This study reports on changing settlement patterns in the lower Tiwanaku Valley during the Formative (1500 B. C.-A. D. 100), Classic (A. D. 400-800), and Postclassic (A. D. 800-1100) periods. Based on the association of agricultural features with these site distributions, as well as the consideration of ethnohistoric and ethnographic information, it is argued that fundamental principles of the political and economic organization of the Aymara ayllus and markas can be inferred from the archaeological evidence. It also is suggested that Tiwanaku articulated local elites through mechanisms of reciprocity and common ideological denominators rather than through direct intervention and control of local sociopolitical hierarchies.

A new emblem glyph and place name, which depicts tied hair, is identified in Classic Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions from the upper Usumacinta River region of Chiapas and Guatemala. Emblem glyphs are used as titles of rulers, whereas place names indicate a person"s place of origin or where events took place. An interesting discovery from glyphic texts with this "Tied-Hair" glyph is that rulers at the large sites of Bonampak and Lacanhá, Chiapas, originated from the Tied-Hair site. Maya sites with emblem glyphs are often viewed as being politically independent polities ruled by a local patrilineage. Evidence discussed here suggests that Maya centers could have been ruled by noble males from other sites and that some polities were made up of several centers. This complex sociopolitical organization may have been created through dynastic alliances, through inheritance, or by military conquest. Classic Maya political integration then may have been similar to that of the Aztec, Mixtec, and Maya of Postclassic Mesoamerica.

This article compares domestic subsistence, craft production, and ritual at several excavated apartment compounds in Teotihuacan, Mexico. A new methodological approach for studying activity areas was tested in a multifamily compound at Oztoyahualco 15B:N6W3 with the purpose of obtaining information on specific activities attributable to particular households. This approach combines the identification and mapping of chemical compounds in stucco floors with pollen, phytolith, botanical, and faunal analyses. Together with the distribution of particular types of artifacts, ritual objects, and debris, these data permit an evaluation of the corporate character of certain activities.

Botanical remains found in ceramic vessels and other containers at the Cerén site, El Salvador, provide evidence for how plants were used by Classic-period inhabitants. Because of the rapid inundation of ash caused by the eruption of the Loma Caldera volcano sometime around A. D. 590, conditions for the preservation of plant parts at Cerén are superior to most other Mesoamerican sites. Carbonized plant remains, or impressions thereof, recovered from vessels include an assortment of domesticates, cultigens, and wild plants that describe an overall pattern of a highly diversified subsistence base. Although clear statistical associations among vessels, structure types, and plant remains are not evident, the contextual data reveal food storage and other plant-use practices of the site occupants. The apparent abundance of plant-derived products and Mayan trade goods at Cerén suggests the potential contribution made by small farmers as both suppliers to and trading partners with the larger cultural developments in Mesoamerica.

A long-standing debate in Amazonian archaeology is whether large sites represent contemporaneous communities or palimpsests accrued through multiple reoccupations. Quantitative ceramic seriation has been used to support the latter view. This argument is evaluated in terms of its statistical basis and its assumptions about sources of ceramic variability. On the basis of this evaluation, we conclude that the case for reoccupation, based on seriation, is unconvincing.