The growth and decline of large village communities is a topic of considerable interest for archaeologists studying the development of complex regional polities. In this article, demographic information is presented for the transitional Mississippian period Washausen mound center located in the American Bottom region of west-central Illinois. Population estimates are calculated based on data for residential architecture collected in 2011 during an extensive geophysical survey and excavations at the site. A magnetometer survey was conducted over 8 ha and produced a relatively complete site map revealing numerous household clusters organized around a central, earthen mound-and-plaza complex. Population estimates and site spatial information for Washausen are compared with similar data for earlier village communities located nearby, as well as other global village sequences, producing a demographic profile demonstrating a pattern of village growth and decline in the area after the onset of sedentism and agricultural intensification. Information from the region and elsewhere suggests that the development of larger communities through time resulted in part through frequent population movements as village segments fissioned and aggregated to form new communities. This research finding has the potential to inform models for the growth of much larger American Bottom centers such as Pulcher and Cahokia.

Network analysis provides a unique approach for archaeologists to identify structural relationships between the emergent properties of social interactions and the trajectory of corporate groups. This article presents the results of a survey of architectural features and a network analysis of walkways between house clusters at the thirteenth-century Hohokam site of Cerro Prieto, located in the Tucson Basin, Arizona. Statistical measures suggest that nascent inequality was developing at this site, making it an excellent case study of the factors that led to the emergence of economic and social differentiation. Network analysis provides a means to explain how corporate groups were able to leverage social connections in their struggle for ascendance in these spheres of interaction. Regardless of the strategy of social ascendance, a simple increase in the opportunity to influence others appears to explain a large portion of differential corporate group success.

The Mimbres Classic period (A .D. 1000–1130) in southwestern New Mexico was marked by dramatic and complex changes. The use of Great Kivas ended, and macaws and Mesoamerican-inspired iconography appeared. We argue that these events were systematically related and signify observable changes in Mimbres ritual economy. The presence of macaws, images of macaws, and representations of characters and motifs from the Hero Twins saga suggest that ideology accompanied macaws north from the Gulf Coast of Mexico. We recognize and discuss episodes and icons from the saga painted on Mimbres black-on-white bowls and propose that the macaws and narrative reached the Mimbres region through direct acquisition rather than down-the-line trade. This research has significant implications for the importance of long distance travel to faraway places and interaction with distant peoples, Mesoamerican-southwestern United States relationships, changing religious practices in non-hierarchical societies, and the adoption of extrinsic elements into local settings.

Evidence of systematic secondary lithic recycling at the Katie Griffith site and Church Rocksheiter No. 2 in the mountains of western North Carolina is presented. It is proposed that recycling and reuse of found stone artifacts in the Early Woodland period of the Appalachian Summit region of the southeastern United States was a regular lithic procurement option. It is concluded that systematic secondary lithic recycling was widespread in prehistory, provides an avenue for exploring economizing responses to raw material procurement challenges, and must be accounted for when using lithic artifacts in reconstructions and explanations of human mobility, exchange, and technological organization, and in archaeological constructions of lithic artifact typologies.

Roffelsen is an early Younge phase mortuary component in southwestern Ontario. The single burial feature is a pit containing the articulated skeletons of seven successively buried individuals, ranging in age from a few months to late middle age. All had been stripped of soft tissues, except for the connecting tissues that maintained their articulation. Most also had a disk cut from the cranium and a hole drilled near bregma. All but the infant display various forms of developmental failure of the outer and middle ear and the petrous portion of the temporal bone. The pit was apparently the burial facility for an extended family with significant hearing impairments. This disability may have limited their interaction with neighboring communities, perhaps even playing a role in their eventual disappearance as a separate community.

Seasonality of site occupation has been an important issue in the archaeology of precolumbian coastal populations in the U.S. Southeast. Sclerochronological oxygen isotope measurements to estimate season of capture were performed on marsh clam (Rangia cuneata) and oyster (Crassostrea virginica) shells from a Late Woodland platform mound in coastal Mississippi. This study is the first oxygen isotope analysis of archaeological Rangia cuneata. The results of the study, supported by vertebrate faunal and plant seasonal indicators and depositional circumstances, indicate that mound trash deposits were generated by short-term activities during the spring and summer months. Factors that could reduce the precision of the seasonal estimates are identified.

Over the last 25 years, a significant amount of archaeological and ethnohistoric research has produced data on Native American population trends after European contact. These include the timing and severity of depopulation and specific Old World diseases, allowing for meta-analytical research on a variety of topics. These data have been used in studies to explore the severity of depopulation, but the spatial and temporal patterns of diseases have been studied less. This research employs spatial analysis methods—Mantel tests and kriging—to study the relationship between the location and timing of Old World disease events on continental and regional scales, with the goal of examining how diseases spread over time and space. The results show that the timing of disease-related depopulation closely correlated with location, indicating that disease events clustered with regard to time and space. This strongly suggests that individual disease events impacted local populations and did not spread long distances (> 300 km) until the late seventeenth century. The analysis also reveals variations in the speed with which diseases spread. Interpreting the results with respect to pathogen, host, and environmental factors suggests that population distributions and landscape may have played significant roles in where and how fast diseases spread.

Native American communities underwent significant upheaval, ethnic blending, and restructuring in the Spanish colonial period. One archaeological example is the appearance of a seven-room stone and adobe structure in western Kansas, known as the Scott County Pueblo (14SC1). Previous researchers used Spanish documents to attribute the site to Puebloan refugees from Taos or Picuris in the mid- to late 1600s. Here we examine the Smithsonian and Kansas Historical Society ceramic collections for evidence of Puebloan women at the site. We find a high proportion of bowls at 14SC1, suggesting the maintenance of Puebloan food-preparation and-serving patterns, as well as some vessels apparently made by Puebloan potters in western Kansas. We cannot falsify our null hypothesis that the Scott County Pueblo included people from one or more northern Rio Grande pueblos during the mid-1600s, or A.D. 1696–1706, or both.

Burlington and Jefferson City cherts often dominate Ozarks lithic assemblages, and this record contains ample evidence for the heat treatment of both. In this paper, we use a technological investment model to understand why prehistoric knappers may have invested in heat treatment at the Big Eddy Site in southwest Missouri. Tech investment models offer one way to evaluate the cost-benefit relationships of various technologies and, consequently, the conditions under which a manufacturing strategy might be adopted. We conduct a heat treatment experiment to measure the untreated utilities of the two materials, the approximate time needed to heat each, and the resultant gains in utility a knapper acquires by spending the time to do so. In the Big Eddy case, the tech investment model suggests that the two toolstones were heat-treated differentially in response to differences in utility gains and availability on the landscape.

The transition from the Pueblo 11 Period (A.D. 1050–1150) to the Pueblo III Period (A.D. 1150–1300) in the San Juan Basin marks an intensification of turkey use, evidenced by an increase in the percentage of faunal assemblages representing turkey bones. We examine stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen ( δ15N) isotopic values of turkey bones from three ancestral Puebloan sites in the Middle San Juan Region to test the hypothesis that this intensification is linked to an increase in the amount of maize in the turkeys’ diets. We find no significant change in δ13C or δ15N across the two time periods, and all of the specimens’ values indicate maize consumption. A plot of bone apatite δ13C against collagen δ13C is consistent with a model of diets high in C4 protein, indicating that the turkeys did not use an alternative source of protein to maize and/or fauna that fed on maize. The reliance of both humans and turkeys on maize indicates a degree of turkey-human interdependency not previously known in the Middle San Juan Region. Future inquiries into the paleodiet of turkeys should target times and places where there is likely to have been a transition from hunting to domestication.

In recent years, the archaeology of Native American sites in colonial contexts has increased our understanding of how indigenous communities persisted in challenging times. Greater attention to practices helps to create a more enriched picture, especially when set in the context of food and consumption. This article considers shellfish remains excavated from three households on the Eastern Pequot reservation, located several kilometers Inland from the Connecticut coast in southern New England, to explore the role that shellfish gathering played in eighteenth-century subsistence and social practices in Native New England. Household variability in the specific species and quantity consumed, as well as disposal methods, provide insight into internal community decision making. Moreover, eighteenth-century reservation demographics strongly accentuate the role of women in the provision of these foodstuffs and in maintaining cultural connections to the coast and other off-reservation communities. Practices of gathering and consuming shellfish thus provide vectors of change and continuity in Native American communities of colonial New England, showing how these practices represent not only connections to a deeper past, but also ongoing and even resurging practices to engage with a colonial present.

Copying errors that occur during the manufacture of artifactual traditions are potentially a major source of variation. It has been proposed that material items produced via “additive” processes (e.g., pottery) will possess less variation than traditions produced via “reductive” processes (e.g., stone knapping). The logic of this premise is that “additive” production methods more readily allow for the reversal of copying errors compared to strictly “reductive-only” processes. Here, we tested this hypothesis in shape data using an experimental framework in which we generated and statistically analyzed morphometry (size-adjusted) shape data under controlled and replicable conditions. Participants engaged in one of two alternative conditions: an irreversible (“reductive-only”) manufacturing process or a reversible (“additive-reductive”) process. With a number of factors held constant, participants were required to copy the shape of a “target form” as accurately as possible using a standardized block of plasticine and a steel table knife. Results demonstrated statistically greater levels of shape-copying errors in the replicas produced in the reductive-only condition. This indicates that “mutation rates” in the shape attributes of artifactual traditions produced via reductive processes are inherently greater than those produced via alternative means. Several implications for the study of variation in artifactual traditions are discussed.

Recent estimates of when Hawai’i was colonized by Polynesians display considerable variability, with dates ranging from about A.D. 800 to 1250. Using high resolution paleoenvironmental coring data and a carefully defined set of archaeological radiocarbon dates, a Bayesian model for initial settlement was constructed. The pollen and charcoal assemblages of the core record made it possible to identify and date the prehuman period and also the start of human settlement using a simple depositional model. The archaeological and paleoenvironmental estimates of the colonization date show a striking convergence, indicating that initial settlement occurred at A.D. 940–1130 at a 95 percent highest posterior density region (HPD), and most probably between A.D. 1000 to 1100, using a 67 percent HPD. This analysis highlights problems that may occur when paleoenvironmental core chronologies are based on bulk soil dates. Further research on the dating of the bones of Rattus exulans, a Polynesian introduction, may refine the dating model, as would archaeological investigations focused on potential early site locations.

Unnotched triangular arrowpoínts and point fragments are sometimes found in large numbers on village sites in the Midwest and East. The possible reason or reasons for this are rarely considered. These points were used for both warfare and hunting. An attack on a village with a volley of arrows provides the most obvious explanation for large numbers of points and point fragments. Alternatively, using arrowpoints that detached within their target prey would have resulted in points and point fragments being brought back to a village in meat. These possibilities are considered in explaining the large number of points from an iroquoian village site in western New York.

This article uses a consumption framework to examine Native American use of shell and glass beads at the site of Mission Santa Clara de Asís in central California. The analysis considers how indigenous people acquired beads within the mission system as well as the ways in which they integrated diverse types of beads into existing and emergent cultural traditions. Regional archaeological evidence reveals multiple sources of shell beads while the mission's account book offers detailed information regarding the purchase of glass beads by Franciscan missionaries. At Santa Clara, archaeological assemblages from various temporal and spatial contexts demonstrate that native people continued to use shell beads throughout the mission period but also incorporated glass beads into local understandings of status and mourning. Within these general patterns of bead use, the evidence suggests a local preference for white glass beads as well as variation in the use of or access to shell beads across the mission community. These data underscore the localized ways indigenous people made sense of new and familiar items within the constraints of colonialism.

This paper explores the relationship between gender identity and patterns of authorship in peer-reviewed journals as a lens for examining gendered knowledge production and the current status and visibility of men and women in American archaeology. Drawing on feminist theory and the feminist critique of science, I examine how gender imbalance and a lack of diversity continue to affect the work that archaeologists produce. The evaluation of publishing trends serves as a means to investigate knowledge valuation/validation in archaeology and lends insight into the control over archaeological narratives. Analysis of publicacion rates from 1990–2013 in a number of prestigious archaeology research journals (including American Antiquity) as well as smaller-scale regional journals reveals that strong gender differences persist in one of the major ways that data are disseminated to the American archaeological community. I suggest that these patterns are likely a result of authorial behavior, rather than editorial or reviewer bias, and conclude with a discussion of future directions for practitioners to pursue research on gender equity in the discipline.

The Paleoindian Goshen complex occurs in the northern Plains and eastern Rocky Mountains. Since its identification, there has been much discussion about the chronological placement of the Goshen complex. This is especially true because diagnostic Goshen projectile points occur stratigraphically below Folsom artifacts at two sites, and early dates from the Mill Iron site, Montana, and the Hell Gap site, Wyoming, have suggested that this point type might be coeval with Clovis or the very earliest Folsom sites. This report presents new radiocarbon dates from the Mill Iron site, reviews Goshen chronology, and revises the age of the Goshen complex as 10,450 ± 15 to 10,175 ± 40 radiocarbon years B.P.

Hildebrandt and King (2012) propose a new method for distinguishing between archaeologically obtained atlatl darts and arrow points, suggesting their dart-arrow index identifies specimens more accurately than previously developed multivariate approaches. They assert that use of their index supports conclusions that the bow was a superior technology and replaced the atlatl quickly. I use their index, as well as Shott’s (1997) equations, to analyze southern Saskatchewan archaeological point specimens. My results suggest that the proposed dart-arrow index performs poorly for Canadian Plains specimens and that atlatl and bow technology coexisted for an extended period of time.

Citizen science, as a process of volunteer participation through crowdsourcing, facilitates the creation of mass data sets needed to address subtle and large-scale patterns in complex phenomena. Citizen science efforts in other field disciplines such as biology, geography, and astronomy indicate how new web-based interfaces can enhance and expand upon archaeologists’ existing platforms of volunteer engagement such as field schools, community archaeology, site stewardship, and professional–avocational partnerships. Archaeological research can benefit from the citizen science paradigm in four ways: fieldwork that makes use of widely available technologies such as mobile applications for photography and data upload; searches of large satellite image collections for site identification and monitoring; crowdfunding; and crowdsourced computer entry of heritage data.