Drawing on rich ethnographic data as well as archaeological evidence, The Boundaries of Ancient Trade challenges long-standing conceptions of highly centralized sociopolitical and economic organization and trade along the Afar salt trail—one of the last economically significant caravan-based trade routes in the world.
 

The Transnational Construction of Mayanness explores how US academics, travelers, officials, and capitalists contributed to the construction of the Maya as an area of academic knowledge and affected the lives of the Maya peoples who were the subject of generations of anthropological research from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

Pre-Mamom Pottery Variation and the Preclassic Origins of the Lowland Maya summarizes archaeological researchers’ current views on the adoption and first use of pottery across the Maya lowlands.

From Ancient Rome to Colonial Mexico compares the Christianization of the Roman Empire with the evangelization of Mesoamerica, offering novel perspectives on the historical processes involved in the spread of Christianity.

Forced Out: A Nikkei Woman’s Search for a Home in America offers insight into “voluntary evacuation,” a little-known Japanese American experience during World War II, and the lasting effects of cultural trauma.

Pushing Boundaries in Southwestern Archaeology draws together the proceedings from the sixteenth biennial Southwest Symposium.

Climatic events, pathogens, and animals as nonhuman agents, ranging in size from viruses to mega-storms, have presented our species with dynamic conditions that overwhelm human capacities.

The Community in Rural America, by Kenneth P. Wilkinson, is a foundational theoretical work that both defines the interactional approach to the study of the community in rural areas and frames its application to encourage and promote rural community development.

Through creative combinations of ethnohistoric evidence, iconography, and contextual analysis of faunal remains, this work offers new insight into the mechanisms involved in food provisioning for complex societies.