International Handbook of Historical Archaeology
International Handbook of Historical Archaeology

Author: Teresita Majewski

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2009-06-07

Total Pages: 689

ISBN-13: 0387720715

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In studying the past, archaeologists have focused on the material remains of our ancestors. Prehistorians generally have only artifacts to study and rely on the diverse material record for their understanding of past societies and their behavior. Those involved in studying historically documented cultures not only have extensive material remains but also contemporary texts, images, and a range of investigative technologies to enable them to build a broader and more reflexive picture of how past societies, communities, and individuals operated and behaved. Increasingly, historical archaeology refers not to a particular period, place, or a method, but rather an approach that interrogates the tensions between artifacts and texts irrespective of context. In short, historical archaeology provides direct evidence for how humans have shaped the world we live in today. Historical archaeology is a branch of global archaeology that has grown in the last 40 years from its North American base into an increasingly global community of archaeologists each studying their area of the world in a historical context. Where historical archaeology started as part of the study of the post-Columbian societies of the United States and Canada, it has now expanded to interface with the post-medieval archaeologies of Europe and the diverse post-imperial experiences of Africa, Latin America, and Australasia. The 36 essays in the International Handbook of Historical Archaeology have been specially commissioned from the leading researchers in their fields, creating a wide-ranging digest of the increasingly global field of historical archaeology. The volume is divided into two sections, the first reviewing the key themes, issues, and approaches of historical archaeology today, and the second containing a series of case studies charting the development and current state of historical archaeological practice around the world. This key reference work captures the energy and diversity of this global discipline today.

The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology
The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology

Author: Timothy R. Pauketat

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 693

ISBN-13: 0190241098

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The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology reviews the continent's first and last foragers, farmers, and great pre-Columbian civic and ceremonial centers, from Chaco Canyon to Moundville and beyond.

From Household to Empire
From Household to Empire

Author: Heather B. Trigg

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2022-10-18

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 0816551111

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Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University Settlers at Santa Fe and outlying homesteads during the seventeenth century established a thriving economy that saw the exchange of commodities produced by indigenous peoples, settlers, and Franciscan friars for goods manufactured as far away as China, France, and Turkey. This early Spanish colonial period in New Mexico provides an opportunity to explore both economic activity within a colony and the relations between colony and homeland. By examining the material remains of this era from 1598 to 1680, Heather Trigg reveals a more complete picture of colonial life. Drawing on both archaeological and historical sources, Trigg analyzes the various levels of economic activity that developed: production of items in colonial households, exchanges between households, and trade between the colony and Mexico. Rather than focusing only on the flow of products and services, she also explores the social mechanisms that likely had a significant impact on the economic life of the colony. Because economic activity was important to so many aspects of daily life, she is able to show how and why colonial society worked the way it did. While focusing on the colonists, she also explores their relations with Pueblo peoples. Through her analysis of these two pools of data, Trigg generates insights not usually gleaned from the limited texts of the period, providing information about average colonists in addition to the governors and clergy usually covered in historical accounts. By using specific examples from historical documents and archaeological materials, she shows that colonists from all levels of society modified both formal and informal rules of economic behavior to better fit the reality of the colonial frontier. With its valuable comparative data on colonization, From Household to Empire provides a novel way of examining colonial economies by focusing on the maintenance and modification of social values. For all readers fascinated by the history of the Southwest, this book provides a fuller picture of life in early New Mexico than has previously been seen.

The Prehistory of Texas
The Prehistory of Texas

Author: Timothy K. Perttula

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2012-09-24

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 1603446494

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Paleoindians first arrived in Texas more than eleven thousand years ago, although relatively few sites of such early peoples have been discovered. Texas has a substantial post-Paleoindian record, however, and there are more than fifty thousand prehistoric archaeological sites identified across the state. This comprehensive volume explores in detail the varied experience of native peoples who lived on this land in prehistoric times. Chapters on each of the regions offer cutting-edge research, the culmination of years of work by dozens of the most knowledgeable experts. Based on the archaeological record, the discussion of the earliest inhabitants includes a reclassification of all known Paleoindian projectile point types and establishes a chronology for the various occupations. The archaeological data from across the state of Texas also allow authors to trace technological changes over time, the development of intensive fishing and shellfish collecting, funerary customs and the belief systems they represented, long-term changes in settlement mobility and character, landscape use, and the eventual development of agricultural societies. The studies bring the prehistory of Texas Indians all the way up through the Late Prehistoric period (ca. a.d. 700–1600). The extensively illustrated chapters are broadly cultural-historical in nature but stay strongly focused on important current research problems. Taken together, they present careful and exhaustive considerations of the full archaeological (and paleoenvironmental) record of Texas.

The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis
The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis

Author: Barbara L. Voss

Publisher: University Press of Florida

Published: 2015-03-31

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0813059429

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“Compelling new evidence, careful documentation, and an artfully woven narrative make The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis a path-breaking book for sociocultural scholars as well as for general readers interested in the politics of identity, ethnicity, gender, and the colonial and U.S. Western history.”—Transforming Anthropology “Voss’s lucid explanations of method and theory make the book accessible to a broad range of audiences, from upper-level undergraduate and graduate students to professionals and lay audiences. . . . Its interdisciplinarity, indeed, may help to sell archaeology to audiences who do not typically consider archaeological evidence as an option for identity studies.”—Current Anthropology “The book reminds historians that other disciplines can offer fruitful methodological forays into well-trodden areas of study.”—Journal of American History “Those scholars studying various aspects of the Hispanic worldwide empire would be well advised to peruse Voss’s work.”—Historical Archaeology “[W]ell written, theoretically sophisticated, and unburdened by abstract concepts or hyper-qualified verbiage.”—H-Net Reviews “[E]ngaging. Overall, the text belongs in the library of every student of Spanish and Mexican Alta California. . . . The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis will become an anthropological standard.”—Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology “[A] must-read for all interested not only in colonial California, but for all historical archaeologists and to any archaeologist interested in the examination of identities.”—Cambridge Archaeological Journal “Shows how individuals negotiate ethnic identity through everyday objects and actions.”—SMRC Revista In this interdisciplinary study, Barbara Voss examines religious, environmental, cultural, and political differences at the Presidio of San Francisco, California, to reveal the development of social identities within the colony. Voss reconciles material culture with historical records, challenging widely held beliefs about ethnicity.