ABSTRACT
A convenient format for synthesis is episodal analysis, which was applied by Ascher and Clune during their study of Waterfall Cave, Chihuahua. They describe an episode as a series of events that defines the temporal and contextual limits of the use of the site. Each of these events is further subdivided into incidents; each incident further defines the content of the event. Harvesting and processing mesquite pods are two of the major activities of this microband, and discarded mesquite seeds are the most common single plant left on the living floor. This suggests the microband may be spending more time in the mesquite vegetation belt than in previous years, perhaps because they are gradually shifting incipient agriculture to the riverine alluvium. The beans are phenotypically “wild,” but their unexpectedly high numbers, plus the fact that they seem to have been processed along with known domesticates, provide circumstantial evidence that there may have been an effort to cultivate them.
