The use of body size as an index of prey rank in zooarchaeology has fostered a widely applied approach to understanding variability in foraging efficiency. This approach has, however, been critiqued—most recently by the suggestion that large prey have high probabilities of failed pursuits. Here, we clarify the logic and history of using body size as a measure of prey rank and summarize empirical data on the body size-return rate relationship. With few exceptions, these data document strong positive relationships between prey size and return rate. We then illustrate, with studies from the Great Basin, the utility of body size-based abundance indices (e.g., the Artiodactyl Index) when used as one component of multidimensional analyses of prehistoric diet breadth. We use foraging theory to derive predictions about Holocene variability in diet breadth and test those predictions using the Artiodactyl Index and over a dozen other archaeological indices. The results indicate close fits between the predictions and the data and thus support the use of body size-based abundance indices as measures of foraging efficiency. These conclusions have implications for reconstructions of Holocene trends in large game hunting in western North America and for zooarchaeological applications of foraging theory in general.

The looting of archaeological sites is a common concern in the archaeological community. On average, over 850 archaeological sites are vandalized or looted from U.S. federal lands each year. This costs taxpayers nearly $5 million annually. This paper describes an egregious case that not only involved the looting of human remains from a Civil War/Indian wars era cemetery, but also the unethical complicity of members of the professional community. The preponderance of the evidence indicated that the remains of two Buffalo Soldiers from the abandoned military cemetery at Fort Craig, New Mexico, were illegally removed. Most of these remains were not recovered. The looting case prompted the Bureau of Reclamation to conduct full-scale archaeological recovery of additional remains not exhumed by the U.S. Army during the late 1800s. In all, 65 complete or near complete remains were recovered, analyzed, and reburied in July 2009. Two lessons emerged from this project: (1) professionals must be cognizant of whom they do business with to procure publishable information; and (2) they must balance their research agendas with an equal commitment to protect cultural resources.

In this article, we discuss new stable isotope data obtained from human dental tissue at the Krieger site, a Late Woodland Western Basin Tradition occupation from southwestern Ontario, Canada. These data point to significant maize consumption within an otherwise diffuse subsistence economy and settlement pattern geared toward the occupation of short-term campsites. The degree of maize consumption at Krieger implies the necessity for storage and year-round use. We suggest that maize horticultural practices during this time were as intensive as those suggested for contemporary and more sedentary Iroquoian groups to the east yet were accommodated without major changes to other aspects of the subsistence-settlement regime. Furthermore, the absence of a breastfeeding signal in the dental tissue not only implicates women in the role of maize production but might also imply demographic consequences. Accordingly, and with reference to comparative data, we suggest that notions of food production be recast and decoupled from the advent of sedentary lifeways in the lower Great Lakes region.

This paper reports the first set of isotopic data relating to human diet from the Samoan Archipelago. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data measured on bone collagen were used to assess dietary patterns of prehistoric communities on Tutuila Island, American Samoa. We examined 14 human bones from three sites dated to three distinct periods: ~1,000 years ago (N = 5); -500 years ago (N = 8) and -150 years ago (N = 1). The isotopie data suggest that the human diet on Tutuila over the last 1,000 years was composed mainly of terrestrial resources with some consumption of coastal reef products. These data suggest a possible dietary change over time, with a higher dependence on marine resources in the earlier period shifting to a more terrestrial diet in the later period. Several possibilities for this dietary shift are suggested including: change in community specialization; marine resource depression; disintensification of marine procurement; intensification of horticultural production; and cultural or social changes in resource allocation.

The Angus Mammoth site in south-central Nebraska has been controversial since its discovery in 1931 when a fluted artifact was reported to be associated with the mammoth. For nearly 80 years it has not been known if Angus was a paleontological site predating the human occupation of North America as has been asserted by some geologists and paleontologists, or an archaeological site dating to the late Pleistocene as has been advocated by some archaeologists. Geomorphic study and luminescence dating have finally solved the problem after nearly eight decades. Although microwear and technological analyses have determined that the Angus biface is an authentic artifact, TL and IRSL dates have shown that the matrix above the mammoth is much too old for a mammoth/fluted point association to be valid.

The issue of time remains a crucial one in Lower Illinois Valley archaeology, and key problems remain unresolved. In this paper, new radiocarbon assays and published dates are used to test hypotheses concerning intra-site bluff top mound chronologies, timing and structure of valley settlement, and the emergence of regional symbolic communities during the Middle Woodland period (ca. 50 cal B.C.-cal A.D. 400). We show that within sites Middle Woodland mounds were constructed first on prominent, distal bluff ridges and subsequently in less-visible spaces, though additional dates are needed to fully understand intra-site chronology. Our analyses generally support previous studies suggesting a north-to-south settlement trajectory of the valley, though habitation site dates indicate a more complicated pattern of regional occupation that has yet to be fully explicated. In addition, floodplain regional symbolic communities also emerged along a north-to-south pattern, though not as rapidly as bluff crest mounds. Importantly, results indicate future areas of research necessary to elucidate regional chronology, resettlement of the valley, and community interactions.

In this paper we examine some of the relationships among mortuary features, individual identities, and group identities in the context of the Ridges Basin community, one of the earliest village communities in the American Southwest. Architectural and biodistance data suggest that more than one ethnic group composed the Ridges Basin Pueblo I community and that these groups occupied different house clusters throughout the basin. Mortuary data are examined for patterning in body arrangement, context of interment, and treatment to corroborate the presence of different groups within this community. Results indicate that groups and individuals performed mortuary rituals and incorporated particular rare and exotic items that aided in the construction of personal identities, particularly gendered identities, and that ultimately came to represent and reify group distinctions. It is suggested that, in early villages, elaborations of both gender and ethnicity in mortuary contexts provided accessible and highly visible and noticeable avenues of distinction in the absence of formally instituted leadership and group identity categories.

I examine how our capacity to produce accurate culture-historical reconstructions changes as more archaeological sites are discovered, dated, and added to a data set. More precisely, I describe, using simulated data sets, how increases in the number of known sites impact the accuracy and precision of our estimations of (1) the earliest and (2) latest date of a cultural tradition, (3) the date and (4) magnitude of its peak popularity, as well as (5) its rate of spread and (6) disappearance in a population. I show that the accuracy and precision of inferences about these six historical processes are not affected in the same fashion by changes in the number of known sites. I also consider the impact of two simple taphonomic site destruction scenarios on the results. Overall, the results presented in this paper indicate that unless we are in possession of near-total samples of sites, and can be certain that there are no taphonomic biases in the universe of sites to be sampled, we will make inferences of varying precision and accuracy depending on the aspect of a cultural trait’s history in question.

Cannon and Yang (2006) argue that a sedentary winter village based on stored pink and chum salmon began at Namu approximately 7000 B. P. In contrast, we argue that (a) available data support neither a sedentary winter village by that date nor a subsistence focus on stored pink and chum salmon; (b) the timing and ubiquity of salmon exploitation and storage was not as the authors assert; instead, stable, long-term adaptations focused on taxa other than salmon are found elsewhere on the Northwest Coast; and (c) seasonality estimation based on growth increments is a valid methodology.

We reiterate the basis for our interpretation of the Namu site as a winter-village settlement from at least 7000 B.P., and note that Monks and Orchard do not provide an alternative interpretation of the available data. They also mistakenly suggest an assertion on our part that all Northwest Coast villages were dependent on a salmon-based storage economy by 1000 B.P. We never argued for this point. Finally, Monks and Orchard offer a lengthy defense of methods for seasonality estimation, which we support. We used those same methods, and continue to support their refinement and application toward understanding the nature of seasonal activity at Namu.