Historical archaeology, one of the fastest growing of archaeology's sub fields in North America, has developed more slowly in Central and p- ticularly South America. Happily, this circumstance is ending as a gr- ing number of recent projects are successfully integrating textual and material culture data in studies of the events and processes of the last 500 years. This interval and this region-often called Ibero-America-have been studied for a century or more by historians with traditional perspectives and emphases focusing on colonial elites and large-scale politico-economic events. Such...

Historical archaeology, one of the fastest growing of archaeology's sub fields in North America, has developed more slowly in Central and p- ticularly South America. Happily, this circumstance is ending as a gr- ing number of recent projects are successfully integrating textual and material culture data in studies of the events and processes of the last 500 years. This interval and this region-often called Ibero-America-have been studied for a century or more by historians with traditional perspectives and emphases focusing on colonial elites and large-scale politico-economic events. Such...