This volume includes chapters by historical archaeologists engaged in original research examining the role of the British Empire in Latin America. The archaeology of Latin America is today a rapidly expanding field, with new research being accomplished every day. Currently, the vast amount of research is being focused on the Spanish Empire and its agents’ interactions with the region’s indigenous peoples. Spain, however, was not the only international power intent on colonizing and controlling Latin America. The British Empire had a smaller albeit significant role in the cultural history of Latin America. This history constitutes an important piece of the historical story of Latin America. Archaeologies of the British in Latin America presents the results of original research and begins a dialogue about the archaeology of the British Empire in Latin America by an international group of archaeological scholars. Fresh insights on the complex history of cultural interaction in one of the world’s most important regions are included. It will be of interest to historical archaeologists, Mesoamerican archaeologists engaged in pre-contact research, Latin American and global historians, Latin American anthropologists, material culture specialists, cultural geographers, and others interested in the cultural history of colonialism in general and in Latin America in particular.

Using language to date the origin and spread of food production, Archaeology and Language II represents groundbreaking work in synthesizing two disciplines that are now seen as interlinked: linguistics and archaeology. This volume is the second part of a three-part survey of innovative results emerging from their combination. Archaeology and historical linguistics have largely pursued separate tracks until recently, although their goals can be very similar. While there is a new awareness that these disciplines can be used to complement one another, both rigorous methodological awareness and detailed case-studies are still lacking in the literature. This three-part survey is the first study to address this. Archaeology and Language II examines in some detail how archaeological data can be interpreted through linguistic hypotheses. This collection demonstrates the possibility that, where archaeological sequences are reasonably well-known, they might be tied into evidence of language diversification and thus produce absolute chronologies. Where there is evidence for migrations and expansions these can be explored through both disciplines to produce a richer interpretation of prehistory. An important part of this is the origin and spread of food production which can be modelled through the spread of both plants and words for them. Archaeology and Language II will be of interest to researchers in linguistics, archaeologists and anthropologists.

Archaeological settlement patterns—the ways in which ancient people distributed themselves across a natural and cultural landscape—provide the central theme for this long-overdue update to our understanding of the Mexican Gulf lowlands Olmec to Aztec offers the only recent treatment of the region that considers its entire prehistory from the second millennium B.C. to A.D. 1519. The editors have assembled a distinguished group of international scholars, several of whom here provide the first widely available English-language account of ongoing research. Several studies present up-to-date syntheses of the archaeological record in their respective areas. Other chapters provide exciting new data and innovative insights into future directions in Gulf lowland archaeology. Olmec to Aztec is a crucial resource for archaeologists working in Mexico and other areas of Latin America. Its contributions help dispel long-standing misunderstandings about the prehistory of this region and also correct the sometimes overzealous manner in which cultural change within the Gulf lowlands has been attributed to external forces. This important book clearly demonstrates that the Gulf lowlands played a critical role in ancient Mesoamerica throughout the entirety of pre-Columbian history.