This handsomely produced anthology is the second of a projected three-volume series on the Columbian Consequences, sponsored by the Society for American Archaeology in recognition of the 1992 Quincentenary. Focusing on the cultural and biological effects of the encounter between Spaniard and Native American, the book is divided into three sections that examine the exploration, colonization, and evangelization of the eastern Spanish Borderlands, a region consisting of the present-day southeastern United States. Forty-five authors, most of whom are archaeologists, discuss a variety of topics such as Spanish-Indian contact in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the routes of Spanish explorers, the nature of native societies, the creation of a New World culture, dietary patterns, native response to Spanish military and religious movements, mission architecture, and the impact of Old World diseases on the New World peoples of colonial Florida.

Of particular interest to historians is the argument made by several contributors regarding the value of historical archaeology to the study of the Spanish Borderlands. Essays by C. Margaret Scarry and Elizabeth J. Reitz (“Herbs, Fish, Scum, and Vermin: Subsistence Strategies in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Florida”) and Clark Spencer et al. (“Beyond Demographic Collapse: Biological Adaptation and Change in Native Populations of La Florida”) demonstrate that archaeological investigations can yield insight into key issues of demography and cultural change when documentary materials are lacking. Other essays, most notably those focusing on the route of de Soto, illustrate the creative use of historical and archaeological data. Kathleen A. Deagan also successfully integrates the two disciplines in her analysis of “Accommodation and Resistance: The Process and Impact of Spanish Colonization in the Southeast.”

This rapprochement of the two fields is compromised, however, by a pervasive sense of archaeological chauvinism. Archaeology often is presented as the superior tool with which to examine the Borderlands. Even Deagan succumbs to this conviction by noting that the study of an American colonial society tied to an international order “requires a global and multicultural perspective. Only historical archaeology can bring this special perspective to bear on such problems” (p. 226). A prevailing theme of this anthology is the superiority of archaeological method and evidence, an attitude fostered by a misunderstanding of (or perhaps unfamiliarity with) historical method and evidence. For some, the function of excavations is to confirm the historical record, which, by definition, is suspect. One conclusion of Jeffrey M. Mitchem’s archaeological investigations around Tampa Bay is “that violent clashes between Spaniards and Native Americans did occur in this region, as mentioned in the narratives” (p. 57). Yet questioning the historical documentation does not restrain a number of the authors from speculating freely about the significance and meaning of artifacts. There seems to be no equity between historical and archaeological criticism.

From a historian’s viewpoint, perhaps the anthology’s most glaring limitation is the absence of historical context. Few contributors place the exploration, colonization, and evangelization of the eastern Borderlands within the historical literature. One group of authors, for instance, states that Pánfilo de Narváez’ expedition is “poorly known in the historical record” (p. 71). It becomes clear that much of the archaeological work being done on the eastern Borderlands suffers from a lack of understanding of the historical literature on colonial Spanish America. The result is a site-specific, archaeological approach to the Borderlands that marginalizes this region by not integrating it into the broader framework of the Spanish American Empire.

These objections notwithstanding, this volume has much to offer, particularly its acknowledgment of the importance of the eastern Borderlands, long the poor cousin of its western counterpart. Several essays are particularly well crafted. Eugene Lyon, in “The Enterprise of Florida,” writes of “The New Black Legend,” a movement in some scholarly and public circles (and evident in some of the other essays in this anthology) which aims to renounce Spanish colonization in the Western Hemisphere. In “Blood of Martyrs, Blood of Indians,” David J. Weber masterfully provides a more balanced view of missionary activities by incorporating the native American perspective. Through an examination of food remains, Elizabeth J. Reitz, in Zooarchaeological Evidence for Subsistence at La Florida Missions,” creatively illustrates how indigenous and European culinary techniques were combined to create a new subsistence system.

Unfortunately, the anthology lacks a conclusion, which could have provided a necessary synthesis of the issues—such as cultural change and variability as well as acculturation and accommodation—that permeate the volume.

This anthology demonstrates that the concept of the Borderlands has evolved significantly since Herbert Bolton introduced it in the 1920s. The sponsors should be commended for making the prodigious material of recent investigations available to the nonarchaeological community. It is to be hoped that this research, and its underlying methodological assumptions and approaches, will provoke a response from a historical community that has not been as active in eastern Borderland studies. Only with the broader involvement of historians can a more comprehensive understanding of the frontier be achieved.