Browse by Subject: Anthropology and Archaeology

Researchers who study ancient human diets tend to focus on meat eating, since the practice of butchery is very apparent in the archaeological record. In this volume, Julie Lesnik brings a different food source into view, tracing evidence that humans and their hominin ancestors also consumed insects throughout the entire course of human evolution.

This exciting book brings the often-overlooked southern Maya region of Guatemala into the spotlight by closely examining the “lost city” of Chocolá. Jonathan Kaplan and Federico Paredes Umaña prove that Chocolá was a major Maya polity and reveal exactly why it was so influential.  

Emphasizing a life course approach and developmental perspective, this volume’s interdisciplinary nature marks a paradigm shift in the way children of the past are studied. It points the way forward to a better understanding of childhood as a dynamic lived experience both physically and socially.  

Bringing together major archaeological research projects from Virginia to Alabama, this volume explores the rich prehistory of the Southeastern Coastal Plain. Looking back 50,000 years, contributors consider how the region’s warm weather, abundant water, and geography have long been optimal for the habitation of people. They highlight demographic changes and cultural connections across this wide span of time and space.

Mapping out emerging areas for global cultural heritage, this book provides an anthropological perspective on the growing field of heritage studies. Kathryn Lafrenz Samuels adopts a dual focus—looking back on the anthropological foundations for cultural heritage research while looking forward to areas of practice that reach beyond national borders: economic development, climate action, democratic practice, heritage rights, and global justice. 

This volume explores how native peoples of the Southeastern United States cooperated to form large and permanent early villages using the site of Crystal River on Florida’s Gulf Coast as a case study.  

This volume introduces the Cross-Cultural Interaction Model (CCIM), a visual tool for studying the exchanges that take place between different cultures in borderland areas or across long distances. The model helps researchers untangle complex webs of connections among people, landscapes, and artifacts, and can be used to support multiple theoretical viewpoints.

The Final Mission explores the critical sites linked to space exploration and calls for their urgent preservation.

While the military features of historic forts usually receive the most attention from researchers, this volume focuses instead on the people who met and interacted in these sites. Contributors to British Forts and Their Communities look beyond the defensive architecture, physical landscapes, and armed conflicts to explore the complex social diversity that arose in the outposts of the British Empire.        

Florida's Lost Galleon documents this groundbreaking discovery, the earliest shipwreck found in Florida. Underwater archaeologists describe how they explored the ship’s hull and recorded it carefully in order to reconstruct the original vessel and its last mission. They take readers into the laboratory to explain how the waterlogged objects they uncovered were analyzed and prepared for public display. The story of the ill-fated colony unfolds as they discuss the surprisingly well-preserved Spanish colonial artifacts, including armor, ammunition, plant and animal remains, and wooden and metal tools.