This is a groundbreaking analysis of the relationship between culture and technology. Dorothy Hosler, an archaeologist, metallurgist, and anthropologist, shows how the methods of materials science, augmented by archaeological and other sources of data, can be used to illuminate historical puzzles such as the origins of the unique metallurgy developed in West Mexico between the seventh and sixteenth centuries.Hosler traces the roots of this technology to Central and South America and establishes that it was introduced to West Mexico in two separate waves, both traveling along a maritime...