Shell mounds have not been investigated as prominent ritual features in southern California, despite evidence to the contrary. The largest extant shell mound in the region is on Santa Cruz Island, measures 270 by 210 m (44,532 m² in area), is 8 m higher than the terrace it rests on, is covered with 50 house depressions, and dates to 6000–2500 B.P. In the 1920s, three cemeteries were excavated at the top of El Montón; one young woman stood out among the over 200 individuals in that she was buried with 157 stone effigies. Analysis of multiple lines of evidence, including stratigraphic profiles of features, 85 radiocarbon dates, ground penetrating radar, and mortuary data, supports my claim that the mound was a persistent place where early visitors had significant feasts, constructed dwellings, buried their dead, and performed ceremonies where select groups of infants, children, and adults were revered. These mortuary rites conveyed the symbolic power of the place and created a history of events that became part of a mythical and real past that was repeatedly visited, modified, and (re)interpreted as social relationships were reinforced. This study supports the idea that shell mounds are socially constructed landscapes, not just accumulations of refuse.

The late adoption of pottery technology in the North American Arctic between 2,500 and 2,800 years ago coincides with the development of a specialized maritime economy. Arctic pottery technologies present an excellent case study for examining possible correlations between hunter-gatherer pottery and aquatic resource use. Review of the timing and distribution of early pottery in Alaska shows that early pottery is rare and dates at the earliest to 2,500 years ago; the earliest pottery is found in small numbers and primarily in coastal areas. Despite expectations that pottery use would be strongly linked to marine lipids, biomarkers and compound-specific δ13C values of 20 sherds from the Cape Krusenstern site complex, dating from 2700 to 200 cal B.P. years ago, are most consistent with freshwater aquatic resources; mixtures of freshwater aquatic, marine aquatic, and terrestrial resources are also possible. While additional analysis of a larger sample and zooarchaeological reference specimens is necessary, our study suggests that the development of pottery production by Arctic peoples is more complex than previously appreciated. This research is the first synthesis in over 30 years of early pottery in Alaska and is the first to include residue analysis of a small sample of pre-1500 B.P. pottery.

Quebec City (Canada) is well-known for its unique wild environments and its protected cultural heritage, which have attracted tourists to the area for centuries. Often taken for granted or overlooked, the interactions between its natural and cultural landscape have been scantly investigated in a diachronic perspective in archaeology. This article explores the relationship between Quebec City's colonists/inhabitants and their surrounding territory, through the study of food plants for the period between 1535 and 1900. It contrasts visitors’ accounts and official discourses with daily experience using a combination of historical and archaeobotanical evidence to unravel how changing historical, social, and political contingencies impacted past perceptions of “wilderness” as manifested in food choices. In this process, the consumption of local indigenous plants has been interpreted as a form of incorporation of local environments that can enlighten us about popular attitudes toward the New World's natural features.

While the North American archaeological record signals the presence of early humans along the northeastern Pacific coast by the Late Pleistocene, we know little about the technological systems employed by these coastally oriented colonizing groups. We here report the discovery of the earliest unequivocal evidence for the use and manufacture of shell fishhooks in the western hemisphere. Four single-piece shell fishhooks dating to the terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene transition (between ~11,300 and 10,700 cal B.P.) have been excavated on Isla Cedros, Baja California, Mexico. One hook is directly dated at 9495 ± 25 B.P. with a marine reservoir–corrected age of 11,165–9185 cal B.P. Radiocarbon ages associated with three other shell fishhooks range between 8900 ± 25 B.P. and 10,415 ± 25 B.P, while median ages for the earliest contexts confirm occupation of the island by at least 12,600–12,000 cal B.P. The stratigraphic levels from which the fishhooks were recovered contained a diverse assemblage of fish remains, including deepwater species, indicative of boat use. Thus, some of the earliest known inhabitants of the Pacific coast of the Americas employed shell hook and line technology for offshore marine fishing at least by the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, if not earlier.

Using archaeological data of two human intestinal parasites from seventeenth- to early twentieth-century contexts, we explore the intersection of biological and cultural variables that shaped the ecology of cities in northeastern North America during the modern period. These parasites are useful because they require a developmental period in the soil, thus providing a link between human activities and changing environments. Prior to the last decades of the eighteenth century, Trichuris eggs dominate the archaeoparasitological assemblage. Around 1800, there is a shift to increasing proportions of Ascaris eggs, which appears to be largely complete by 1850—a period of increasing urbanization in the northeast United States. Both environmental and behavioral factors play a role in this shift and include the relationship between parasite biology and changing microenvironments, attempts to deal with waste, and use of urban spaces. During this period, poorer households would likely have been at greater risk of parasites because of the ways they used yard spaces, their delayed access to sanitary technology, and the changing nature of urban vegetation in densely occupied neighborhoods.

In western North America, the Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) is contemporaneous with, but technologically different from, the Clovis Paleoindian Tradition as initially defined from the Great Plains and American Southwest. The foundational principles of WST lithic technology have not been as clearly delineated as those of their fluted and unfluted Paleoindian Tradition technological counterparts, largely due to the paucity of extensive WST lithic assemblages recovered from intact buried contexts. Recent excavations at the Cooper's Ferry site, located in western Idaho, revealed a stratified series of WST components spanning the late Pleistocene to early Holocene periods. The study of these components offers a unique opportunity to evaluate current expectations about WST lithic technology. Here, we describe the discovery, context, and contents of a new cache of 14 WST projectile points from the Cooper's Ferry site that provide clues about WST lithic reduction patterns and the design of early stemmed projectile points. We employ several novel methods of lithic analysis based on three-dimensional digital scanning technology and geometric morphometry and, in doing so, seek to demonstrate new ways of studying stone tools through the use of next-generation methods of lithic analysis applied to exploring the poorly known technological details of the WST.

Oregon's Fort Rock Cave is iconic in respect to both the archaeology of the northern Great Basin and the history of debate about when the Great Basin was colonized. In 1938, Luther Cressman recovered dozens of sagebrush bark sandals from beneath Mt. Mazama ash that were later radiocarbon dated to between 10,500 and 9350 cal B.P. In 1970, Stephen Bedwell reported finding lithic tools associated with a date of more than 15,000 cal B.P., a date dismissed as unreasonably old by most researchers. Now, with evidence of a nearly 15,000-year-old occupation at the nearby Paisley Five Mile Point Caves, we returned to Fort Rock Cave to evaluate the validity of Bedwell's claim, assess the stratigraphic integrity of remaining deposits, and determine the potential for future work at the site. Here, we report the results of additional fieldwork at Fort Rock Cave undertaken in 2015 and 2016, which supports the early Holocene occupation, but does not confirm a pre–10,500 cal B.P. human presence.

The 1960s and 1970s excavations at Owl Cave (10BV30) recovered mammoth bone and Folsom-like points from the same strata, suggesting evidence for a post-Clovis mammoth kill. However, a synthesis of the excavation data was never published, and the locality has since been purged from the roster of sites with human/extinct megafauna associations. Here, we present dates on bone from the oldest stratum, review provenience data, conduct a bone-surface modification study, and present the results of a protein-residue analysis. Our study fails to make the case for mammoth hunting by Folsom peoples. Although two of the point fragments tested positive for horse or elephant protein, recent AMS dates indicate that all of the mammoth remains predate Folsom, and horse remains are absent from the Owl Cave collection. Further, no unambiguously cultural surface modifications were identified on any of the mammoth remains. Given the available data, the Owl Cave deposits are most parsimoniously read as containing a Folsom-age occupation in a buried context, the first of its kind in the desert West, but one nonetheless part of a palimpsest of terminal Pleistocene materials.

Radiocarbon dating using charcoal and bone collagen, two standards of archaeological chronology, can be difficult to impossible in environments where natural burning is common and bone does not preserve well. In such settings, charcoal ages cannot always be trusted and collagen is unavailable. Calcined bone can be a viable alternative medium in these situations but it has rarely been exploited in the Americas. One area that could benefit from its use is the forested Pacific Northwest. We compare calcined bone ages with charcoal and/or collagen dates from individual features or discrete cultural strata in 10 Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia sites dating between 9000 and 100 B.P. Resulting radiocarbon age estimates based on calcined bone closely match those based on charcoal and/or collagen in nearly all cases. We obtained calcined bone dates from three additional Holocene-aged sites that had not previously produced accurate results, obtaining findings consistent with estimates based on cross dating. Preserving well where all other organic media of cultural origin are lost or unreliable, calcined bone holds promise for dating sites in conifer forests and other acidic soil settings, and can allow researchers to refine archaeological sequences that have long defied accurate chronometric analysis.

Heitman's (2016) feminist critique of Chacoan archaeology omits consideration of matrilineal descent theory.

Ware's comment misses the point of Heitman's (2016) article and further demonstrates the need for feminist science perspectives.