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The annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) was roiled by a #MeToo scandal this past weekend, when an archaeologist banned from his university9s campus for sexual harassment attended part of the meeting. Some of his accusers were also present: They used the buddy system to avoid running into him alone and missed the conference sessions they most wanted to see. Many archaeologists were outraged that the accusers9 meeting was spoiled and that meeting organizers did not immediately eject the alleged harasser. The situation exposed blind spots in SAA9s new harassment policy, instituted for the first time this year. The policy encourages attendees to report incidents of harassment to SAA staff and officers, who were wearing buttons that said "Talk to Me." But the procedures for investigating and addressing complaints focused exclusively on incidents at the meeting itself and could not guarantee protection for survivors of past harassment.

Beliefs in "pseudoarchaeology"—ancient aliens, Atlantis, and other myths—are on the rise. In 2018 41% of Americans believed that aliens visited Earth in the ancient past, and 57% believed that Atlantis or other advanced ancient civilizations existed. These outlandish beliefs have been circulating for decades, and archaeologists are now mobilizing to counter them. They are taking to Twitter, blogs, podcasts, YouTube, and newspapers to debunk false claims and explain real archaeological methods, and they plan to compare notes this week during a symposium at the Society for American Archaeology meeting. These researchers hope to provide a curious public with real scientific information and reveal pseudoarchaeology9s racist roots.

Archaeology Archaeologists long thought that the first humans to arrive in the Americas were the Clovis people, who came via an ice-free corridor on the Beringia land bridge no more than 13,500 years ago. Since the early 2000s, evidence for older human sites has accumulated. In a Perspective, Braje et al. highlight recent suggestions that these earlier humans came via a “kelp highway” along the Pacific coasts of Asia and the Americas. However, because most pre-Clovis sites along the coast are likely to be submerged by today's higher sea levels, it will be difficult to find direct evidence for this route. Science , this issue p. [592][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aao5473

Climate researchers have fingered drought in the collapse of the great Maya civilization, but many archaeologists say it doesn9t fit their data. New studies, several of which are being presented at the Society for American Archaeology meeting this week, suggest productive ways out of this impasse. Researchers are using novel paleoclimatic indicators tied closely to specific archaeological sites to see just what ancient Maya experienced; others are modeling the climatic impact of deforestation. These efforts show a new willingness among archaeologists to work hand-in-glove with paleoclimatologists.

Paleontology Peopling of the Americas was a late event in human expansion that has been shrouded in uncertainty. Llamas et al. analyzed the mitochondrial genomes of 92 pre-Columbian skeletons from 8600 to 500 years ago to shed light on human migration into the Americas. These immigrants from Asia were briefly isolated in the Bering Land Bridge during the last major ice age that lowered sea levels to permit the crossing. Starting about 16,000 years ago, these peoples rapidly spread along the west coast of the Americas. Interestingly, a mass extinction of these peoples on the west coast of South America appears to coincide with the time of European incursions. Sci. Adv. 2 , 10.1126.sciadv.01385 (2016)

ARCHAEOLOGYNew analyses presented this week at a special symposium at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in Seattle suggest that prehistoric North America, once considered peaceful, was instead a bitter battlefield where tribes fought over land and water. Clever new ways to read the subtle marks of periodic warfare in such features as the arrangement of villages and the placement of wells, plus direct evidence of massacres ([see sidebar][1]), are persuading archaeologists that ancient North American societies made war as fiercely as any nation states in order to acquire scarce resources, particularly when the climate turned harsh. But skeptics argue that warfare advocates have yet to present convincing proof that ancient hostilities claimed many lives. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/279/5359/2039

A vocal group of geologists and other scientists are pushing to define a new geological epoch, marked by climatic and environmental change caused by humans. At the Society for American Archaeology meetings in Honolulu, archaeologists argued that it9s high time for their field, which studies humans and their activities over geological time, to have a greater voice in the debate. The archaeologists agreed that human impacts on the Earth are dramatic enough to merit a new epoch name—but they also argued that such an epoch should start thousands of years ago, rather than focusing on a relatively sudden planetwide change.

A U.S.-German team is gathering the first comprehensive evidence that the earliest farmers in the Levant ate a wide variety of plants, including starchy tubers, which may have allowed them to experiment with grain cultivation without fear of starvation, the team reported at the Society for American Archaeology meeting.

A massive settlement in the Orkhon Valley in central Mongolia and a host of others nearby have been found to date from the 8th and 9th centuries C.E., the time of the Uigher empire, which was not known to have built large settlements in this remote area, researchers reported at the Society for American Archaeology meeting.

When the monsoons failed 6 centuries ago in Southeast Asia, they caused two terrible droughts that helped to bring down the Khmer civilization centered at Angkor Wat in today9s Cambodia. Now researchers have evidence that later fluctuations in the monsoons can help explain dramatic social and political changes from India to China—and affect lives as far away as Mexico. New tree ring data detailing monsoon failures from 1250 C.E. to the present suggest that the droughts coincided with political upheaval, presumably by causing crop failure, researchers reported at the Society for American Archaeology meeting.

SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY MEETING Archaeologists have long regarded the ancient inhabitants of the northwest coast of North America as the people of the salmon, crediting abundant salmon runs for the rise of large villages and complex societies over the past 6000 years. Moreover, researchers

AUSTIN, TEXAS-- At the Society for American Archaeology meeting, held here from 25 to 29 April, archaeologists suggested that although the Indus River civilization, centered in what is now India and Pakistan, was initially able to adapt to a pronounced dry spell 4 millennia ago, the resultant shifts in vegetation and landscape eventually set the culture on a slow course of decline. (Read more.)

On 11 April 2011, Lewis Roberts Binford died of congestive heart failure at the age of 79 in Kirksville, Missouri. An era in archaeology ended with his death. Lew was born in 1931 in Norfolk, Virginia. He attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute until 1952, when he joined the military. While on duty in Japan he became interested in anthropology, and after leaving the service, he attended the University of North Carolina, graduating with a degree in anthropology in 1957. He continued studies in the discipline and received his MA in 1958 and, in 1964, his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the University of California at the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles campuses, and from 1968 to 1991, he was on the faculty of the University of New Mexico. He then taught at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas until his retirement in 2003. Lew published more than 20 books and 150 papers, dating back to 1959. He lectured throughout Europe, Asia, and North and South America. His many honors included election to the United States National Academy of Sciences, the Huxley Memorial Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, and the Society for American Archaeology's Lifetime Achievement Award. ![Figure][1] CREDIT: HILLSMAN JACKSON/© SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY To say that Lewis Binford was a mover and shaker is putting it mildly. Beginning with his 1962 paper, “Archaeology as Anthropology,” Lew wanted nothing less than to completely change how archaeologists approached archaeology. In the 1950s, many archaeologists saw the purpose of their enterprise as classification and artifacts as reflections of “mental templates,” useful for tracking the migration of “cultures” or the diffusion of ideas. Lew challenged archaeologists to do more by fully participating in anthropology. Kinship, for example, was a hot topic, so two of his first students, William Longacre and James Hill, used ceramics to study kinship in southwestern pueblos. Lew pushed archaeologists to work scientifically with analytical rigor, to create research designs, to pay attention to sampling, and to use statistically analyzed data to test hypotheses. He demanded that archaeologists understand why cultures change over time. Although he ceased traditional archaeological fieldwork by the 1970s, his research among the Nunamiut Inuit, the Navajo, and Australia's Alyawara helped pioneer ethnoarchaeology—the study of living communities—to create ways to interpret archaeological remains. He also pushed forward taphonomy, the study of how natural processes create assemblages of animal bones. As the chief architect of the “new archaeology,” later called “processual archaeology,” Lew focused on the adaptive processes of cultural change. He never found a lost temple, a new hominin species, or the oldest evidence of anything. Nonetheless, Lewis Binford was the most influential archaeologist of the 20th century. Lew thrived on controversy. Challenging orthodoxy, he argued that agriculture was not an inevitable cultural advance, but an adaptation to population pressure. He debated the eminent French archaeologist Francois Bordes, arguing that variation in Mousterian stone tool assemblages reflected functional differences rather than different “tribes” of Neandertals. Reanalyzing faunal assemblages from sites of considerable importance to human evolution, including Olduvai Gorge in Africa and Zhoukoudian in China, he replaced the cherished idea of big game hunting in the Lower Paleolithic with a vision of our human ancestors as lowly scavengers of carcasses. He was a harsh critic and argued with many, but I recall him saying that he only argued with people from whom he thought he could learn something. Lew focused on understanding how prehistoric societies were adaptive organizations. His 2001 magnum opus, Constructing Frames of Reference , used a database of ethnographic information and environmental data to examine the organization of hunter-gatherer societies, his lifelong interest, to understand how group size, food storage, mobility, diet, and social organization were adaptations to the environment. He also focused on what he labeled “middle-range theory,” arguments to make inferences from patterns in archaeological data. His books Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology (1978) and Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths (1981) showed how to interpret patterns in assemblages of animal bones in terms of butchering strategies and natural processes. He developed concepts (residential and logistical mobility, site structure, site furniture, expedient and curated technology) that led archaeologists the world over to think about spatial distributions of artifacts and technology in new ways. Lew was a brilliant speaker and teacher. As his graduate assistant, I would watch him develop lectures as he walked across campus to class. His conference presentations were standing room only, and his courses were routinely attended by non-enrolled students. He gave so willingly of his time to students and visitors that he rarely wrote in his university office. Instead, he wrote at home, where he kept two typewriters (in the days before computers) on two desks so he could work on two manuscripts simultaneously. Some 30 years later, his hunter-gatherer seminar remains vivid in my memory. Lew would often slip into a southern Baptist preacher mode and talk … and talk. One evening, a particular class that began at 7 PM found him still lecturing at midnight—and his audience still listening. Every time we walked out of that seminar, we felt as if the world had changed. Lew taught archaeologists to look at the big picture, to search for patterns, and to realize that our knowledge of the past is limited only by the imagination and effort we bring to creating methods to infer that past from its material remains. He saw the past not simply as a historical record of events, but as a record of adaptation. He moved the field from a largely descriptive effort to a more scientific, explanatory enterprise. And no one will move it as far for a long, long time. [1]: pending:yes

Society for American Archaeology 76th Annual MeetingSome researchers argue that syphilis and related bacterial illnesses arose in the New World and were transmitted to the Old World via Columbus's crew and that of later ships, while others argue that they were already present in both arenas, or just in the Old World. Syphilis, bejel, and another variant called yaws cause inflammation of tissue around bone, leaving severe scars and cratering on bones that researchers can see in ancient skeletons, although determining exactly which condition afflicted the dead is tricky. But researchers reported at the Society for American Archaeology meeting that they have pinpointed the presence of bejel in the New World before Columbus—and that the wrecks of Japanese junks suggest a mechanism for its transmission from Asia to North America.

Society for American Archaeology Meeting In ancient Mesoamerica, ball games weren't just for fun. The classic game, which involved a hard rubber ball and helmeted players on a rectangular field, had serious ritual and political goals—or at least that has been the conventional wisdom among archaeologists. But at the Society for American Archaeology meeting, one researcher put a new twist on this story, arguing that the ball courts found throughout Mesoamerica likely began as a communal game and only later were co-opted by elites who used them for their own ends.

ArchaeologyArchaeologists have long puzzled over the nearly 200 mummies created by the Chinchorro people that have been found in the Camarones River valley of northern Chile. At the Society for American Archaeology meetings last month, researchers presented new evidence for a provocative hypothesis about why the Chinchorro began the practice and why their morticians initially focused on young children. They showed that the Chinchorro were being poisoned by arsenic in their water, likely leading to a high rate of miscarriage and child mortality. Such deaths may have helped to spawn the practice of mummification.

Trade in gemstones and other precious goods has generally been seen as playing only a minor part in the emergence of civilization. Now archaeologists are finding a more important role for trade at the start of the 2nd millennium B.C.E., when the first complex societies took hold across the Old World. There is growing evidence that more ordinary goods—ranging from textiles to food—were transported over long distances, it was reported at the recent Society for American Archaeology meeting, held in Atlanta, Georgia, from 22 to 26 April. That network, connected in part by mobile pastoralists or nomads, may have played an important role in encouraging the growth of the world9s first cities, as well as mercantile classes, standardized measures, and other aspects of life we take for granted in our globalized economy.

At the Society for American Archaeology meeting, researchers reported the oldest known evidence of whaling: a piece of walrus ivory inscribed with dramatic images of teams of sea hunters in umiaks pursuing whales.

SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY MEETING > SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY, 26–30 MARCH 2008, VANCOUVER, CANADA ![Figure][1] Sticky success. Digging asphalt from a seep, researchers recreated samples of Olmec sealant ( inset ). CREDIT: CARL J. WENDT When archaeologists teach about the Olmec culture, they flash images of massive stone heads, sculpted for a sophisticated elite who ruled the swampy lowlands of Mexico from 1200 to 400 B.C.E. But a poster by archaeologist Carl Wendt of California State University, Fullerton, throws the spotlight on Olmec commoners. Once dismissed as simple maize farmers, the ordinary Olmec apparently mastered a sophisticated technique for making asphalt, crucial to sealing wooden boats, and they traded the valuable substance to others. This research will shed new light on previously invisible trade routes, says Olmec expert David Grove of the University of Florida, Gainesville. Because Wendt can distinguish asphalt from various sources, Grove notes, the work “adds a significant new ‘artifact’ [asphalt] to the small list of artifacts that can be used in the study of trade in Mesoamerica at 1000 B.C.E.” Earlier archaeologists paid little attention to asphalt, occasionally noting its presence on sacred figurines, tool handles, and potsherds. But during excavations at the Olmec site of Paso los Ortices, Wendt discovered a pit containing 250 kilograms of asphalt slabs. He wondered how the Olmec processed asphalt, what they used it for, and whether elites controlled its manufacture. To find out, his team studied thin sections of asphalt lumps from Olmec sites with a petrographic microscope. They noted even patterns of sand particles and impressions of decomposed plants, suggesting that these silica-rich materials were intentionally mixed in during heating to add structure to the asphalt. The team also identified and sampled more than 50 asphalt seepages in the Olmec region. Then they experimented, adding different plant additives and heating samples in clay pots over fires to produce an asphalt that was both flexible enough to apply to figurines and other objects and yet hard enough to resist melting in the sun. “We had a bear of a time trying to get it to that state,” says Wendt. Some samples were simply too watery. But Wendt and his team processed other, stickier samples in just a few hours; they found that the leaves of a plant the local inhabitants use to wrap tamales produced the best asphalt. The result is a very early example of materials processing, says Philip Arnold, an archaeologist at Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, and it's “like a culinary art: You have to understand the properties of individual ingredients and how they work together.” Wendt's evidence now suggests that commoners produced their own asphalt, because the seeps were too numerous for easy management by Olmec lords. Moreover, Wendt's studies at the small Olmec site of El Remolino, dated between 1200 and 850 B.C.E., revealed that commoners extensively processed and used asphalt in their households. But what did they use it for? Other emerging data provide some clues. In January on the Veracruz coast, a team led by Alfredo Delgado Calderon of the Instituto Nacional de Anthropologia e Historia, Veracruz, unearthed remains of a 2200-year-old port and two canoes. The wood had rotted away, but the team found a 1- to 8-centimeter- thick asphalt lining that had once sealed the entire interior of the canoes. Wendt suggests that Olmec commoners processed asphalt primarily to waterproof their boats. That idea fits well with new thinking about the Olmec. For years, archaeologists had agreed that the Olmec economy was founded on maize agriculture, but recent studies reveal that the Olmec situated their villages along rivers and hunted wetland game. “Rivers are their transportation, communication, and trade routes,” says Wendt. “So to have effective watercraft is going to be critical.” Wendt is now studying the Olmec trade in asphalt, using chemical analyses to trace samples to their seepage of origin. This “provides a wonderful economic geography that has not been available for Olmec studies,” says Arnold. “It helps us to contour the Olmec political economy.” [1]: pending:yes

AUSTIN, TEXAS-- At the Society for American Archaeology meeting, held here from 25 to 29 April, archaeologists reported on a 1400-year-old royal tomb discovered deep in the Guatemala jungle that is dazzling Mayan experts. (Read more.)

1491 . New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. By Charles C. Mann . Knopf, New York, 2005. 478 pp. $30, C$40. ISBN 1-4000-4006-X. Ancient Americans . Rewriting the History of the New World. Granta, London, 2005. £20. ISBN 1-86207-617-0. Pulling together disparate data from archaeology, history, genetics, and ecology, the author discusses the state of human civilizations in the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans.

ARCHAEOLOGYAt the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, held last week in Philadelphia, a team of researchers presented evidence that humans camped many times on a site in Virginia dated to 18,000 years ago. Distinctive stone tools, found at a site called Cactus Hill, lie below artifacts typical of the Clovis people, who take their name from an 11,500-year-old site in Clovis, New Mexico. Many researchers are wary of the dates, but others say the results are a strike against the theory that the Clovis hunters were the first to people the Americas.

The initial occupation of Eastern North America was by small bands of people who gained their livelihood by hunting and gathering. As time passed, the occupants of different regions be came increasingly familiar with the available natural resources. The de velopment or introduction of new tools and devices enabled the people to ex ploit their environments more effective ly, until, by Late Archaic times, popu lation size had increased, in terms both of density within a given area and num ber of people in individual social units. The initial agricultural productivity aided the culmination of the long cul tural traditions in the remarkable pro ductions and practices of the Hope wellian complexes of Middle Woodland times. The major Hopewellian centers reflect the marked change in societal organization and patterns. The costumes of the dead and the manner of their burial clearly reflect individual status differentiations, while artistic creativity is probably to be equated with incipient specialization of labor. Many of the Mississippian societies reached an even more advanced plateau of cultural de velopment, with fortified towns, an or ganized priesthood, dominant hereditary chiefs, political and military alliances, and a well-developed class system. The details of the cultural develop ment in Eastern North America are unique, but the general trend may be regarded as a common one in human society, and the patterns of behavior, as analogous to those developed by other peoples in other areas of the Old World and the New.