The relative amount of retouch on stone tools is central to many archaeological studies linking stone tool assemblages to broader issues of human social and economic land-use strategies. Unfortunately, most retouch measures deal with flake and blade tools and few (if any) have been developed for hafted bifaces and projectile points. This paper introduces a new index for measuring and comparing amount of retouch on hafted bifaces and projectile points that can be applied regardless of size or typological variance. The retouch index is assessed initially with an experimental data set of hafted bifaces that were dulled and resharpened on five occasions. The retouch index is then applied to a hafted biface assemblage made from tool stone that has been sourced by X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF). Results of both assessments show that the hafted biface retouch index (HRI) is effective for determining the amount of retouch and the degree to which the hafted bifaces have been curated.

The consequences of climate change vary over space and time. Effective studies of human responses to climatically induced environmental change must therefore sample the environmental diversity experienced by specific societies. We reconstruct population histories from A.D. 600 to 1280 in six environmentally distinct portions of the central Mesa Verde region in southwestern Colorado, relating these to climate-driven changes in agricultural potential. In all but one subregion, increases in maize-niche size led to increases in population size. Maize-niche size is also positively correlated with regional estimates of birth rates. High birth rates continued to accompany high population levels even as productive conditions declined in the A.D. 1200s. We reconstruct prominent imbalances between the maize-niche size and population densities in two subregions from A.D. 1140 to 1180 and from A.D. 1225 to 1260. We propose that human responses in those subregions, beginning by the mid-A.D. 1200s, contributed to violence and social collapse across the entire society. Our findings are relevant to discussions of how climate change will affect contemporary societies.

Four methods of edge angle measurements, including one developed by the authors, are applied to a sample of unretouched flakes in order to determine their relative accuracy, reliability, and economy. The authors discuss various statistical analyses which are available and essential in evaluating the significance of variability between and within the different measuring techniques, applying them to the results obtained from this study.

Zooarchaeologists have used several methods to assess the relative dietary contribution of species found at archaeological sites. The most common methods are either based upon the assumption that bone weight is a fixed percentage of total body weight, or require estimating an "average" body size for identified taxa. In fact, the relationship between parameters of bone and body mass is generally allometric and can be described by linear regression. Use of allometric models places original body mass predictions on a more sound biological basis and makes calculations of "average" weight unnecessary. The potential of allometry is discussed and objections addressed with the goal of encouraging others to develop allometric formulae and to use them in their research.

Anthropogenic climate change is increasingly threatening cultural heritage; cultural resource managers, communities, and archaeologists are confronting this reality. Yet the phenomenon is happening over such a wide range of physical and sociocultural contexts that it is a problem too big for any one organization or discipline to tackle. Therefore, the sharing of best practices and examples between the communities dealing with this problem is essential. This article presents examples from communities, cultural resource managers, and archaeologists who are engaging with climate change–based threats to cultural heritage. Our presentation of these international activities follows the US National Park Service (NPS) four-pillar approach to climate-change threats to cultural heritage: science, mitigation, adaptation, and communication. We discuss this approach and then present a number of cases in which communities or institutions are attempting to manage cultural heritage threatened by climate change through these four pillars. This article restricts itself to examples that are taking place outside of the USA and concludes with some general recommendations for both archaeologists and funding entities.

Zooarchaeologists utilize a diverse set of approaches for quantifying cutmark frequencies. The least quantitative method for cutmark analysis relies on composite diagrams of cutmarks overlain on drawings of skeletal elements (diagramatic methods). To date, interpretations of these data have generally relied on qualitative and subjective assessments of cutmark frequency and placement. Many analysts count the number of fragments that have a cutmark, regardless of the number of cutmarks on the fragments (fragment-count data). Others count the number of cutmarks (cutmark-count data). Both can be expressed as simple counts (NISP data), or as a count of some more-derived measure of skeletal element abundance (MNE data). All of these approaches provide different types of data and are not intercomparable. Several researchers have shown that fragmentation of specimens impacts the frequency of cuts, and we show here that fragmentation impacts all these current approaches in ways that compromise comparative analysis when fragmentation differs between assemblages. We argue that cutmark frequencies from assemblages with differing levels of fragmentation are most effectively made comparable by correcting the frequency of cutmarks by the observed surface area. We present a new method that allows this surface area correction by using the image analysis abilities of GIS. This approach overcomes the fragmentation problem. We illustrate the power of this technique by comparing a highly fragmented archaeological assemblage to an unfragmented experimental collection.

Numerous taphonomic studies show that archaeologists should carefully evaluate the origins of faunal remains found in archaeological sites. Although extensive research has been done on natural sources of terrestrial faunal remains in archaeological sites, much less has been devoted to potential sources of aquatic fauna. Hundreds of animal species feed on shellfish, fish, and other aquatic fauna, and many transport food to terrestrial landforms where they may be mixed or confused with faunal remains left by humans. In this paper, we illustrate the problem by summarizing the habits of a number of animals known to feed on and transport shellfish and other aquatic animals. We also discuss examples where the remains of aquatic animals of non-human origin may have been confused with archaeological materials. Such biological imprints may be most pronounced on early sites, where questions about the antiquity of aquatic adaptations are paramount.

La Identification of maize phytoliths from the Preceramic Vegas and Formative period Real Alto sites, Guayas Province, Ecuador, has raised the issue of the antiquity of maize in Ecuador. This paper reviews how maize is identified using phytoliths and addresses criticisms of this technique. Our reexamination of the original Vegas and Real Alto samples using Piperno's three-dimensional variant method confirms the presence of maize in western Ecuador by at least 5000 B.C. Remains of charred maize from other sites suggest that more than one race was being utilized by the Formative period.

If we take the archaeological record at face value, the colonization of unglaciated North America appears to have been very rapid. The highly consistent dating of Clovis archaeological sites (11,500-10,800 B.P.) suggests that this continent was populated within a matter of centuries. To explain the spatial and temporal scales of this phenomenon, it is necessary to invoke both high mobility and high fertility rates during the initial colonization process. However, it is widely believed that it is maladaptive for mobile foragers to have large numbers of offspring due to the costs of transporting those children. Thus, the archaeological record presents us with a paradox. Using a mathematical model that estimates the costs of raising children for mobile hunter-gatherers, this paper asks the question-is high mobility compatible with high fertility? It is concluded that high mobility, if defined as the frequent movement of residential base camps, is quite compatible with high fertility, and that early Paleoindians could indeed have been characterized by high reproductive rates. Therefore, it is quite possible that the Americas were populated very rapidly by highly mobile hunter-gatherers.

Obsidian production was a major component of Classic period Teotihuacan's economy, with hundreds of workshops producing cores and blades of green obsidian and bifaces of grey obsidian for distribution throughout central Mexico. Although green obsidian was evidently obtained through a state network, grey obsidian procurement was conducted independently by most workshop groups. Most production took place in residential areas beyond the major public structures of the city, but some of these craftsmen also worked periodically within the public precincts where their output would have been at the disposition of state officials. The burden of this levy fell primarily upon those sectors of the industry that were most dependent on the state for support and most involved in external distribution. However, despite this evidence of an important administered element in the Teotihuacan obsidian industry, the workshops apparently maintained their independence from the state. This may have been due to their organization in strong social units that had a long history of independent existence, and to their self-reliance in procurement and distribution during the earlier stages of the industry"s development.

Nation states, or partisans thereof, control and allocate symbolic resources as one means of legitimizing power and authority, and in pursuit of their perceived nationalistic goals and ideologies. A major symbolic resource is the past. In this paper I review three cases in which the past and, in particular, relevant archaeological resources were "used" for such purposes, and I refer to several other well-known instances. The three cases discussed are Mexico from ca. A.D. 900 to the present, Britain from ca. A.D. 1500 to the present, and the People’s Republic of China since 1949. The implications of such uses in relation to archaeological theories and interpretations are discussed.

While isotopic and elemental analyses of prehistoric skeletons have made an important contribution to paleodietary research over the last 10 years, certain problems in the application of these techniques only now are emerging. These problems, affecting both isotopic and trace-element studies, mainly are due to the peculiar interdisciplinary nature of the field, rather than to any technological barrier. With minor exceptions, techniques developed largely in other sciences have been grafted on to archaeological problems. This no longer suffices because gaps remain in the scientific grounding of these techniques that need to be addressed before more complicated archaeological questions can be resolved. While the necessary studies may seem to be of little immediate anthropological interest, they are vital if continued progress in paleodietary research is to characterize the years ahead.

The study of developing complex societies can fruitfully focus on the human interactions that define communities, which have always been at the heart of settlement pattern research. Yet little attention has been paid to how communities of varying scales can actually be identified in archaeological survey data. Most often sites have simply been assumed to correspond to communities, although this practice has been criticized. Methods are offered to delineate communities at different scales systematically in survey data, and their implications for field data collection strategies are explored comparatively for cases from northeast China, Mesoamerica, and the northern Andes.

Various lithic measures have been invoked to argue that human foragers moved over greater or lesser distances, or moved with greater or lesser frequency when compared with other foraging groups. This paper examines one of those measures—the reduction of blade end scrapers from early Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian and Perigordian occupations in southwestern France. Evidence of end scraper reduction is compared with faunal diversity and lithic material provenience, the former a potential catalyst of and the latter a potential reflection of mobility. A relationship between less-intense end scraper reduction, somewhat elevated percentages of distant raw materials, and reindeer-dominated fauna is noted during cold and apparently open environmental conditions. Less consistency in the extent of end scraper reduction is observed among assemblages associated with more diverse and at times less-mobile fauna. These observations argue for the importance of a fine-grained comparison of lithic and other data, the complexity of procurement strategies, and the recognition that greater or lesser reduction does not translate directly into greater or lesser mobility.

In recent years considerable attention has been given to theoretical statements and to concrete applications of what is called the “taxonomic method“ in archaeology. Although this method is not necessarily in conflict with the direct historical approach to archaeology, a growing preoccupation with the former has definitely been at the expense of the latter. The direct historical approach, although employed more or less for many years, has not received formulation comparable to that of the taxonomic method, nor have its potentialities for planned research programs and its possible integration with recent types of historical ethnographic research received full recognition. Even, therefore, if it is unnecessary to argue its value, it seems timely to attempt a statement that may help clarify its procedures and research possibilities.

Many researchers assume that the greater flake tool production efficiency of bifacial versus amorphous cores helps explain the prevalence of bifacial core technology among mobile populations. This paper describes experiments that test whether bifacial cores are more efficient carriers of flake cutting edge than amorphous cores. The first experiment established a size threshold of flake cutting efficiency. The second experiment reduced ten bifacial and ten amorphous cores to exhaustion and calculated the amount of usable and total flake edge produced by each core type, excluding flakes beneath the size threshold. Results indicate that bifacial cores are not significantly more efficient producers of usable or total flake edge than amorphous cores. Bifaces do produce flakes with significantly higher edge-to-weight ratios than do amorphous cores, but more of the weight of bifacial cores is lost to waste during the flake production process. Flake production efficiency therefore does not explain the use of bifacial cores among mobile populations.

Only in the last few years have high-resolution paleoclimatic data become available from coastal southern California. Recent research in the California Channel Islands, drawing on some of these data, attributes settlement disruptions, disease, and violence to maritime subsistence distress attendant to elevated sea temperatures in the period from A.D. 1150 to 1300. A broad range of paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and human osteological data suggest that these stress indicators are more convincingly correlated with severe late Holocene drought episodes during a portion of the medieval climatic anomaly (ca. A.D. 800 to 1400). Based on these data, cultural changes in coastal southern California, including violence, declining health, and emergent social complexity, are similar to events documented in the American Southwest. Cultural adaptations in both regions appear to have been responding to persistent drought conditions during the late Holocene.

Comprehensive geochemical studies of archaeological obsidian sources in the Southwest typically have lagged behind other regions of North American and Mesoamerica. Current archaeological and petrological research indicates four previously unreported sources in Arizona, Sonora, and western New Mexico. This initial semiquantitative X-ray fluorescence (XRF) examination of archaeological silicic-glass sources in this region focuses on current technical problems in southwestern obsidian studies. The chemical variability within some regional obsidian sources appears to be relatively extensive and new data from the San Francisco volcanic field in northern Arizona modifies the results of earlier researchers.

Lichenometry—a method developed by geologists for dating Holocene moraines and other landforms—has many potential applications in archaeology. Maximum-diameter lichenometry can suggest ages for features that were initially lichen-free, such as the moai of Easter Island, and rock surfaces exposed by toolstone quarrying. Size-frequency analysis can provide dates for structures built of lichen-covered rocks, such as game-drive walls and blinds, meat caches, and tent rings. Both methods require local calibration curves, best constructed by measuring lichens on substrata of known exposure age. Most lichenometric studies have involved yellow members of the crustose genus Rhizocarpon, which grow slowly and can live for as long as 10,000 years. Lichenometry has been particularly successful on siliceous rock types in arctic, subarctic, and alpine-tundra environments. The effects of wildfire and of competition from foliose lichens make the technique less well suited for forested terrain. Few data are available for tropical or desert environments or for calcareous substrata. The reliability of a lichenometric date will depend on the quality of the calibration curve, the size of the sample, the nature and postoccupational history of the substratum, and the ability of the archaeologist to recognize potential disturbance factors. An ecological perspective is essential. Known archaeological applications and problems are discussed.

An analysis of 77 collections of mammalian fauna from Paleolithic occupations in Cantabrian Spain reveals a number of possible trends in the adaptations of prehistoric human groups to past regional ecosystems. Throughout the history of occupation of Cantabria, from the Mousterian through the Solutrean, prehistoric man took a greater number of large game animals from forested biotopes, but probably acquired more total meat from fewer but larger prey taken in open country. Regular exploitation of the alpine zone and of dangerous forest creatures (Sus and felidae) begins only with the Aurignacian, when there is some evidence in the form of nocturnal or burrow-dwelling carnivores that self-acting hunting devices (traps, snares, for example) may have been employed. Lower Magdalenian faunas seem to indicate the specialized and intensive exploitation of a single species (red deer), while in the Azilian there is a return to patterns characteristic of the Mousterian-Solutrean periods. Site location seems to reflect exploitative strategy.