With this issue of the PA we travel from the historic back in time to the First Americans, skipping the in-between. As different as the Bleed et al. article is from the Pierce and Miller report, they exhibit remarkable similarities, a function of one of the definitions of ‘historical’ archaeology or archaeology accompanied by written records. Much has been written on the appropriate use of archival records in the research process, the biases that it introduces the enlightenment that it brings, or confusion that it causes. We see some of each in these papers, but overall it moves our knowledge of the proximal archaeological past forward. Perhaps we do not have the exact date of the manufacture and use of the scale armor, nor do we have the exact location of the Fraeb Trading Post and Battle site. But we do have the Bourke armor that has languished in museums for decades, indeed over a century, and here placed in historical context of manufacture, use, discard, and recycling. From Bleed et al. we learn about this particular garment, but more importantly about museum (not only anthropology or repository) collections and their potential for fruitful and innovative research, including the use of high-tech methods to enhance interpretation. The Fraeb Trading Post and Battle site constitute a very different sort of study, one rooted in ‘on-the-ground’ investigation, however, the discrepancy of written and archaeological looms large here as well. Here too the authors do not solve the problem, but they compile substantial historical data on these events, narrow down the problem, and provide a way forward. One is reminded of Mark Leone and Constance Crosby's call for the development of middle range theory in historical archaeology. How can these discrepancies or disjunctures between the written and the archaeological reality enhance our interpretations of the past? Reduce our biased interpretations? And provide more nuanced explanations? Although the written part of historical archaeology is often about Europeans or Euroamericans, it is far more than this. John Mionczynski reviews Gilbert Livingstone Wilson's ‘Uses of Plants by the Hidatsa of the Northern Plains,’ edited and annotated by Michael Scullin. Ethnohistory and historical archaeology are joined at the hip. Although not mentioned in Brink's review of George Frison's autobiography (see below), Frison relied heavily on Wilson's and others' accounts of Mandan and Hidatsa in his dissertation research. While Wilson's other works provide significant information on northern Plains groups, the notes in this volume will enhance future research, both ethnographic and archaeological. Scullin has done us all a favor in resurrecting these notes of Wilson's from obscurity.
The First Americans fascinate us; not because we have so much, but because we have to do so much with so little. Wernick attacks the rarest of the Clovis points, those not manufactured conventionally on preforms, that is, bifaces. Wernick is intrigued by points manufactured on flakes and proposes that Clovis points are made on flakes as an efficiency measure, where raw materials for the normative bifacial production process are unavailable. To demonstrate such a technological strategy he uses the classic distance to source fall off curve of flake to preform point ratios. In other words, further from the source, where raw material is exhausted, the normative production procedure breaks-down and is substituted by a process that enhances utility. Judson Finley's review of C. Vance Haynes and James Warnica's Blackwater Draw volume likewise focuses on a unique and iconic site for the study of the First Americans. Like Wernick, the reviewed volume represents the mining of collections, in this case mostly records to expand our understanding of the natural history of this site. A recently published paper in these pages (Condon PA 231) mined some of the same data. While Jack Brink's review of George Frison's autobiography is not about the First Americans, 12 of the 24 sites mentioned in the review as being classic excavations associated with Frison are Paleoindian. Frison's approach has brought much towards illuminating the lifeways of the First Americans, other time periods, and specifically hunting practices.
The papers in this issue conclude with a remembrance of Stan Ahler by Mark Mitchell. As it happens Ahler's experience covered all the periods represented in this issue and a number of methods exemplified in the papers were pioneered or in the least utilized during his career. Remote sensing was an integral part of Ahler's repertoire for investigating Plains Village sites of several periods, while chipped stone technology is virtually synonymous with Stan's early work, including his dissertation. His Mandan and Hidatsa research includes the historical period of these groups, while his studies of Paleoindian points, tools, and use wear will, like the rest of his research, leave a lasting legacy.
Although there are numerous lessons in the papers and reviews in this volume perhaps one of the outstanding ones is the extraordinary importance of preservation of all collections. Three of the four papers and two of the three books reviewed would not have been written were it not for collections and archives, and Plains anthropology would have been poorer for it.