Browse by Subject: Archaeology

This volume highlights the diversity and complexity of western Mexico’s pre-Hispanic cultures and argues that the region was more similar than many researchers have believed to the rest of the Mesoamerican world.

Viewing historical and archaeological data through the lens of her personal experience of Roman Catholicism, and informed by feminist approaches, Elizabeth Graham assesses the concept of religion, the significance of doctrine, the empowerment of the individual, and the process of conversion by examining the meanings attributed to ideas, objects and images by the Maya, by Iberian Christians, and by archaeologists. Graham’s provocative study also makes the case that the impact of Christianity in Belize was a phenomenon that uniquely shaped the development of the modern nation.

While previous studies of dogs in human history have focused on how people have changed the species through domestication, this volume offers a rich archaeological portrait of the human-canine bond. Contributors investigate the ways people have viewed and valued dogs in different cultures around the world and across the ages.

Showcasing the enormous amount of archaeological data available on the experiences of Chinese people who migrated to the United States and Canada in the nineteenth century, this volume charts new directions for the field of Chinese diaspora archaeology by providing fresh, more nuanced approaches to interpreting immigrant life.

The years 1500–1700 AD were a time of dramatic change for the indigenous inhabitants of southeastern North America, yet Native histories during this era have been difficult to reconstruct due to a scarcity of written records before the eighteenth century. Using archaeology to enhance our knowledge of the period, Contact, Colonialism, and Native Communities in the Southeastern United States presents new research on the ways Native societies responded to early contact with Europeans.

This volume uses archaeological and historical evidence to reconstruct daily life at Betty’s Hope plantation on the island of Antigua, one of the largest sugar plantations in the Caribbean. It demonstrates the rich information that multidisciplinary studies can provide about the effects of sugarcane agriculture on the region and its people.  

The Galápagos Islands are one of the world’s premiere nature attractions, home to unique ecosystems widely thought to be untouched and pristine. This volume reveals that the archipelago is not as isolated as many imagine, examining how centuries of human occupation have transformed its landscape.

At its height between AD 1050 and 1275, the city of Cahokia was the largest settlement of the Mississippian culture, acting as an important trade center and pilgrimage site. While the influence of Cahokian culture on the development of monumental architecture, maize-based subsistence practices, and economic complexity throughout North America is undisputed, new research in this volume reveals a landscape of influence of the regions that had and may not have had a relationship with Cahokia.  

This volume brings together a wide spectrum of new approaches to ancient Maya studies in an innovative exploration of how the Preclassic and Classic Maya shaped their world. Moving beyond the towering temples and palaces typically associated with the Maya civilization, contributors present unconventional examples of monumental Maya landscapes.

Maritime Communities of the Ancient Andes examines how settlements along South America’s Pacific coastline played a role in the emergence, consolidation, and collapse of Andean civilizations from the Late Pleistocene era through Spanish colonization. Providing the first synthesis of data from Chile, Peru, and Ecuador, this wide-ranging volume evaluates and revises long-standing research on ancient maritime sites across the region.