The analysis of osseous (bone, antler, or ivory) beveled shafts or “rods” has become an important focus in the study of early Paleoindian tool technology. Since 1995 two carved and beveled bone rods have been recovered from Sheriden Cave in northwest Ohio in depositional strata that are radiocarbon dated to between 11,060 and 10,400 radiocarbon years B.P. These strata also contained a small, reworked, Gainey-style fluted point; cut and burned animal bone; and the remains of flat-headed peccary, caribou, giant beaver, and other taxa. The tapered tips and overall morphology of the bone rods demonstrate that they served as projectile points as opposed to other functional types such as foreshafts. Microscopic and radiographic examinations of the bone points reveal that they were manufactured from split sections of mega-mammal bone. These artifacts resemble bone and ivory points found at early Paleoindian sites in western North America and northern Florida but also bear significant morphological similarities to bone sagaie or javelin tips known from Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe. The close spatial and temporal associations between the Sheriden Cave artifacts suggest that they represent the remains of an early Paleoindian tool cache within a small resource extraction campsite.

Humans first left Siberia and colonized the Americas perhaps around 16,000 years ago, and the Clovis archaeological complex in North America has traditionally been linked to this migratory pulse. Archaeologists searching for evidence of Clovis technological antecedents have focused their attention on the Beringian and Siberian archaeological records. Growing evidence for the pre-Clovis occupation of North America provides a possible alternative source for the origins of Clovis. In this paper, we present new data on the pre-Clovis lithic assemblage from the Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas, and compare Clovis and pre-Clovis lithic technological signatures. We show that while Clovis and pre-Clovis share some important technological traits, they also differ in important ways. We conclude that the pre-Clovis assemblage from Debra L. Friedkin cannot be called “Clovis,” but it could represent a technological antecedent of Clovis.

The growing willingness among archaeologists to draw inferences about cultural behavior is offset by the almost total lack of research that shows how ethnographic and archaeological phenomena are correlated. If ethnologists and archaeologists are to do complementary research on the same problems of cultural process and variation, we must try to explore, systematically and comparatively, how the behavioral and material realms may be correlated. The present paper offers an example of such research. I describe the design and results of a cross-cultural study that suggests an archaeological indicator of matrilocal versus patrilocal residence. Briefly, it appears from 2 separate random samples of ethnographically described societies that matrilocal versus patrilocal residence can be simply and accurately predicted from the living floor area of the average house in the society.

Two complementary models illuminate the formation of artifact assemblages at one type of prehistoric hunter-gatherer campsite—the workshop/habitation site. One model posits three successive stages in the activity contributing to the distribution and composition of lithic artifact assemblages. The other describes the formation of assemblages near exterior hearths and similar features. These models are discussed with reference to the Peace Point site, a rapidly buried and deeply stratified workshop/habitation site in northern Alberta. The implications of these models for refining our understanding of formation processes at other types of hunter-gatherer campsites are noted.

Assemblages are composed of proportions of artifacts by category. Use life affects the formation and therefore the size and composition of assemblages. Use life is to assemblage formation as lifespan is to demography, and demographers know that a population's mean lifespan is no more important than the distribution of values around that mean. When considered at all, use life typically is expressed as a mean value. But use-life's distribution—variation around the mean—affects assemblage composition independently of the mean. Distribution is neglected because its effects are not appreciated and seem difficult to measure. To improve understanding of assemblage formation, we study use-life distribution in New Guinea Wola ethnographic artifacts, using cumulative survivorship and the two-parameter Weibull model. Then we propose estimates of use-life distribution in Paleoindian stone tools. Knowing use-life distribution as well as mean, we know better how assemblages formed and improve our understanding of the archaeological record.

A model of carrying capacity as a dynamic equilibrium system is generated and made operational in order to test a series of hypotheses relating population and settlement patterns. The development of populations in marginal resource zones is shown to be a function of optimal zone exploitation in the Hay Hollow Valley. MacArthur's deviation amplifying model is presented as an alternative to the model's diminishing resource curves as a possible explanation of the extinction of Hay Hollow population by A.D. 1400. Finally, the effects of population excess disequilibriums as defined by the model are examined in relationship to the settlement pattern variables of population aggregation, spatial aggregation and residential area.

North American archaeologists often designate spurs on scrapers as gravers or use them as temporal markers for the Paleoindian Period. The functional and stylistic aspects of spurred scrapers are explored here through an ethnoarchaeological study of stone scraper procurement, production, use, and discard among the Gamo of southern Ethiopia. This research demonstrates that the presence of so-called “graver” spurs does not have a functional significance, but is the result of inexperience and/or the waning strength of the hideworker. Furthermore, spurred scrapers occur in abundance at villages where breakage rates also are high, reflecting the presence of a number of inexperienced hideworkers. Lastly, this paper explores the relationship between the experience of the knapper and tool standardization. The analysis suggests that in lineage-based learning systems more-experienced hideworkers assist less-experienced hideworkers, and thus blur any relationship between experience and standardization.

Models of Archaic period economy in the Lower Pecos River region of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, are based primarily on coprolite, faunal, and macroplant analysis of materials recovered from rockshelters. The models maintain that during the Middle Archaic period residential mobility is reduced and tethered to rockshelters in canyons near water, and diet dominated by the plant resources lechuguilla (Agave lechuguilla), sotol (Dasylirion texanum), and prickly pear (Opuntia spp.). I use archaeobotanical analysis and actualistic studies to determine the contents of earth-oven features, the number of plant food calories produced by ovens, and the quantity of refuse they generate. Considered within the framework of a diet-breadth model, the data demonstrate that return rates and caloric yields for lechuguilla and sotol processed in earth ovens are typical of a broad spectrum, low-return economy. Intensive use of these low-ranked resources indicates periods of subsistence stress beginning in the Early Archaic period and continuing through the Late Archaic. Use of low-ranked, high-cost resources in canyon zones indicates that food and fuel resources were quickly depleted forcing high residential mobility. Depletion of local resources, not the distribution of water sources governed residential mobility.

The reuse of certain categories of artifacts combined with natural site formation processes, such as sedimentation and erosion, is suggested to result in the disproportionate occurrence of “large” artifacts on the surface of sites. This phenomenon, known as the size effect, is investigated with artifact assemblage data from several stratified Eastern North American sites.

Analysis of faunal remains from archaeological sites is at least as much an archaeological as a zoological problem since food animal remains are essentially artifactual in nature, their occurrence in deposits being the result of human activity.

This paper examines some of the methods used to make such analyses and suggests the merits and faults of the various approaches. It also suggests some of the kinds of inferences which may be drawn when detailed and careful investigation of faunal material is carried out, preferably by the archaeologist.

The study of the archaeology of farming communities in southern Africa is an inherently political activity but there has been little critical analysis of the role of social context in forming problems and in shaping answers. It is argued in this paper that the history of Iron Age research south of the Zambezi shows the prevalent influence of colonial ideologies, both in the earliest speculations about the nature of the African past and in the adaptations that have been made to contemporary archeological methodologies in their application to the subcontinent. Concepts such as ethnicity have acquired specific meanings in southern Africa that contrast with the use of similar ideas in other contexts such as Australasia. Such relativity reinforces the view that specific, detailed critiques of archaeological practice in differing social environments are necessary for an understanding of the manner in which the present shapes the past.

Of the many canal systems of the Chimu empire the Chicama-Moche Intervalley (La Cumbre) Canal connecting the Chicama and Moche valleys represents the highest level of technical achievement. This paper examines the engineering skills of the Chimu as revealed by computer analysis of the open channel flow design techniques they utilized. Analysis of agricultural strategies made possible by this canal and the surveying skills inherent to its use are examined in detail. The presence of many trial canal paths toward the distal end of the canal indicate extreme difficulty in overcoming tectonically induced ground-slope changes caused by fault lines near the intervalley divide. The canal was abandoned prior to completion of construction and thus never served to supply the Moche Valley with Chicama water.

Differences in analytical sensitivity, precision, and accuracy exist among techniques and laboratories involved in the chemical analysis of archaeological ceramics. Large differences in these analytical parameters become significant in the formulation of data bases where comparability of the data is being sought. Small differences become significant when comparing pottery produced from clay resources located within a discrete geological environment. To better assess and report on the analytical results being obtained from laboratories, neutron-activation analysis and X-ray fluorescence are discussed relative to the level of precision required for ceramic characterization studies, the use of standards, and the preparation and submission of samples for commercial laboratory analysis.

This study is based on the bison, deer, and antelope bone from a fortified earth lodge village (32ME15) in the Garrison Reservoir Area. The site was excavated by River Basin Survey parties in 1950 and 1951, under the supervision of G. Ellis Burcaw and Donald D. Hartle respectively. The animal bone from this site is of particular interest because it permits a comparison to be made between the methods used on the smaller food animals and those used on the bison. In a previous study an attempt was made to compare the methods used on antelope and on bison, but the methods were those of very different peoples who were widely separated both geographically and temporally and the differences could as easily have been due to culture as well as the size of the game. Since this material is from a single component site, any difference in technique can safely be attributed to the size of the game.

The degree of development of specialist positions associated with large-scale construction at the Maya site of Copan, Honduras, is evaluated. The methodology used involves the quantification of energy, in human labor, which was expended in the construction of Str. 10L-22, a major palace in the Main Center of Copan. The results suggest that few specialists were required, and that the vast majority of construction personnel were unspecialized conscripts. Moreover, the absolute energetic investment was low, suggesting that energetic expenditures in largescale architecture could not have been a major source of stress on the Late Classic Maya socioeconomic system.

The differential longevity of ceramic vessel forms affects the frequencies of these forms in an archaeological midden. The observed frequencies of modern Conibo vessel forms in use are projected into the archaeological record and the results are compared to the frequencies of antecedent forms from archaeological sites on the Upper Ucayali. Some of the variables, other than differential longevity, needed to account for the differing frequencies are discussed. The utility of longevity data for estimating the population needed to produce an archaeological midden is also explored.

The relative frequencies of intact skeletal joints in accumulations of mammalian remains can be used to produce models of the ways skeletons break apart in different circumstances. Information concerning disarticulation in the natural environment permits the detection in archaeological situations of features that may be due to prehistoric human butchery practices. The sequence of disarticulation of excavated Bison occidentalis butchered by North American Paleoindians is compared with that derived from natural assemblages of modern African Topi, Damaliscus korrigum.

Despite a great many references in the historic and ethnographic records to the importance of fishing by natives of the northern Great Lakes, anthropologists and archaeologists have failed to appreciate the uniqueness and significance of the inland shore fishery. A review of the archaeological evidence for the evolution of the fishery from Late Archaic to historic times indicates that the fishery can provide an organizing concept for understanding the cultural evolution of the region. Further, this record provides a means of examining the process of adaptation as it reflects a long series of technological and social adjustments to a specific set of environmental conditions over time.

Citation is one of many practices affected by the sociopolitics of archaeology. Examination of citation practices in American Antiquity, the Journal of Field Archaeology, Ancient Mesoamerica, and Southeastern Archaeology yields mixed results with regard to equity issues for women. In American Antiquity, the Journal of Field Archaeology, and Ancient Mesoamerica, men cite women at rates that are statistically similar to the rates at which women cite women. Historical data show that this has not always been the case for American Antiquity. In Southeastern Archaeology, men cite women significantly less than women cite women. Despite statistical parity between the sexes in three of the four journals, both men and women in American Antiquity and Ancient Mesoamerica cite women less than expected given the rate at which women publish. Such under-referencing of women might imply a devaluation of women's archaeological labor. This paper also examines other factors besides the gender of the citing author that might affect the rate of citation to women.

The experimental hydration of obsidian for up to 30 days is described at relative humidities (RH) of 60, 90, 95, and 100 percent and at temperatures of 150, 160, and 175°C. Under isothermal conditions, the rate of hydration increased by as much as 25 percent between 60 and 100 percent RH. The RH dependence is nonlinear, with the majority of the rate increase occurring between 90 and 100 percent RH. The effect of RH can be related to the driving force for molecular water diffusion in obsidians as described by the chemical potential difference between water sorbed onto the obsidian surface and intrinsic water in the obsidian. The differences in hydration rates caused by RH differences in experiments approximate the error commonly described for obsidian-hydration dating. These results suggest that obsidian-hydration dating requires a knowledge of the site temperature and relative humidity in order to accurately generate age estimates.