Presents a new model for the origins of Basketmaker II culture based on the evolution of maize use, focusing on the changes in maize growing rather than on the changes in, or to, the people involved.

R. G. Matson joined the faculty of the University of British Columbia in 1972, where he has served as associate professor of archaeology and curator of archaeology. His interest in Mexican domestic crops dates from a childhood in Southern California, where his family grew avocados. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California at Davis in 1971. A founding member of the Southwestern Anthropological Research Group, he initiated (with W. D. Lipe) the Cedar Mesa Project in southeastern Utah while serving on the faculty of Northern Arizona University. His studies in the archaeology of the Pacific Northwest resulted in The Glenrose Cannery Site, a monograph in the Archaeological Survey Papers, Mercury Series, of Canada's National Museum of Man. His interests in the Southwest and the Northwest continue to interact in surprising and meaningful ways.