Current Issue

Spring 2018: By Gayle Keck. In old Western movies, Indians were invariably depicted galloping into the scene whooping and streaked with war paint. At least one aspect of that cliché is true. Native Americans did...

Fall 2014 An Echo of the Miami Circle By Michael Bawaya Over the course of approximately two years a vacant lot in the heart of downtown Miami will be transformed into METsquare, an atrium-style complex. METsquare,...

Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland Edited by Vincus P. Steponaitis and C. Margaret Scarry (University Press of Florida, 2016; 344 pgs., illus., $75 cloth; www.upf.com) Moundville, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is one of the largest prehistoric mound-builder complexes...

Ancient Ruins and Rock Art of the Southwest: An Archaeological Guide By David Grant Noble (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2015; 304 pgs., illus., $20 paper, $10 ebook; www.rowman.com) David Grant Noble has updated his essential guidebook to archaeological...

Winter 2017 Sneak Peek By Richard A. Marini Hanging out with smart, talented people is one of the best parts of being a journalist. When they’re also fun to be with, it’s a bonus. That’s what...

Medieval Mississippians: The Cahokia World Edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Susan M. Alt (SAR Press, 2015; 169 pgs., illus. $60 cloth, $25 paper; www.sarpress.org)   This collection of 17 essays by 28 archaeologists and Native Americans explores...

Summer 2016: By Kristin Ohlson.  In 1989, William Pleitez was hunting near his farm in western Belize when his dog squeezed between some boulders near a hillside and disappeared. Pleitez soon found that the boulders...

Spring 2016: By Margaret Shakespeare By the turn of the 20th century the secret was out. Maverick rancher and outdoorsman Theodore Roosevelt knew it. The Swedish archaeologist Gustaf N. A. Nordenskiöld knew it. Adventurers, photographers,...

The following is an article excerpt from the Winter 2019 Issue of American Archaeology Magazine.  Become a member to subscribe and read the full story!  By David Malakoff In 1978, archaeologist Stephen Williams was touring ancient...

Spring 2018: By Elizabeth Lunday. In 1885, when British scholar Alfred Percival Maudslay and his wife Anne Cary Morris Maudslay first explored the ruins of the Maya city Copán, Morris Maudslay described the unexcavated site...