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Plastic deposition in hydrological systems is a pervasive problem at all geographic scales from loci of pollution to global ocean circulation. Much attention has been devoted to plastic deposition in marine contexts, but little is known about inputs of plastics into local hydrological systems, such as streams. Attempts to prevent plastic litter must incorporate the role of people's behaviors, so we employ a behavioral archaeological framework to distinguish between various cultural inputs (e.g., littering) and noncultural forces (e.g., stream transport and wind) that affect litter patterns on the landscape. Four sites with varying cultural uses were surveyed monthly for eight months along a creek in Texas, and analysis of the data included chi-square and Kruskal Wallis tests, and abundance indices comparing material types across sites. We found that sites have drastically different distributions in plastic litter, and these patterns appear to align with the cultural uses (hiking, fishing, roadway) and presence or absence of noncultural forces at each site. This information can be used to inform efforts to reduce littering at these and potentially other locations with similar characteristics. This study illustrates that an archaeological framework provides an efficient and accurate way to generate local data on littering behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple cultural identities converge in Mesa Verde archaeology. Archaeologists have engaged research questions for the last half century, leading to cultural reconstructive summaries about how Pueblo people lived prior to migrating out of the Mesa Verde region. The importance of this narrative centers on the identity of the researcher as an archaeologist. An increasingly recognized narrative among archaeologists is that of Pueblo identity, in which contemporary Pueblo people claim Mesa Verde villages and landscapes as part of their heritage. Generally speaking, Pueblo people and archaeologists navigate separate moral terrains, which pose multiple obstacles for both archaeologists and Pueblo people pertaining to the past, present, and future of the Mesa Verde region. A conceptual framework from environmental philosophy opens a platform for reconciliation by providing a relational narrative that empowers Pueblo identity and recalibrates archaeology. This environmental justice lens is applied to two archaeological research narratives, one centering on chemical analysis of biomolecular artifact residues and the other on paleohydrology and Pueblo farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Focuses on a study conducted on the history of Americanist archaeology, while discussing seriation, superposition and interdigitation. What does frequency seriation involves; Indication that interdigitation is an important component of several percentage-stratigraphic studies; Results of the study.

Prehistoric peoples chose farming locations based on environmental conditions, such as soil moisture, which plays a crucial role in crop production. Ancestral Pueblo communities of the central Mesa Verde region became increasingly reliant on maize agriculture for their subsistence needs by AD 900. Prehistoric agriculturalists (e.g., Ancestral Pueblo farmers) were dependent on having sufficient soil moisture for successful plant growth. To better understand the quality of farmland in terms of soil moisture, this study develops a static geospatial soil moisture model, the Soil Moisture Proxy Model, which uses soil and topographic variables to estimate soil moisture potential across a watershed. The model is applied to the semi-arid region of the Goodman watershed in the central Mesa Verde region of southwestern Colorado. We evaluate the model by comparing the Goodman watershed output to two other watersheds and to soil moisture sensor values. The simple framework can be used in other regions of the world, where water is also an important limiting factor for farming. The general outcome of this research is an improved understanding of potential farmland and human-environmental relationships across the local landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing body of evidence demonstrating that proteins can survive for thousands to even millions of years in selected contexts, there are relatively few examples of the successful recovery and identification of archaeological protein residues from ceramic artifacts. Claims of positive results are sometimes contentious and frequently challenged. One source of confusion in the debate is a general lack of consideration for the taphonomic histories of ceramic-bound proteins. To gain insight into this issue, we conducted an integrated, mass spectrometry-based study examining ceramic-bound protein that was experimentally aged over the course of 12 months. Results demonstrate the rapid degradation of proteins, raise questions about the degree to which ceramic-bound proteins can be expected to survive over time, and reveal some of the limitations of non-targeted mass spectrometry-based analyses. Further, by comparing results from our experimentally-aged samples to the those we obtained from a multi-pronged study of archaeological ceramics from the American Southwest, we are able to draw more confident conclusions regarding our lack of meaningful matches in the archaeological samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extraction of protein residues from archaeological matrices, such as pottery clay, lithics, and grinding stones, has proven to be methodologically challenging. Protein residue analysis is fraught with technical challenges in analytical chemistry. In cooking pottery, protein residues are thought to bind to clay surfaces in vessel walls through a variety of primarily non-covalent interactions. Removal of protein residues requires the disruption of these interactions, and a diverse set of tools has been proposed and applied. Here, we test extraction procedures through varying combinations of physical parameters and solvents to derive an optimal approach yielding efficiencies of recovery from experimental pottery above 60%. The utility of our extraction approach was further validated through liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of experimental residues. We have identified several hurdles to developing a successful study of protein residues from pottery, each of which is surmountable with additional method development in the realm of archaeological chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]