The research reported here focuses on late Paleoindian occupation of the Southern Rocky Mountains, circa 10,000-7,500 B.P., and it addresses two fundamental issues. First, an attempt is made to characterize the extent of late Paleoindian occupation of the Rockies as full-time, seasonal, sporadic, or some combination thereof Second, the nature of late Paleoindian use of the Rocky Mountain landscape--whether logistically-organized, predominantly residentially mobile, or both--is evaluated. To address these problems, 589 projectile points from the states of Colorado and Utah are analyzed and compared across the five physiographic regions that comprise the project area: the Plains, Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, Great Basin mountains (that separate the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin), and the Rockies themselves. Analyses focus on three vectors of potential projectile point variability: morphology and typology, raw material use, and technology. To resolve the extent of Rocky Mountain occupation, inter-regional comparisons attempt to identify the degree to which late Paleoindian projectile points from the Southern Rockies resemble those from adjacent regions along the aforementioned axes of variability. A unique suite of features represents a greater commitment to the Rockies; features in common with other regions indicates an affiliation(s) with them and reduced reliance on the Rockies. Assessing the nature of late Paleoindian Rocky Mountain land use likewise depends on regional comparisons of projectile points, although in this case technological elements (qualitative observations, dimensional and other ratio-scale characteristics, and point condition and reworking) are of primary importance because they can be theoretically linked to land use correlates. The research concludes that late Paleoindian Rocky Mountain occupation was multi-faceted, and included full-time use of the mountains by groups uniquely adapted to life in that environment; seasonal (summer--early fall) use by groups who otherwise occupied the Plains; and sporadic use by groups based to the east and west. In addition, late Paleoindian occupation of the Southern Rockies is inferred to have been primarily logistically-organized, a mobility strategy shared by groups occupying the Plains to the east, but not by those occupying the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin mountains, or Great Basin to the west.

This study seeks to study the social processes of community reorganization through the changing technological organization of flaked stone tools. The Mogollon Rim region of east-central Arizona, between AD 1000 and AD 1400, was the scene of remarkable social changes. In this period, migrants were attracted into the region and new small communities were created. After a period of dispersed settlement pattern communities, some of the communities developed large, aggregated settlements. In this process of aggregation, community growth was facilitated by the incorporation of migrants. Social integrative forces at work included the development of interhousehold exchanges, as well as informal and formal suprahousehold organizations. In spite of these social integrative forces, community dissolution and abandonment sooner or later came to all of these settlements. The technology of daily life is one means of exploring these social organizational forces. Chipped stone studies have been behind the times in the American Southwest when addressing social organization research through the examination of Pueblo chipped stone assemblages. Technological organization is a creation of households and suprahousehold groups. Technological organization changes as community organization changes. This study examines the chipped stone tools and debitage from ten east-central Arizona pueblos, forming inferences about how the organization of chipped stone tool production, distribution, consumption, and discard was arranged in each community. Each community studied was a product of migrants and resident families, social exchanges, social integration, and social dissolution. This study demonstrates the utility of chipped stone analysis for studying the social processes at work in communities.

High ubiquities of maize, coupled with other evidence of extended occupations at large Early Agricultural period sites in the floodplain of the Middle Santa Cruz River, Tucson Basin, suggest an early commitment to cultivation, and raise questions about the settlement-subsistence system. Large, exceptionally well preserved faunal assemblages at these sites indicate that game made a significant dietary contribution during permanent or semi-permanent occupations with subsistence systems centered on cultivated and collected plants. To investigate diachronic changes in the selection and use of faunal resources during the transition to agricultural dependence and sedentism, estimates of available biomass, archaeofaunal assemblages, and their depositional contexts from several floodplain sites are compared. Accompanying the trends of increasing population, sedentism, and agricultural commitment, predicted changes include a decreasing frequency of artiodactyls, increasing intensity of processing of large game, an increase in the ratio of jackrabbits to cottontails, and evidence of increasing activities in communal space. Analyses of disposal contexts with primary, secondary, and de facto faunal refuse at six floodplain sites dating to the Cienega and Agua Caliente phases yielded evidence supporting these predictions. Intersite variability indicates site-specific solutions relating to settlement growth. Changes in the patterns of bone disposal in abandoned structures, short-lived intramural pits, and extramural processing features indicate that, over time, communal activities may have increased in response to faunal resource stress.

The earliest indirect evidence of basketry through clay impressions extends back to about 11,000 years (in the Jomon Period), in Egyptian tombs, in early Peruvian sites or the cliff dwellers of the American Southwest. An artifact that has had a long tradition--yet their exact appearance in the archaeological record may never be known with certainty because of factors of preservation. The production of basketry is one of the oldest non-lithic crafts in the world and the evidence of this industry has been continued with little change down to the present time and is very sensitive indicators of cultural chronology. Basketry in contrast to pottery provides a finite number of logical alternatives and the possible combinations are culturally determined to a very high degree. The weaver's relationship with any type of basket is predicated on and conditioned by the fact that all of the weaver's manufacturing choices are physically represented in the finished specimen. It is unfortunate that basketry has not been a major focus of material culture research by archaeologists primarily because of the loss of preservation of baskets in archaeological context. The extant inventory of prehistoric basketry from different parts of the world is but a dim reflection of the original incidence of manufacture. It is unfortunate that basketry has not been a major focus of material culture research by archaeologists and is misunderstood as an artifact class. This ethnoarchaeological study has been initiated to explore the production technology between basket weaving specialists and non-specialists and the distribution of the craft among the Kalinga in the Cordilleras of northern Philippines. The analysis of Kalinga basketry technology and evaluating the economics of the craft is discussed. It hopes to provide a parallel and contrasting understanding of basketry production alongside pottery production extensively researched by the Kalinga Ethnoarchaeology Project. Investigating the initial processes of basketry production, distribution and consumption among the Kalinga should illuminate the understanding of the prehistory of basketry. In the assumption, that the Kalinga is roughly analogous as a neolithic society, popularized in the turn of the century for their headhunting pursuits and a codified custom law.

The term 'Salado' was employed in the 1930's to describe an intrusive Puebloan culture that appeared in the Tonto Basin during the A.D. 1100-1300 interval. Subsequent debate focused on whether the Salado horizon represented Puebloan migration or indigenous development from the pre-Classic Hohokam. After reviewing current views of migration and style in archaeology, the occurrence, scale, and impact of population movement is assessed in the eastern Tonto Basin using mundane and low visibility material culture from domestic contexts. This data set is rich in stylistic behavior that informs on the enculturative background of the producing groups, a social dimension that can be used to track population movement more accurately than overt displays of identity and ethnicity. An extensive survey of ethnoarchaeological case studies lends empirical support for this strategy. Variability in domestic spatial organization, residential construction and utilitarian ceramic manufacture indicate limited Puebloan immigration into the region during the late thirteenth century, with migrant households settling on the margins of an established irrigation community. Following reconstruction of this enculturative backdrop, material culture intentionally produced for exchange or to convey social messages is examined, including decorated ceramics, personal ornamentation, platform mounds, and local exchange goods. These data sets indicate that economic and social relations, though initially cooperative, favored indigenous groups. This asymmetry and further immigration may have resulted in the collapse of this community in the early fourteenth century.

Laguna Bustillos Basin in central Chihuahua is one of several closed basins having abundant remains of human occupation. During several field seasons of survey and excavation in this basin and surrounding areas, 75 sites were recorded, and ten of these partially excavated. Objectives of this research were describing archaeological remains, introducing a preliminary culture historical framework for the Ceramic period, and both identifying and addressing topics for research. Late Archaic period sites are abundant in a dunefield north of Laguna Bustillos. Most excavated sites are small Ceramic period rancheria settlements. Radiocarbon dates from these sites span roughly AD 200 to AD 1200, with a preponderance of calibrated dates spanning AD 800-1200. These are referred to as La Cruz sites. Additionally, one multi-component cave site and a cerro de trincheras were tested. The cave provided evidence of repeated use of mountains bounding the north side of Laguna Bustillos Basin. Radiocarbon dates from the cerro de trincheras indicate later occupation, probably after AD 1400. A pit house was excavated in one site 80 km north of Laguna Bustillos. This site is the same radiocarbon age as most or all La Cruz sites but distinctly different, belonging to the Viejo period of Northwest Chihuahua. These results are used to suggest that a social boundary existed between these areas 1000 years ago and that Laguna Bustillos Basin was temporarily abandoned at approximately AD 1200. Cultural persistence and emphatic dependence on local resources by dispersed populations are also viable interests for future research.

This dissertation is a study in the use of formal optimality models to explore intersite variability in lithic assemblages within a behavioral ecological framework. Formal models of raw material procurement, core, biface, and tool design, and flake and tool discard are developed and tested using data from late Pleistocene Folsom and Goshen archaeological sites in Wyoming and Colorado: Locality B of Barger Gulch, Upper Twin Mountain, Krmpotich, the Area 2 Folsom component of Agate Basin, and the Folsom component of Carter/Kerr-McGee. Because residential mobility is a primary constraint shaping the technology of mobile peoples, I also develop various assemblage-scale measures of occupation span and site reoccupation to allow investigation of the effects of mobility on lithic technology. It is argued that the goals of the behavioral ecological approach are identical to those of "technological organization"--to determine the general principles governing the use and discard of stone tools within an optimality framework. However, the use of formal models in behavioral ecology, as opposed to informal narrative models in studies of technological organization, results in a logically and theoretically more robust method in the former, due to explicit definition of constraints, currencies, and goals. Unlike many models of technological organization, the models developed herein are based upon very simple component variables that are relatively straightforward to monitor with archaeological data. Furthermore, when using formal mathematical models, predictions must logically follow from the theoretical construct, something not necessarily true of informal models. I highlight the utility of this approach by drawing several conclusions about Folsom and Goshen mobility and technology in the study area. Although Paleoindian adaptations are often portrayed as somewhat redundant, I emphasize that considerable variability exists within the Paleoindian mobility and technological regimes.

I examine Clovis subsistence strategies within the broader context of predatory adaptations in cross-cultural and cross-species frameworks. To derive implications for labor activities of Clovis men and women, I also address the relationship between subsistence variation and the organization of labor for a sample of recent hunting and gathering populations. I begin by placing humans within a broad zoological context. Examining variation in hunter-gatherer subsistence in relation to predatory-prey relationships reveals how humans are both subject to and alter the constraints governing other terrestrial carnivorous species. It is concluded that human populations often utilize an inordinately broad size range of prey relative to other predators. I then explore human prey selection within an optimal foraging framework with respect to variance and risk. Based on predicted relationships between prey encounter rate and body size, I develop a model for differentiating between large-game hunting specialization and encounter-based hunting. The model is first tested with ethnographically documented prey inventories for a sample of recent subsistence hunting populations, and is found to reveal distinct faunal signatures typical of each strategy. The model is then applied to the Clovis faunal record using faunal data from 33 Clovis sites. I find strong support for the hypothesis that Clovis hunter-gatherers used a large-game focused hunting strategy, although some use of small game is apparent. Furthermore, I employ data from modern hunter-gatherers to support the theoretical plausibility of specialized large mammal hunting across North America during the Late Pleistocene. Finally, I examine how subsistence choices affect the gendered division of labor in ethnographically documented populations. I examine the relationship between male and female subsistence efforts in terms of resource procurement, time allocation, and task differentiation. It is established that as male dietary contribution increases, female plant gathering focuses on high post-encounter return/low risk resources, the amount of time women spend procuring food decreases, and female participation in non-subsistence activities increases. An interpretation of Clovis labor organization is developed that emphasizes female labor in the production of material goods and the procurement of low risk resources.

Recent excavations at large Early Agricultural Period village sites in Tucson, Arizona have greatly increased archaeological knowledge about the introduction of agriculture into the U.S. Southwest. The sites of Los Pozos (AZ AA:12:91 [ASM]), Las Capas (AZ AA:12:111 [ASM]), and AZ AA:12:92 (ASM) yielded very large faunal assemblages dating to the Middle Archaic, San Pedro, Early Cienega, and Late Cienega phases, spanning the introduction of Mesoamerican domesticates. This dissertation compares the fauna from these sites to a large database of published faunal material from sites dating to the Middle Archaic through Classic Hohokam periods in southern Arizona. Faunal assemblages provide an important body of data on the social and economic changes that occurred before, during, and after the introduction of agriculture into this region. Farming societies developed within the context of small animal dominated hunting economies, with a strong focus on cottontail rabbits ( Sylvilagus sp.) and jackrabbits (Lepus sp.) as the protein staple. Intensification of agricultural and hunting strategies throughout the Hohokam sequence is reflected in the impact that growing human populations had on the environment surrounding their villages and fields, which can be seen through changes in the relative proportions and ubiquity of small animals, especially rodents. Hunting intensification mirrors these changes, with significant increases in diet breadth occurring before the introduction of agriculture and during the Sedentary and Classic periods, corresponding with the highest prehistoric populations. Increases in diet breadth can be seen in the use of low-ranked taxa, such as fish and birds, and also in the willingness of hunters to travel greater distances in the search of large game, especially deer (Odocoileus sp.) and bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) from upland environments. Large village sites from the Early Agricultural Period suggest that fully agricultural communities developed very early on the floodplains of southern Arizona. Although these societies emerged out of intensive Middle Archaic hunting adaptations, it is not until the Sedentary and Classic periods that the faunal evidence points to any further increase in site-use intensity and diet breadth, suggesting that even these large early villages had economic and landscape-use patterns similar to Middle Archaic foragers.

This study examines Pre-Classic Hohokam sociopolitical organization using data collected from recent research in the middle Gila River Valley of southern Arizona. The Pre-Classic period, ca. A.D. 500 to 1150, witnessed the first appearance of extensive irrigation works in the middle Gila River Valley. It also witnessed the introduction of ballcourts as part of a regional ceremonial and exchange system. Archaeologists disagree about the conditions that gave rise to these developments. Some researchers point to the scale of the irrigation works and the apparent need for massive labor coordination to argue for political centralization and the emergence of bureaucratic elites. Others point to the likely use of ballcourts as ritual facilities to argue that ultimate authority was vested in the hands of religious leaders. The dynamics of power in Hohokam society are examined in this study from the vantage point of a group of households that lived at the Grewe site, the ancestral village to Casa Grande Ruins. Attention is directed to the demographic and environmental conditions that contributed to household inequality at Grewe. New methods are advanced for deriving population estimates and measuring household wealth based on architectural evidence. This information is then used to explore the role of wealthy households in promoting political growth in early Hohokam society. It is argued that the influence of wealthy households extended across multiple social levels and multiple generations.