Abstract

Archaeologists often criticize the continuing use of normative frameworks in Southwestem archaeology, suggesting that they frequently diminish the researcher's ability to recognize and interpret variability in the archaeological record. While variability can be a product of cultural processes like adaptive diversity, various site formation/destruction processes also have the potential to generate complex patterns in assemblages recovered from different areas within and between sites. Recent faunal analysis of two Jornada Mogollon rockshelters in southeastern New Mexico offer possible avenues for interpreting the nature of inter and intra-site variability in faunal assemblages.