legal attention to cultural resources management issues. This was particularly influential in those areas under formal U.S. government jurisdiction after the passage of the Moss-Bennett Bill in 1974, as well as in Cuba after the establishment of the Castro government. Although legislation mandating survey and mitigation of archaeological sites was not universal throughout the Caribbean, the management of cultural resources for the preservation of cultural patrimony and the potential for tourism was nearly so.

Serious attention was given to the definition of national identities and the management of historic sites, and this encouraged the development of programs throughout the region that were designed to recover information relevant to public interpretation.

Developments in marine archaeology during this period were closely tied to the management of historical archaeological resources on land. Research-oriented archaeology of shipwrecks evolved into an important, if controversial, emphasis in the historical archaeology of Florida and the Caribbean during the period from 1970 to 1990, paralleled by an even greater growth in treasure hunting and salvaging of shipwrecks for commercial reasons.

These developments directed the course of historical archaeology in Florida and the Caribbean after 1970 in several ways. One was by encouraging explicitly historical archaeological research unrelated to the specific concerns of prehistoric archaeology or of historic monument restoration, and by placing stronger emphasis on systemic questions of encounter and acculturation, colonialism, capitalism, and slavery, and less emphasis on chronology and classification. Archaeologists in general became more interested in cross-cultural studies as a way to address some of these questions, and increasingly turned archaeological attention to non-Spanish and postcolonial historic sites for the first time. This broadening of focus was also encouraged by the requirements of cultural resources management programs aimed at cultural patrimony in newly independent nations, which brought attention to bear on both non-Spanish and post colonial sites. This trend has been perhaps most notable in the initiation and rapid growth of effort devoted to African-American archaeology since 1970.

It should be noted that a number of programs continued research after 1970 to refine and enhance the understanding of historic material culture classification, chronology, and interpretation. Such efforts built upon and extended the work begun in the previous period (see Cruxent and Vaz 1975; Deagan 1987; Marken 1994).

The formalization of historical archaeology as an entity was reflected in both Florida and the Caribbean during this period in the training of archaeologists. Formal training in historical archaeology was provided at the state universities of Florida by Fairbanks, Smith, and Griffin and led to many of the historical archaeological programs ongoing in the Caribbean and Florida. Another training program with far-reaching influence on Caribbean historical archaeology was the Curso de restauracion de bienes muebles especializado en ceramologia historica. This program was established in Panamá in 1974 under the auspices of the Organization of American States and the Instituto de Cultura de Panamá, and continued for a decade under the direction of José M. Cruxent (Cruxent 1976, 1980).

Basic methods for excavation methodology and artifact classification—including those of historical archaeology—were taught in the program, which trained archaeological technicians from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Cultural Resources Management

In some areas, such as San Juan, Santo Domingo, and St. Augustine, management programs built upon the studies of monumental sites that dominated the pre-1970 period, and were intensified by formal programs of cultural resources management. In other areas, programs of urban cultural resources management archaeology began during this period, including in Havana (Cuba), Pensacola (Florida), and Spanish Town (Jamaica). In all of these areas historical archaeologists are still attempting to accompany the rapid growth and development in these cities, to salvage sites, and to trace the cities’ architectural and economic evolution.