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Zooarchaeologists have long realized the analytical potential of ungulate mortality data in studies of temporally shifting foraging efficiency. An additional hat seldom examined form of evidence from ungulate remains is the morphometry of ageindependent body size. Together simple bivariate morphometric and mortality data from ungulate remains reveal shifts through time in harvest pressure and/or environmental carrying capacity. A proposed model of these effects is validated using wildlife biology data from white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), an ungulate taxon that is very common in North American archaeological faunas. Several archaeological implications that bear on studies of foraging efficiency in subsistence hunting economies arise from this ordinal-scale model, such as the conditions under which harvest pressure increases or decreases or when carrying capacity rises or declines. Desde hace mucho tiempo los zooarchaeologos han realizado el potencial analitico de los datos de mortalidad ungulados adquiridos a traves de estudios en los cuales se cambia temporalmente la eficacia buscada. Una adicional pero rara forma de examinar las pruebas del ungulado es el morphometry del tamano de cuerpo independientemente de la edad. Juntos simples datos de vicariato morphometric y la mortalidad del las permanencias ungulado revelan cambios a traves del tiempo durante presion de cosecha y/o capacidad de transporte ambiental. Un modelo propuesto de estos efectos es validado usando datos de biologia de fauna del venado 'white-tail' (Odocoileus virginianus), un taxon ungulado que es muy comun en la fauna arqueologica Norteamericana. Varias implicaciones arqueologicas que tienen que ver con estudios de buscar la eficacia en la subsistencia que caza economias provienen de este modelo de escala ordinal, como las condiciones en las cuales la presion de cosecha aumenta o disminuye o cuando la capacidad cargada sube o hay decadencia., Zooarchaeological studies that demonstrate long-term changes in human foraging efficiency generally cite one of two factors as causal: (1) fluctuations in prey availability that relate to human harvest rates (sensu [...]

Archaeological studies of temporal changes in human predation strategy using foraging theory tend to focus on the role of overexploitation of important prey resources and resulting resource depression. An alternative use of the prey-choice model framed under foraging theory is to investigate the influence of environmental changes, such as increases in climate stress, on prey availability. Environmental change can be expected to produce many of the same effects on human predation strategy as resource depression. Here analytical techniques typically used to study the effects of over-predation and resource depression caused by humans are used to monitor their response to fluctuations in prey availability related to climate change during the Holocene in Missouri. Data and interpretations presented here add to the growing body of zooarchaeological foraging theory literature implicating environmental change as a critical factor in human diet. Los estudios arqueologicos de cambios temporales en estrategia humana depredatoria que se basan en la teoria de forrajeo suelen concentrarse en el papel de la sobreexplotacion de importantes presas de caza que resultan en depresion de recursos. Una alternativa para el uso del modelo predatario-preferido enmarcado bajo la teoria de forrajeo es el investigar la influencia de los cambios ambientales, como el incremento de estres en el clima, en la disponibilidad de presas. Es de esperase que los cambios ambientales produzcan muchos de los mismos efectos en la estrategia humana depredatoria asi como en la depresion de recursos. Aqui tecnicas analiticas tipicamente usadas para estudiar los efectos de la sobre depredacion y depresion de recursos causados por humanos son usadas para supervisar la respuesta a la fluctuacion en la disponibilidad de presas relacionadas al cambio ambiental durante el Holoceno en Missouri. Los datos y la interpretacion presentada aqui amplian el cuelpo de la literatura sobre teoria forrajera zooarqueologica, implicando los cambios ambientales como factores criticos en la dieta humana., Studies of Holocene fauna from central Missouri are typically used to interpret climate change (e.g., Klippel et al. 1978; McMillan and Klippel 1981; Purdue 1980; Purdue and Styles 1987; Wolverton [...]

Histories of Americanist archaeology regularly confuse frequency seriation with a technique for measuring the passage of time based on superposition - percentage stratigraphy - and fail to mention interdigitation as an important component of some percentage-stratigraphic studies. Frequency seriation involves the arrangement of collections so that each artifact type displays a unimodal frequency distribution, but the direction of time's flow must be determined from independent evidence. Percentage stratigraphy plots the fluctuating frequencies of types, but the order of collections is based on their superposition, which in turn illustrates the direction of time's flow. Interdigitation involves the integration of sets of percentage-stratigraphy data from different horizontal proveniences under the rules that (1) the order of superposed collections cannot be reversed and (2) each type must display a unimodal frequency distribution. Ceramic stratigraphy is similar to occurrence seriation, as both focus on the presence-absence of types with limited temporal distributions - index fossils - but the former uses the superposed positions of types to indicate the direction of time's flow, whereas occurrence seriation does not., The culture-history paradigm constituted the first body of methods used by Americanist archaeologists of the twentieth century to derive meaning from the archaeological record (Binford 1968; Deetz 1970; Dunnell 1978, [...]

Previous studies report that remains of prairie taxa are common in western Missouri archaeological sites. There is no reported evidence of prairie taxa, such as Bos bison, from sites within the northern Ozark Highlands of Missouri. New data indicate that prairie taxa inhabited the area during the warm and dry mid-Holocene (8500–5000 14C yr B.P.). Evidence suggests prairie taxa were farther east and south than previously documented in central Missouri and underscores the importance of biogeographic data in studies of prehistoric environments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]