out in Florida and the Caribbean during the 1930s and 1940s, most of it devoted to the Spanish colonial presence in the region, and much of it dominated by North American concerns. These projects reflect the diffuse nature of American historical archaeology at that time, both in the reasons for doing archaeology and in the people who did it. Avocational archaeologists, for example, played a central role during this period in the development of historical archaeology in the region.

A major emphasis was the study of monumental sites for purposes of historical interpretation, not only by archaeologists but often by historians or architects. Other concerns of the period addressed primarily by archaeologists were questions of artifact classification and chronology and of Spanish influence on, and the acculturation of, the American Indians of the region. All of these themes have endured as important emphases in the historical archaeology of Florida and the Caribbean to the present day.

Three developments in the United States at this time shaped the direction of historical (and pre-Columbian) archaeology. The establishment of the society for american archaeology in 1935 marked the formalization of professional archaeology in the Americas. Although prehistory was the primary concern of the Society, its establishment focused professional consensus on appropriate archaeological questions and methodologies, which in 1935 were predominantly those of classification and chronology (see Dunnell 1986; Willey and Sabloff 1980, 73–74). This coincided with the establishment of the United States Works Progress Administration Program of the 1930s, which provided some of the first opportunities to develop and implement these archaeological methodologies on historic sites.

The end of this period was marked by the emergence of historical archaeology as a recognized discipline, signaled by the establishment of the Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology. This annual conference was first organized by Stanley South in 1960, and was held in conjunction with the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (see South 1994). Florida historical archaeologists John Goggin, John Griffin, Hale Smith and Charles Fairbanks were particularly active in the conference, and the first four conference proceedings were published in the Florida Anthropologist. During the 1960s the conference was largely devoted to what Goggin called the “brass tacks” of historical archaeology, “to the kind of details that archaeologists deal with. In other words my feeling is that as archaeologists we deal with artifacts, and with few exceptions colonial artifacts have not been analyzed or classified by a method suitable for the archaeologists to handle” (South 1964, 34). Resolving this problem was to be one of the enduring themes of historical archaeology after 1960.

The Development of Enduring Themes: Spanish Towns and Monuments

St. Augustine, Florida—the United States’ oldest European settlement—was an early beneficiary of the U.S. Works Progress Administration program. A program of survey, excavation, and study of historical resources was undertaken jointly from 1935 to 1937 by the Federal Works Project Administration, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., and the St. Augustine Historical Society. The work was explicitly multidisciplinary, involving archaeologists, historians, and architects, and it emphasized monumental sites in its attempt to archaeologically study and partially reconstruct the Spanish defensive systems in the colony (Chatelaine 1941). The archaeological program initiated in St. Augustine during this period has continued to the present day, evolving to incorporate questions of Spanish acculturation and the development and recognition of colonial identity (see Cusick 1994; Deagan 1983; Deagan 1991).

Interest in monumental sites associated with early Spanish presence was sustained throughout the period, often in support of restoration and public interpretation of sites. The historical archaeology of the sites of forts and towns in Florida during this period was continued in St. Augustine at the Castillo de San Marcos in 1947 and 1953 and at several domestic sites in the town by Smith and Griffin (see Deagan 1991, xvi-xvii; xxv-xxiv). Elsewhere in Florida, investigation was initiated at other seventeenth- and