Long-term excavations at two large La Quemada hinterland habitation sites provide data for developing population estimates based on ethnographic studies. Calculations based in part on ratio constants of roofed floor area to excavated space are applied to 183 habitation sites in the valley measured in 1974. These data reveal not only the range of population in the immediate valley, but also in major population aggregates around La Quemada during the period of major occupation (ca. A.D. 700). The mean population within the La Quemada core area is estimated as 6,867 (between 4,578 and 9,155) individuals, with an average population density of 38 persons per km2. Population density within three of the largest nearby settlement aggregates ranges around a mean of 209, 136, and 117 individuals respectively per square kilometer.

The recovery of pine (Pinus spp.) charcoal remains from ceremonial contexts at sites in the Maya Lowlands suggests that pine had a significant role in ancient Maya ritual activities. Data collected by the authors reveal that pine remains are a regular component of archaeobotanical assemblages from caves, sites that were used almost exclusively for ritual purposes, and that pine is often the dominant taxon of wood charcoal recovered. Comparisons with archaeobotanical data from surface sites likewise reveals that pine is common in ceremonial deposits. The authors propose that the appearance of pine remains in ceremonial contexts indicates pine was a valued element of Maya ritual paraphernalia. By basing interpretations with analogous information from ethnography, ethnohistory, iconography, and epigraphy, the use of pine during rituals is argued to be have been linked with a symbolic complex of ritual burning and offering “food” sacrifices to deities. The possibility is raised that burning pine, perhaps as torches, during some ancient rituals was similar to the modern use of candles. The diversity of ceremonial contexts yielding pine suggests that burning pine may have been a basic element of ritual activities that was essential to establish the legitimacy of ritual performances.

Often the late prehistoric period of northeast Sonora is portrayed as the product of a migration from, or closely associated with, the peoples of Casas Grandes Valley in northwest Chihuahua. That migration is believed to have occurred around A.D. 1300–1500, either at the zenith or during the decline of the Casas Grandes culture. However, recent excavations along the Río Bavispe in northeast Sonora show that developments in polychrome pottery, domestic architecture, and possibly community architecture parallel the pattern found in northwest Chihuahua during the A.D. 1000–1200 period, before the type site of the Casas Grandes culture, Paquimé, was founded. This surprising result demonstrates that the role of long-term regional interaction needs to be considered in shaping both areas. To conceptualize this process, we suggest revitalizing Di Peso’s 1966 concept of the “Northern Sierra” as an important step in the foundational shifts required to build more cogent explanations.

This study reports a detailed analysis of artificial modifications observed on a collection of human bone artifacts from Carl Lumholtz’s nineteenth-century excavations at El Palacio, Michoacán. The data obtained confirm that they were used as musical rasps called omichicahuaztli in Nahuatl and also provide new interpretations of their acquisition, manufacture, and abandonment processes. Cut marks indicate that the bones were taken from fresh cadavers of at least eight individuals, possibly sacrificial victims. Regarding manufacture and use of these instruments, important variations are observed and suggest that different persons could have manipulated them. Finally, it is possible to demonstrate that most of the instruments were broken intentionally prior to being buried with numerous individuals. Regarding the context in which the omichicahuaztli were used, it is interesting to point out some characteristics of the associated skeletons. Among male skulls, the high incidence of traumatic lesions that may have occurred in warlike context strongly suggests that many of the buried individuals were warriors. This association may indicate that Tarascan omichicahuaztli, similar to those of the Aztec!, were used in funerary ceremonies dedicated to dead warriors.

Analysis of a large animal bone assemblage from the Formative archaeological site of Challuabamba in Ecuador’s southern highlands provides additional evidence for the existence of local and extra-local trade connections during the second millennium B.C. Previous archaeological research has established that Formative occupants of this highland region accessed various maritime and terrestrial routes for the long-distance exchange of exotic goods with different highland and lowland areas throughout the Andes. The Formative zooarchaeological record at Challuabamba clearly implicates the provisioning of select high yield body portions of deer and the importation of exotic taxa, or parts thereof most likely from lowland sources directly to the west. Taphonomic analyses and zooarchaeological identification of the Challuabamba assemblage offer additional corroborating evidence for the early operation of prehispanic trade systems in the Northern Andes.

The burial found at Patapatane Cave in the highlands of Arica, northern Chile, yielded an incomplete skeleton of a 20-to-23-year-old female, dating to the end of the Middle Archaic period at 5910 ± 90 B.P. The site is located in a semiarid environment on the eastern side of Sierra de Huaylillas at 3800 m. in the hinterland of Arica, northern Chile. We argue that the missing bones, position of the cranium, and breakage of some elements resulted from both postdepositional human intervention and taphonomic processes. The body was laid to rest in a supine position and after it became skeletonized hunters revisited the inhumation and removed some bone elements. However, the other bones present in situ were not displaced and remained in proper anatomical position, with the exception of the cranium, which was placed vertically on top of the cervical vertebrae. The observed breakage of vertebrae, long bones, and skull seems to have been the result of taphonomic, nonanthropogenic, postburial actions. In reporting on the Patapatane burial, Archaic period funerary patterns from western South America are reviewed to support the notion that early hunters and gatherers systematically manipulated their dead through perimortem and postmortem alterations. These included several processes: (1) processes of body reduction and transformation by removal of body sections or removal of bone elements, cremation, and human remains discarded in domestic middens; and (2) processes of artificial preservation of the dead that included roasting, salting, and artificial mummification. In addition, we recognize the simultaneous existence of intact primary burial and that other skeletons were possibly altered accidentally by postdepositional natural or cultural agents.