For several years, I have been reporting on Latin America for the Society for Historical Archaeology Newsletter and I have discovered that a great demand exists for information on archaeological activities in this huge area south of the Rio Grande. The first aim of this short paper is to report on archaeological publications written in Spanish and Portuguese. Numerous books and scholarly papers have been published in English by Latin American archaeologists in the last few years and Latin Americans are included in the editorial boards of journals and encyclopedias, contributing to a better understanding of historical archaeology as practiced and theorized in the subcontinent. Historical archaeology is unique in this respect, allowing Latin Americans to distinguish themselves as net contributors to the overall, world historical archaeological discussions (Funari, 2005).

The uniqueness may be due to several different reasons, not least is the fact that the Latin American, at the same time, has been part of the Western World and of its periphery. As part of the West, it can be understood to contribute to a broader understanding of the dialectic of exploitation, oppression, and resistance in a mixed historical context (Funari et al., 1999, 2005). This is unique to historical archaeology, considering that a similar push is not yet clear in other archaeological fields, such as prehistory, as a quick comparison of the International Journal of Historical Archaeology and Latin American Antiquity enables us to understand. Even though the former is a world journal and the latter a publication focusing on Latin America, Latin Americans are regular authors in the IJHA and only rare contributors to LAA. There is thus no doubt that Latin American historical archaeology is the most visible branch of the discipline world wide, even considering classical archaeology, another field where Latin Americans publish for an international audience in English and French (Funari, 1997).

Most of the publications though are not in English, but in local languages, and these are not well known outside the region. Ironically, they are not well known even within the subcontinent, for several reasons. The first and foremost reason concerns the difficult distribution of local publications. It is usually far easier to have access to the IJHA or Historical Archaeology than to local publications. Even inside each country, the distribution network is seriously flawed and it is almost absent on an international basis. Mexican publications are not available in Brazil, neither are Brazilian ones in other countries. This is also true to all the other, smaller countries. English is more widely known than Portuguese in Hispanic America, or Spanish in Brazil, and this further hinders the spread of local publications.

This report is thus concerned only with books and journals in Spanish and Portuguese dedicated wholly or partially to historical archaeology. There is a plethora of scholarly journals, which publish on historical archaeology. Palimpsesto is an annual publication from Buenos Aires University in Argentina, Intersecciones is another Argentine journal, Gabinete de Arqueología, a Cuban journal, Trabajos de Investigación Arqueológica en Puerto Rico, El Caribe Arqueológico, Cuba, Anales de Arqueología y Etnología, Mendoza, Argentina; all are in Spanish. In Brazil, several archaeological journals publish papers on historical archaeology, such as Revista do Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia, São Paulo, Revista de Arqueología (the official Society for Brazilian Archaeology journal), Revista de História da Arte e Arqueología, Campinas, and Cadernos do Lepaarq, Pelotas. However, several historical and anthropological journals publish papers on historical archaeology, such as Revista de Antropologia, São Paulo, Revista de História Regional, Ponta Grossa, Diálogos, Maringá, Tempos Históricos, Marechal Cândido Rondon, to name just a few of them. In the last ten years or so, dozens of articles have been published and even if no overall survey exists, it is probable that hundreds of papers have been published. However, all of those publications face huge difficulties in reaching university library shelves, not to mention ordinary archaeologists. There is no directory of publications and cross-border exchanges are rare. This situation results from the peripheral characters of the Latin American economies and academia, for there is not enough funding for distribution of knowledge within the area. A recent, most praiseworthy initiative is a bilingual, Spanish and Portuguese journal, Arqueología Suramericana, Arqueologia Sul-Americana, based in Colombia and Argentina. It does not include Central America, the Caribbean, or Mexico, but is restricted to South America.

Several on-line publications also exist, which publish papers on historical archaeology in Portuguese and Spanish, such as <www.historiaehistoria.com.br> and <www.seol.com.br/menme>. Editorial boards of local publications include not only Latin American historical archaeologists, and at present Charles E. Orser, Jr. serves in several of them, being nowadays the most cited English-speaking historical archaeologist in Latin America. A most praiseworthy trend is a broadening of editorial boards to include scholars from different countries, instead of the traditional restriction to nationals of each country.

There has also been a spate of books on historical archaeology in local languages. I will deal here only with a small sample, aiming at highlighting the main innovative theoretical trends. Several edited volumes have been published, grounded on social theory discussions, such as A. Zarankin and F. A. Acuto (eds), Sed non satiata, Teoría Social en la Arqueología Latinoamericana Conteporánea, Buenos Aires, Ediciones del Tridente, 1999, mixing prehistoric and historical archaeology and putting scholars together from several countries and with different theoretical standpoints. In the same line, but mixing Latin Americans, North Americans, and Europeans, an edited volume on identity has been published recently (Funari et al., 2005), with chapters written by Pedro Paulo Funari, Charles E. Orser, Jr., Solange Nunes Oliveira Schiavetto, Lourdes Domínguez, Siân Jones, Gabino La Rosa Corzo, Glaydson José da Silva, Nanci Vieira Oliveira, Elizabete Tamanini, Jorge Eremites de Oliveira, Lúcio Menezes Ferreira, Fábio Adriano Hering, Tamima Orra Mourad, Laurent Olivier, Thomas C. Patterson, José Alberione dos Reis. Both books have proven quite popular, despite the distribution problems, not least because authors from different countries contributed to spreading the word about them. Furthermore, contributors bring the books with them in their lecturing tours and fieldwork trips. Other edited volumes have been dedicated to historical archaeology, aiming at renewing the discipline in Latin America, such as Arqueología Histórica em América del Sur, los desafios del siglo XXI (Funari and Zarankin, 2004), with chapters by Pedro Paulo A Funari, Maria Ximena Senatores, Carlos Eduardo López-Castaño, Martha Cecilia Cano-Echeverri, Nancy Vieira de Oliveira, Cláudia Plens, Monika Therrien, and Andrés Zarankin.

Monographs have also been published, most of them less concerned with social theory and more prone to studying sites or artifacts, often using a historical approach, understood as an implicit acceptance of historical context as key to understanding a specific historical archaeological subject. Daniel Schávelzon has produced several books using this historical approach, most of them on Buenos Aires (e.g., Schávelzon, 1999). Others have studied archaeological sites, such as studies on a quarter in Havana, Cuba (Lugo Romera and Menéndez Castro, 2003) or on artifacts such as African-Cuban beads (Domínguez, 1999), but overviews have also been published with success (e.g., Domínguez, 1995). Even in these more historical approaches innovative interpretative frameworks have been put into action, particularly the so-called transculturation model, emphasizing the original features of society and material culture in Latin America, as they differ from those in the United States.

A recent trend in the discipline has been the social history of the discipline, or rather of aspects of the discipline, such as the most popular subject of historical archaeology: the Guarany Indians in contact with the Jesuits (e.g., Schiavetto, 2003; Soares, 1997). A related approach has also been used to study maroons (e.g., Funari and Carvalho, 2005). The support of science-funding institutions has also been instrumental to the publication of several of the mentioned books, some of them innovative MA or PhD theses, as is the case with Andrés Zarankin’s (2002) acclaimed study of schools in Buenos Aires. Most of these books are scholarly publications with limited distribution, but some of them are included in popular book collections and are widely available in at least their original countries, if not throughout the region.

Latin American historical archaeology publications in Spanish and Portuguese are also spreading to Europe, even though they are mostly found in scholarly libraries in Spain and Portugal rather than being available in bookstores, as distribution faces the problems already mentioned. However, it is safe to say that there is a growing interest in the former colonial powers in Europe for the historical archaeology carried out in Latin America, as it refers to their former colonies and also can shed light on the material cultures of Spain and Portugal. After all, historical archaeology deals with three hundred years of shared history, from the fifteenth century until the late eighteenth century. A case in point is the study of forts and defense systems in the Portuguese colony, which contribute to a better understanding of Portuguese imperial policies to the Portuguese themselves. Moreover, the theoretical issues discussed in Latin America, mixing American and European approaches is also interesting for historical archaeologists in Spain and Portugal, as is the case of the archaeology of architecture, to mention just one topic.

Considering the recent institution of the field in Latin America and also that most archaeologists deals with pre-colonial sites, the development of historical archaeology is exceptional. There are several reasons for this success, not the least of which is the social engagement and political commitment of the discipline with relevant issues, such as identity and community interests (e.g., Almeida, 2005). The outlook for historical archaeology publications in Spanish and Portuguese is thus a most promising one.