H uman hands are sexually dimorphic. Male hands tend to be larger than female hands, but there are also consistent differences in the ratios of certain finger lengths. This is of archaeological interest because human handprints and hand stencils occur in parietal art at sites scattered nearly worldwide. While parietal art is widespread, what we think we know about it is often conditioned by our own biases and the easy but often silent assumptions that derive from them (Gifford-Gonzalez 1993:37). In this sense, parietal art is a special case of the implicit biases that have colored archaeological interpretation for decades (Wright 1996). Most relevant to this article are the traditional assumptions that the Upper Paleolithic parietal art of southwestern Europe was related to hunting and produced by adult or subadult males. As comfort
The archaeology of the Northern Iroquoians has been described in terms of an in situ development out of Point Peninsula culture for half a century. Recently recognized anomalies prompt revision of the in situ hypothesis in favor of one allowing for the derivation of Northern Iroquoians by migration from Clemson's Island culture following A.D. 900. Multifamily dwellings and maize horticulture are argued to have been adaptive advantages that facilitated the incursion. Migration is found to be a viable alternative, and gradualist assumptions about the origins of matrilocality and horticulture are challenged. An alternative hypothesis provides a clear source and beginning date for subsequent development and illuminates some demographic mechanisms. The case illuminates both the processes by which societies propagate across time and space and the independent inferential processes of archaeologists.
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