Spanish and English Maritime Atlases as Sources for the Archaeology of the Americas’ Pacific Coast.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Spanish Derrotero General del Mar del Sur atlases and their English derivatives, the Hack atlases, contain a trove of cartographic and historical information regarding the Pacific coasts of the Americas. Scattered today in repositories worldwide, these 17th century pictorial and annotated volumes depicted all the major towns, ports, bays, and islands from Baja California to Tierra del Fuego. A detailed comparison of the various atlas editions reveals an intense geopolitical rivalry between European maritime empires and the involvement of Indigenous groups in the formation of the Transpacific Modern World. This presentation will highlight several categories of information represented in the atlases and that can be of interest to archaeologists, including Prehispanic archaeological sites; Indigenous, Spanish, Dutch, and English colonial settlements and forts; architectural features; and shipwrecks. Other useful information types include toponyms; ethnographic commentaries; raw materials and commodities central to the colonial economy; and trade routes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2022 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology