The activities of the Inca state in the Xauxa region of the Peruvian central highlands were partially supported by the stockpiling of agricultural, gathered, and craft goods in over 2,000 storehouses, distributed among 52 architectural complexes. The spatial organization and architectural standardization of the storage facilities suggest that the accumulation and disbursement of these goods within the province was centrally managed, but that material support for state projects was somewhat dispersed. Documentary sources indicate that the native Huanca population produced the goods stored and played a role in managing the storage system. Test excavations in six storehouses recovered all major prehistoric highland crop taxa–including maize, quinoa, potatoes, and lupine–and fragments of Inca storage vessels.

The 12 Mile Creek site in western Kansas was the first site yielding a fluted projectile point to be excavated in North America by scientific personnel. The Bison from this kill site were used in forming the original concept of B. occidentalis. A new study of the site including radiocarbon dates and a pollen analysis suggests the kill took place in a pine parkland about 10,300 years ago. The artifact from this site reported by Williston seems to be a Clovis projectile point.

This article proposes a sequence of rulers for Machaquilá, as south-central Petén site which flourished in the Late and Terminal Classic periods. A number of articles on this matter about other Maya sites have appeared since Tatiana Proskouriakoff’s publication on Piedras Negras, in which she identified initial and inaugural glyphs. While Machaquilá’s monuments lack such event glyphs, the date patterns involved, as well as the identification of name glyphs and titles, permit the establishment of a sequence of rulers, an explanation for the fall of Machaquilá (usurpation or conquest by a non-Classic Maya ruler), and a possible reason for the collapse of Tikal.

Analysis of the remains of a historic Inuit winter site, in conjunction with information supplied by one of the original inhabitants, demonstrates that despite post-occupational disturbance in the form of snow melt and associated downslope movement, the original internal site structure was maintained. Specific activity loci are identified for two snow houses, one occupied during early winter and the other during late winter. Changes in artifact and faunal element characteristics associated with the two dwellings are shown to reflect adjustments in various hunting and domestic activities from early to late winter.

This study examines and defines the potential information offered to archaeology by the study of gastropod remains. A historical review of past accomplishments in archaeomalacology provides the foundation from which zooarchaeologists can begin to recognize the primary concerns for future research in the discipline. The past, present and future approaches to archaeomalacology are discussed under a taphonomic framework. Under the guise of biostratonomy, gastropod presence in archaeological contexts is explained according to four major pathways of shell introduction. Allied to this aspect of taphonomy is diagenesis, an understanding of which assists archaeologists in recognizing the role of gastropods in cultural versus natural environmental settings. This study concludes with a critique of present trends in archaeomalacological method and theory.

An important aspect of archaeology is communicating the significance of data and research results to a fascinated, although often uninformed public. However, on the basis of book sales, newspaper coverage, television programming, and film presentations, it would seem that the public is inordinately fascinated by the more extreme, speculative, and often pseudoscientific claims made by those purporting to use archaeological data. Through questionnaires distributed to undergraduate students and to professional, teaching archaeologists, I made an attempt to comprehend the nature of the public's appetite for pseudoscientific archaeological claims. The role of education in refuting or perpetuating pseudoscience in archaeology was then assessed.

Trailed and incised drawings on the mud-covered walls of an East Tennessee cave have been identified as the artwork of Mississippian Indians who visited this sanctuary about 800 years ago. These unique drawings, called “mud glyphs” because of their similarity to certain petroglyphs found in the southeastern United States, include abstract designs, symbols, zoomorphic forms and anthropomorphic figures. Symbols such as the forked eye and the “bird-man” anthropomorphic representation correlate with six radiocarbon dates on torch charcoal that range between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries A.D. The occurrence of thousands of superimposed elements on the walls indicates that Mud Glyph cave was a Mississippian period sanctuary and further suggests that certain southeastern caves during this period were used for ritual activities rather than for mining as they were during earlier Woodland and Archaic times.

TL/ESR measurements were made to test whether a semicircular arrangement of cobbles at the Calico site was a man-made hearth. Results of an earlier magnetic study of one of the cobbles suggested the inner portion had been heated to 360ºC. Such a temperature would destroy radiation-induced defects on the inner portions of the cobbles, which can then be measured by TL/ESR. TL/ESR signals of the inner and outer portions of four cobbles were measured and showed no significant differences. Moreover, all samples appeared to be at full TL and ESR saturation. Progressive heating of a control cobble taken from outside the hearth feature indicated that destruction of the TL/ESR signal occurs at 200ºC. Estimates of the dose rate at the site indicates that at least 400,000 years are required for an annealed rock to attain full TL/ESR saturation, a much longer time than the estimated 200,000-year age of the deposit.

Recent excavations at Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia plantation, Monticello, have uncovered the remains of several structures and features including a storehouse and a dry well. Zooarchaeological analysis of the associated fauna indicates that differences in species composition, body part representation, and associated modifications exist between these two sites. These differences are undoubtedly related to social status and wealth and can be used to support the notion that the storehouse was probably also used as a slave dwelling.

The obsidian industry of Classic period Tikal, Guatemala, is discussed with regard to geological source determinations and behavioral typology. The potential of these two approaches for cultural reconstruction is greatly extended when they can supplement each other. Recent source determinations of obsidian artifacts from Tikal indicate (1) a behavioral link between locally-produced prismatic blades of Highland Guatemalan stone and ceremonial incised obsidians and eccentrics, and (2) a Central Mexican origin for a seemingly large portion of Tikal's obsidian projectile points and knives.

Seven burial/habitation sites of the Late Archaic-Early Woodland periods in the Great Lakes area have yielded galenas whose lead isotope ratios define the provenience of the minerals. Galenas at five of the sites probably originated at a single vein near Rossie, New York. A single sample from one site may be from a vein close to the Ottawa River near Ottawa, Ontario. Galena at one site has come from the southern part of the Upper Mississippi Valley mineral district in the central United States. Carbon-14 dates and cultural characteristics suggest that the galenas were obtained over an extended period, perhaps as long as 600 years. Although the data set is small, it appears that galenas found at aboriginal sites in the northeastern Great Lakes region were primarily obtained from two veins within a few hundred kilometers of the site locations.

Phytolith analysis in archaeology suffers from a lack of taxonomic data on silicified forms in plant domesticates and related wild species. This study presents the results of a comparative analysis of phytolith size and morphology in maize (Zea mays L.) and wild grasses. Grass phytolith morphology is highly diverse. By combining the criteria of size and three-dimensional form of cross-shaped phytoliths, one can discriminate between maize phytoliths and those of wild grasses, including teosinte. This method for identifying archaeological maize was tested by analysis of samples from four sites in the Pacific watershed of central Panama. Phytolith spectra from deposits dated by radiocarbon to the early fifth millennium B.C. indicate the presence of maize. The interpretation of the phytolith data is supported by pollen studies.

Recent archaeological excavations at a Machalilla (“Early Formative”) site on Ecuador's south coast have resulted in the recovery of charred maize kernel and cupule fragments. A detailed study of the Machalilla maize described here suggests that two primitive varieties were present on the coast of Ecuador by 1200 B.C. Previously published reports that have attempted to establish the presence of maize during the preceding Valdivia phase are reviewed briefly, and their incompleteness is discussed.

Excavation of a small single-component prehistoric campsite in the coastal southern California foothills has provided evidence concerning the patterns and approximate rates of redistribution of archaeological materials caused by the burrowing pocket gopher, Thomomys bottae. Investigation of bimodal vertical distributions of both historic and prehistoric archaeological materials shows a close correspondence to the burrowing habits of pocket gophers in coastal California. Comparison of these bimodal distributions with a site chronology based upon diagnostic artifacts and C-14 dating suggests that, under certain soil conditions, downward displacement of archaeological materials may occur at rates averaging over 5% per century. The broader implications of the effects of faunalturbation upon the interpretation of archaeological assemblages are briefly discussed.

The cultigen Amaranthus hypochondriacus has been recognized in four samples of desiccated plant remains from Holman Shelter in Madison County, Arkansas. That site, excavated in 1932, yielded the domesticated Chenopodium berlandieri ssp. nuttalliae described by Hugh Wilson (1981). Cultigen chenopod has been found in one other Madison County rockshelter. Samples containing the two species are described in detail and placed in general cultural context by combining information from excavation notes with regional archaeological data. Mesoamerican origins would exclude both cultigens from the Eastern Agricultural Complex. Current evidence favors a late prehistoric introduction into the eastern United States, but determination of spatial and temporal ranges will depend upon future recovery and analysis.

Metric analysis of an excellently preserved Bison skull with horn cores recovered from a northern Florida river identifies the specimen as an evolutionarily late representative of Bison antiquus. A fragment of chert protrudes from the right fronto-parietal area of the skull. Radiocarbon and biostratigraphic dating place the age of the Bison at about 11,000 years, thereby documenting an association between the animal and Paleoindians. It is likely that the animal was killed and butchered adjacent to a now-inundated water hole.

Investigation of dark earths from two archaeological sites near Araracuara, on the Río Caquetá in Colombian Amazonas, indicates that these soils are anthropic, with characteristics similar to those of the terra preta soils of the Brazilian Amazon. The Araracuara sites belong to the Camani (plainware) phase of the second to ninth centuries A.D. and to the Nofueri phase (ninth to seventeenth centuries) with pottery of the Polychrome Tradition. The Araracuara examples are the first archaeological terra preta soils analyzed from west of Brazil, although similar materials are reported from Ecuador and Peru. The problems of recognizing and dating the first appearance of terra preta soils are discussed, and a plea is made for closer collaboration between archaeologists and soil scientists.

The architecture of early Valdivia (3300–2300 B.C.) communities provides information about the structure of early village life on the Ecuadorian Pacific coastal lowland. Household units from the sites of Real Alto and Loma Alta seem to exhibit domestic patterning in sleeping areas, cooking, tool working, cotton spinning, garbage disposal, and burial of the dead. The village layout provides a plan for settlement in the shape of a letter U. The Valdivia U-shaped village is briefly examined in its prehistoric context. Together, house and village patterns at Real Alto and Loma Alta reflect the beginnings of settled life in the context of an agricultural economy.

This report demonstrates recourse to homophony in ancient Maya script, illustrating the generalization of signs on the basis of their phonetic values, apart from their primary semantic values. It focuses on substitutions, in eight glyphic contexts, of signs for “sky,” the number “four,” and “snake,” the words for which are homophonous or nearly homophonous in most Mayan languages. A final, unique glyphic context exhibits the use of homophony in a spelling of Kukulcan's name from the classic period.

Cultures are not integral wholes carried by social isolates. We must distinguish between reality culture and ideology-making, and recognize that the creation or dismantling of cultures always goes on within extensive social fields, structured by the dominant modes of production. It is suggested that ideology-making derives from the prevalent mode of production and is entailed in its operations.