Browse by Subject: Anthropology and Archaeology

Please note that while you may order forthcoming books at any time, they will not be available for shipment until shortly before publication date

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The Market for Mesoamerica: Reflections on the Sale of Pre-Columbian Antiquities

This timely volume explores past, current, and future policies and trends concerning the sales of antiquities from pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, which are among the most popular items on the international antiquities market.        

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The Archaeology of Prostitution and Clandestine Pursuits

The Archaeology of Prostitution and Clandestine Pursuits synthesizes case studies from various nineteenth-century sites where material culture reveals evidence of prostitution, including a brothel in Five Points, New York City’s most notorious neighborhood, and parlor houses a few blocks  from the White House and Capitol Hill.

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Andean Ontologies: New Archaeological Perspectives

Andean Ontologies is a fascinating interdisciplinary investigation of how ancient Andean people understood their world and the nature of being. Exploring pre-Hispanic ideas of time, space, and the human body, these essays highlight a range of beliefs across the region’s different cultures, emphasizing the relational aspects of identity in Andean worldviews.

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Historical Archaeology of the Revolutionary War Encampments of Washington’s Army

This volume presents recent archaeological and ethnohistorical research on the encampments, trails, and support structures of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, illuminating the daily lives of soldiers, officers, and camp followers apart from the more well-known scenarios of military campaigns and battles.  

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The Archaeology of Removal in North America

Exploring a wide range of settings and circumstances in which individuals or groups of people have been forced to move from one geographical location to another, the case studies in this volume demonstrate what archaeology can reveal about the agents, causes, processes, and effects of human removal.  

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The Archaeology of Northern Slavery and Freedom

Excavations at cities including New York and Philadelphia reveal that slavery was a crucial part of the expansion of urban life as late as the 1840s. The case studies in this book also show that enslaved African-descended people frequently staffed suburban manor houses and agricultural plantations. Moreover, for free blacks, racist laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 limited the experience of freedom in the region. Delle explains how members of the African diaspora created rural communities of their own and worked in active resistance against the institution of slavery.  

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The Historical Archaeology of Shadow and Intimate Economies

Emphasizing the important social relationships that form between people who participate in small-scale economic transactions, contributors to this volume explore often-overlooked networks of intimate and shadow economies—terms used to describe trade that takes place outside formal market systems.

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Mortuary and Bioarchaeological Perspectives on Bronze Age Arabia

This volume brings together experts in archaeology and bioarchaeology to examine continuity and change in ancient Arabian mortuary practices. While most previous investigations have been limited geographically to Egypt and the Levant, this volume focuses on the lesser-studied southeastern Arabian Peninsula, showing what death and burial can reveal about the lifestyles of the region’s prehistoric communities.  

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New Directions in the Search for the First Floridians

Presenting the most current research and thinking on prehistoric archaeology in the Southeast, this volume reexamines some of Florida’s most important Paleoindian sites and discusses emerging technologies and methods that are necessary knowledge for archaeologists working in the region today.

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Maya Salt Works

In Maya Salt Works, Heather McKillop details her archaeological team’s groundbreaking discovery of a unique and massive salt production complex submerged in a lagoon in southern Belize. Exploring the organization of production and trade at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, McKillop offers a fascinating new look at the role of salt in the ancient Maya economy.