American Archaeology: Living History, Stolen Pasts, and Defending the Future
By R.E. Burrillo
In this timely and wide-ranging book, R. E. Burrillo examines the history of American archaeology and the myths that have shaped public understanding of the field. Engaging, sharp, and often funny, American Archaeology argues for a more honest, inclusive discipline, one that recognizes archaeology’s colonial entanglements while centering Indigenous communities as collaborators rather than afterthoughts. Drawing on his experience in field archaeology, graduate school, conservation, and cultural preservation, Burrillo offers an insider critique of the discipline’s history, institutions, and future.
Although the subject matter is substantial, Burrillo’s lively voice keeps the book accessible. He is especially strong on the pressures archaeology now faces, including commercialization, misrepresentation, and the political distortion of history. The result is an energetic, thoughtful book that ultimately argues for better scholarship, greater accountability, and a clearer sense of whom archaeology serves. The volume also includes further-reading suggestions and appendices on terminology and Visit with Respect, a public-education initiative that encourages respectful visitation of cultural sites.
Torrey House Press, 2026; 320 pp. illus.; $21.95 paperback, $24.99 ebook; torreyhouse.org.
The Historical Archaeology of Massachusetts
By Joseph Bagley and Holly Herbster
Foreword by Michael S. Nassaney and Krysta Ryzewski
Through a wide range of case studies, this volume surveys Massachusetts’ history from the 17th century to the present, examining Indigenous-European encounters, slavery and its aftermath, industrialization, consumer culture, and major conflicts from the Pequot War to the Revolutionary War. It begins with the state’s natural setting and the ways geography shaped its history, then moves through themes such as cultural entanglement, gentility, enslavement and freedom, Black identity, labor, community, and social justice.
The volume also traces the development of historical archaeology in the commonwealth and highlights the field’s shift toward collaborative, community-based practice, incorporating perspectives from Indigenous people, immigrant groups, and descendant communities long excluded from dominant narratives. The featured sites span the state and draw on avocational, academic, cultural resource management, and public archaeology. With a substantial bibliography, a useful index, and black-and-white images of sites, features, and artifacts, this is a valuable addition to the literature of historical archaeology.
University Press of Florida, 2026; 284 pp.; b/w illus.; $35 paperback; $110 hardcover; $35 epub; www.floridapress.org
Those Who Walked Before: Fossil Footprints at White Sands
By Matthew R. Bennett, David F. Bustos, and Daniel Odess
Written by three archaeologists with years of experience conducting research in the state, this highly useful volume presents an overview of the past 400 years of historic archaeology in Michigan. The authors show how the field has broadened from an early emphasis on locating colonial settlements to more inclusive, community-centered research on Indigenous histories, immigration, labor and civil rights.
Case studies underscore the role of place: two peninsulas framed by the Great Lakes, with shorelines and waterways that powered trade, conflict, resource extraction and industrial growth—and that still preserve submerged sites. The narrative begins with 17th-century French military, religious, and commercial outposts tied to New France and their relationships with Anishinaabe communities, then follows the shift to British control after 1763 and, later, to U.S. administration; Great Britain retained key Great Lakes posts into the 1790s until agreements under Jay’s Treaty took effect in 1796.
Those Who Walked Before tells the story of the exciting discoveries and subsequent research on Ice Age animal and human footprints found at New Mexico’s White Sands National Park, including what is considered the world’s longest known fossilized human trackway. Co-written by David F. Bustos, the park’s resource program manager, who has investigated human and megafaunal footprints there for more than a decade; British geoscientist Matthew R. Bennett, one of the world’s leading authorities on fossil trackways; and archaeologist Daniel Odess, part of the larger team that investigated the prints, the book brings this remarkable story vividly to life. From Bustos’ early discoveries of the tracks of Pleistocene mammoths, giant ground sloths, big cats, dire wolves, and camels to later finds of human footprints apparently interacting with these ancient animals, the authors’ firsthand accounts make for a thoroughly enjoyable and thought-provoking read.
The book includes fascinating discussions of some of the oldest proposed human sites in the Americas, possible migration routes, track morphology, recording and imaging techniques, and the discoveries and challenges at White Sands.
While the footprints suggested humans and Ice Age animals shared this landscape, multiple dating methods supported an age of roughly 21,000 to 23,000 years for some of the human prints, as reported in Science in 2021 and 2023. Replete with black-and-white photographs and beautiful illustrations by paleoartist Karen Carr that bring these ancient scenes to life, the book is written for a general audience and includes a postscript that delves more deeply into geological terms, methods, mammoths, and more. As the prints are rapidly being lost to erosion, work continues at White Sands to discover, record, and preserve these fascinating tracks in collaboration with Indigenous groups.
University of New Mexico Press, 2026; 208 pp.; b/w illus.; $21.95 paperback; $14.99 ePub; unmpress.com
Early Spanish Florida: Unearthing the History of America’s Oldest Colony
By Judith A. Bense
Written for a general audience by a leading authority on Florida archaeology, Early Spanish Florida begins in 1513 with Juan Ponce de León’s arrival on the Florida peninsula and ends in 1763, when Spain ceded Florida to Britain after the Seven Years’ War. Drawing on archaeological evidence and historical documents, Judith Bense explores 250 years of Spanish colonization through Spanish, Indigenous, and African perspectives. She reminds readers that Spanish Florida once stretched north into what is now South Carolina and west to the Mississippi River, with its capital at Santa Elena on present-day Parris Island, South Carolina, before the colony contracted to the areas around St. Augustine and Pensacola.
Organized chronologically, the book traces the changing strategies Spain used to claim and hold La Florida, from early exploration and violence to diplomacy, missionization, and military defense. Bense shows how Native resistance, imperial rivalry, and environmental realities shaped the colony’s history. She also examines the experiences of Africans in Spanish Florida, including those who escaped slavery in the British colonies to the north.
One of the book’s strengths is Bense’s clear explanation of why archaeology matters. Spanish records are extensive, she notes, but they are also partial and biased; only by pairing documents with archaeology can scholars build a fuller picture of the past. Richly illustrated and highly readable, the book includes suggested readings, places to visit, websites, and a useful concluding summary.
University Press of Florida, 2026; 240 pp.; Illus.; $32 paperback; $24.99 epub; floridapress.org
