Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, VoL 5, No. 3, 1998 Where Are the Witches of Prehistory? William H. Walker 1 Why are certain common classes of ritually destroyed objects (persons, artifacts, or architecture), such as persecuted witches, so difficult to identify in the ar- chaeological record? Although a common topic in cultural anthropology, witches seldom receive the attention of archaeologists. The difficulties archae- ologists face in the study of religion derive, in part, from the lack of correlates linking ritual activities to the formation of archaeological deposits. This paper defines ritual as a technology and employs an object life history approach that draws upon ethnographic, archaeological, and experimental research to begin building such linkages--including those describing the persecution and depo- sition of witches, sorcerers, and other victims of ritual violence. These new directions are illustrated through a case study of anomalous deposits of human skeletal remains from the North American Southwest. KEY WORDS: behavioral archaeology; witches; warfare; cannibalism; archaeological theory; violence; artifact life histories. A stranger who dies or is killed is buried unceremoniously or cast into the sea. Among the Northern tribes the body of such a one used in former days to be disposed of by cutting it into pieces and burning it on a fire. The natives say that if this be done the "blood" and the "fat" of the dead man go up to the sky and this removes all danger to the living from the dead man .... If a man were killed in a fight between two communities and his body remained with the enemy, they would dispose of it in this way.... It may be worthy of remark that this custom of burning the bodies of slain enemies is perhaps the real origin of the belief that the Andamanese are or were cannibals. Radcliffe-Brown (1933, pp. 109-110) You shalt not suffer a sorceress to live. Exodus 22:18 RSV 1Department of Sociology and Anthropology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003. Fax: (505) 646-3725. e-mail: wiwalker@NMSU.edu. 245 1072-5369/98/0900-0245515.00/0 9 1998 Plenum PublishingCorporation