Relic Hunters is a study of the complex relationship between the people of 19th century America with the material antiquities of North America's indigenous past. As scholars struggled to explain their existence, farmers in Ohio were plowing up arrowheads, building their houses atop burial mounds, and developing their own ideas about antiquity. They experienced the new country as a "place with history" reflected in material traces that became important touch points for scientific knowledge, but for American cultural identity as well. Relic Hunters traces the encounter with American antiquities from 1812 to 1879. This encompasses the period when archaeology took root in the United States: it also spans the "deep settlement" of the Midwest and sectional strife both before and after the Civil War. At the center of the story is the first iconic find of American archaeology, known as "the Kentucky Mummy." Discovered deep in a cavern, this dessicated burial became the subject of scholarly competition, traveling exhibitions, and even poetry. The book uses the theme of the Kentucky Mummy to structure the broader story of the public and American antiquities, a tour that leads through rural museums, mound excavations, lecture tours, shady deals, and ultimately into the famous attic of the Smithsonian Institution. Ultimately, Relic Hunters is a story of the American landscape, and of the role of archaeology in shaping that place. Derived from letters, memoranda, and reports found in more than a dozen archives, this is a unique account of a critical encounter that shaped local and national identity in ways that are only now being explored.

Inka storage systems financed the largest prehistoric New World empire, the Inka state, which extended almost three thousand miles along the west coast of South America and into the Andean highlands. In this volume, prominent anthropologists and archaeologists explore for the first time how Inka storage was integrated into the Inka administrative system, and how Inka authorities consolidated their power by controlling access to concentrated resources. The massive wealth accumulated in Inka storehouses was legendary in sixteenth-century accounts of the Spanish invasion of the Andes. Archaeological studies reported here reveal how and why circular and rectangular Inka structures, known as qollqa, were built at high elevations where climatic conditions protected and preserved the contents. The Inkas tailored the administration of their vast economy - which was without currency - to the resources of each region and political sophistication of the local population. They filled storehouses with agricultural products, textiles and other manufactured goods, and oro from state-owned mines, through an elaborate system of taxation based on corvee labor. As organization and deployment of economic surpluses became more efficient, Inka rulers were able to tighten their control. This major contribution to Andean studies presents research from several regions and from major Inka storage archaelogical sites - Huanuco Pampa, Pumpu, Hatun Xauxa, Valle Calchaqui and Huamachuco. The discussions range from theoretical considerations of Inka political economy to excavation and analysis of individual storage structures. Inka Storage Systems is unique - focusing on storage and emphasizing archaeological data complemented by ethnohistorical interpretations.