Journal Of New World Archaeology

Despite its slow development, historical archaeology has been steadily maturing over the past three decades. Archaeologists today are exploring daily life in the post-1500 world at an increasing pace, investigating sites throughout the world--frequently locales where historical archaeology was never before practiced--using a variety of complex theories and perspectives. Given the explosion of worldwide research, it is now possible to create a new historical archaeology: a modern-world archaeology that explicitly explores modern life in all its variations, extending from local to global scales of analysis. Focused on four overarching elements of the post-Columbian world (colonialism, Eurocentrism, racialization, and capitalism), A Primer on Modern-World Archaeology is designed to introduce this new kind of historical archaeology to undergraduates, graduate students, and everyone interested in the material expressions of how the present world came to be. Major perspectives are presented in accessible language and study questions are provided at the end of each chapter.

This book focuses on South American archaeology and its contributions to the broader global archaeological discussion in theory, methods and new interpretations of the archaeological record. These include discussions on human peopling and colonization of the continent, domestication of plants and emergence of complex societies. This volume covers a wide variety of sub-disciplines in archaeology, including archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, molecular archaeology, bioarchaeology, geoarchaeology. The chapters span from the pre-Columbian to contemporaneous indigenous societies for all the main geographical and ecological zones of South America. The book discusses how particular cases of South American archaeology have contributed to the understanding of a global and basic issue: human relations with their environments and landscapes during the past. The authors focus on the latest results produced by multidisciplinary studies carried out at archaeological sites in several areas of South America ranging from studies of early hunter-gatherers through the historic period. This work would be of interest to researchers in archaeology and Latin American studies.

Published in cooperation with the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University Ruins are as central to the image of the American Southwest as are its mountains and deserts, and antiquity is a key element of modern southwestern heritage. Yet prior to the mid-nineteenth century this rich legacy was largely unknown to the outside world. While military expeditions first brought word of enigmatic relics to the eastern United States, the new intellectual frontier was seized by archaeologists, who used the results of their southwestern explorations to build a foundation for the scientific study of the American past. In Ruins and Rivals, James Snead helps us understand the historical development of archaeology in the Southwest from the 1890s to the 1920s and its relationship with the popular conception of the region. He examines two major research traditions: expeditions dispatched from the major eastern museums and those supported by archaeological societies based in the Southwest itself. By comparing the projects of New York's American Museum of Natural History with those of the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles and the Santa Fe-based School of American Archaeology, he illustrates the way that competition for status and prestige shaped the way that archaeological remains were explored and interpreted. The decades-long competition between institutions and their advocates ultimately created an agenda for Southwest archaeology that has survived into modern times. Snead takes us back to the days when the field was populated by relic hunters and eastern "museum men" who formed uneasy alliances among themselves and with western boosters who used archaeology to advance their own causes. Richard Wetherill, Frederic Ward Putnam, Charles Lummis, and other colorful characters all promoted their own archaeological endeavors before an audience that included wealthy patrons, museum administrators, and other cultural figures. The resulting competition between scholarly and public interests shifted among museum halls, legislative chambers, and the drawing rooms of Victorian America but always returned to the enigmatic ruins of Chaco Canyon, Bandelier, and Mesa Verde. Ruins and Rivals contains a wealth of anecdotal material that conveys the flavor of digs and discoveries, scholars and scoundrels, tracing the origins of everything from national monuments to "Santa Fe Style." It rekindles the excitement of discovery, illustrating the role that archaeology played in creating the southwestern "past" and how that image of antiquity continues to exert its influence today.

Archaeology – the study of human cultures through the analysis and interpretation of artefacts and material remains – continues to captivate and engage people on a local and global level. Internationally celebrated heritage sites such as the pyramids—both Egyptian and Mayan—Lascaux caves, and the statues of Easter Island provide insights into our ancestors and their actions and motivation. But there is much more to archaeology than famous sites. Ask any archaeologist about their job and they will touch on archaeological theory, chemistry, geology, history, classical studies, museum studies, ethical practice, and survey methods, along with the analysis and interpretation of artefacts and sites. Archaeology is a much broader subject than its public image and branches into many other fields in the social and physical sciences. This multi-volume work provides a comprehensive and systematic coverage of archaeology that is unprecedented, not only in terms of the use of multi-media, but also in terms of content. It encompasses the breadth of the subject along with key aspects that are tapped from other disciplines. It includes all time periods and regions of the world and all stages of human development. Mostly importantly, this encyclopedia includes the knowledge of leading scholars from around the world. The entries in this encyclopedia range from succinct summaries of specific sites and the scientific aspects of archaeological enquiry to detailed discussions of archaeological concepts, theories and methods, and from investigations into the social, ethical and political dimensions of archaeological practice to biographies of leading archaeologists from throughout the world. The different forms of archaeology are explored, along with the techniques used for each and the challenges, concerns and issues that face archaeologists today. The Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology has two outstanding innovations. The first is that scholars were able to submit entries in their own language. Over 300,000 words have been translated from French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Japanese, Turkish and Russian. Many of these entries are by scholars who are publishing in English for the first time. This compendium is both a print reference and an online reference work. The encyclopedia’s second major innovation is that it harnesses the capabilities of an online environment, enhancing both the presentation and dissemination of information. Most particularly, the continuous updating allowed by an online environment should ensure that the Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology is a definitive reference work for archaeology and archaeologists.