stones and bones are the fundamental building blocks of prehistory, especially the deep hominin prehistory. The only thing that survives from the earliest humans, except in rare instances of the humans themselves, is stones and bones in that order. it was in this context that the late archaeologist Glynn isaac (1977) characterized the archaeology of the earliest humans as "squeezing blood from stones." stones and bones must, however, be placed in context, and that largely comes from profiles or rather stratigraphy. stones, bones, and profiles thus constitute the three building blocks of much of the early archaeology from the appearance of earliest humans to the advent of the neolithic or its equivalents on various continents. so it is no wonder that this book, dedicated to two prominent scholars whose careers focused on the earliest americans, the Paleoindians, is about stones, bones, and profiles. in fact, tools and tool making from raw stone material and the remains of food residues, or one of these, are what we find at nearly all Paleoindian sites in western north america. Where we find them and in what contexts are key to understanding the implications of these remains for reconstructing the lifeways of ancient peoples. and by and large, other items are rare or absent, except in a few cases, and often these are likewise made of either stone or bone. We are referring to such things as bone tools (needles, awls, gaming pieces, and others), ornaments (beads), and possibly in a few instances

Paleoethnobotanical perspectives are essential for understanding past lifeways yet continue to be underrepresented in Paleoindian research. We present new archaeobotanical and radiocarbon data from combustion features within stratified cultural components at Connley Caves, Oregon, that reaffirm the inclusion of plants in the diet of Paleoindian groups. Botanical remains from three features in Connley Cave 5 show that people foraged for diverse dryland taxa and a narrow range of wetland plants during the summer and fall months. These data add new taxa to the known Pleistocene food economy and support the idea that groups equipped with Western Stemmed Tradition toolkits had broad, flexible diets. When viewed continentally, this work contributes to a growing body of research indicating that regionally adapted subsistence strategies were in place by at least the Younger Dryas and that some foragers in the Far West may have incorporated a wider range of plants including small seeds, leafy greens, fruits, cacti, and geophytes into their diet earlier than did Paleoindian groups elsewhere in North America. The increasing appearance of diverse and seemingly low-ranked resources in the emerging Paleoindian plant-food economy suggests the need to explore a variety of nutritional variables to explain certain aspects of early foraging behavior.

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