth century, on the flood plain of the middle Gila River, Arizona and severely impacted the native Akimel O' odham (Pima) farmers. Prior to the Akimel O' odham, the prehistoric Hohokam also pursued irrigation agriculture along this river. Geoarchaeological investigations of the Gila River flood plain document a major period of channel cutting and widening sometime between A.D. 1020 to 1160. This channel erosion is coincident with the partial abandonment of large Hohokam villages and significant population rearrangements. It also marks the beginning of a major social reorganization when ball-courts were replaced by platform mounds as the social integrative structure and the Hohokam sphere of influence contracted. Other rivers utilized by the Hohokam—the Santa Cruz River, San Pedro River, and Tonto Creek-also experienced channel cutting between A.D. 1050 and 1150. Thus, a regional episode of channel erosion appears to have been a major factor that contributed to the reorganization seen in the Hohokam archaeological record. These synchronous landscape changes would have severely impacted Hohokam irrigation systems and food production capabilities. This undoubtedly created stresses within Hohokam society which in turn may have accelerated social, political, economic, ideological, and demographic changes that were already underway.

When did the League of the Five Nations Iroquois originate? This study presents a new approach to answering this age-old question. Compositional data were collected on ceramics (pottery and smoking pipes) from Seneca and Mohawk sites in an attempt to identify and reconstruct exchange and interaction patterns between these two widely separated League members. X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) spectrometry were employed to collect data on 15 elements. Using pottery as a baseline for each area, pipe data were utilized in a discriminant-function analysis to identify exotic pipes in Seneca assemblages from different time periods. The investigation focused on pipes because they were a probable item of exchange and because the symbolism of pipes and tobacco made smoking an important part of Iroquoian political protocol. Results showed that Mohawk pipes first occurred in Seneca assemblages sometime between A.D. 1590 and A.D. 1605. This is considered likely to reflect the inception of peaceful political relations between these two groups brought about by the final coalescence of the Iroquois Five Nations Confederacy. The approach developed for this study employed nondestructive analytical techniques applied to common classes of ceramic artifacts. As such, the methodology should be broadly applicable to other studies of interaction and exchange in this and other regions.

Although the practice of food storage is important to many questions addressed by archaeologists, demonstrating its presence in archaeological contexts can be difficult or impossible. One potentially useful approach to meat storage is the concept of the Drying Utility Index, introduced by Lewis Binford (1978) to predict which carcass portions, with attached bone, will be selected for storage by drying. However, this index has not been widely used by zooarchaeologists, at least in part because the calculations involved in its derivation are extremely complex. This paper presents a new, simplified index, the Meat Drying Index, which is easier to calculate and more transparent than the Drying Utility Index, yet which retains all of its key attributes. This new index is applied to caribou bone samples from two regions: Binford's (1978) Nunamiut data from northern Alaska, and the contents of three caches from the Barren Grounds of Canada, near Baker Lake, Nunavut. In both cases, the Meat Drying Index correlates with the observed element frequencies as well as, or better than, the original Drying Utility Index. As a result, the new index may prove applicable to element distributions from a wide range of archaeological contexts in which storage of meat by drying is suspected.

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.

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.

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.

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”.