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strong case for the need for interdisciplinary research. The challenges to Renfrew’s hypotheses have also led to a resurgence of research linking archaeological data and linguistic reconstructions (Anthony 1995, Mallory 1991).

Research combining historical linguistics and archaeology has developed to varying degrees in other parts of the world (Blench and Spriggs 1999). In the Americas combinatory research on prehistory has remained intermittent and marginal compared to its seminal position in Europe. The lack of written records for most of American prehistory and incomplete synchronic data for many of the language families in the Americas have produced a different approach to interdisciplinary research (Hymes and Fought 1975). The interests of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Americanists differed significantly from their European counterparts, with the primary focus of archaeologists being restricted to the American prehistoric period represented by visible remains (Wauchope 1962). The search for evidence of prehistoric European connections also minimized interest in ancient American languages and culture (ibid.). Even after the focus of archaeological inquiry shifted to the prehistory of indigenous non-European peoples, linguists and anthropologists, spearheaded by Franz Boas, concentrated on salvaging the language and culture of modern populations before they disappeared (Hymes and Fought 1975). The data they collected was needed for historical and comparative work, and the collection of linguistic data from modern indigenous languages and culture continues to be a focal point of linguistics and anthropology.

With rigorous linguistic reconstructions for American proto-languages running behind other prehistoric inquiry, archaeologists and historical linguists in the Americas in the early twentieth century did not pursue combinatory research. The period after World War I produced discoveries that were documented and described by the researchers, leaving explanation and testable hypotheses to the next generation of archaeologists (Sabloff 1990). The close working relationships between the archaeologists and anthropologists studying the ancient Maya of mexico, guatemala, and Honduras (e.g., j.e. thompson with Wisdom and sylvanus morley with Villa Rojas) suggests that they may have shared their undocumented inferences with each other and that the unpublished theories of archaeologists were the impetus for the conclusions of anthropologists (Becker 1979). From the first publications of the art and writing of the Maya of mesoamerica, decipherment and interpretation of inscriptions was left to epigraphers (scholars who study writing systems) from various fields including art history, social anthropology, engineering, architecture, and archaeology (Coe 1992). Mayan historical linguists have maintained a marginal position in the decipherment process, instead concentrating on reconstructing vocabulary for proto-languages and identifying linguistic homelands and cross linguistic areal traits (Campbell et al. 1986, Campbell and Kaufman 1976, Kaufman 1976).

Shared motivation to understand the social reality of prehistoric populations throughout the world makes future collaborations between archaeologists and linguists likely. Controversial linguistic dating methods such as glottochronology and mass comparison are also being tested (Greenberg et al. 1986, Marcus 1983a). Dynamic models and theories to predict social responses to ecological, social, and political change continue to be developed by archaeologists and linguists (Trigger 1989, Labov 1994). Both disciplines use geographic models for determining the rate of differentiation and expansion of linguistic populations, the spread of technology, and the migratory trajectory of prehistoric groups (Nichols 1993). Settlement pattern studies continue to be used to compare aspects of spatial organization of ancient societies with expressions of space and worldview in linguistic reconstructions (Trigger 1989).

Judith Storniolo