MISSION ARCHAEOLOGY

“Mission archaeology” is a novel conjunction of terms devised to focus attention on an archaeology of mission sites, and thereby on the light that can be shed on the process of the Christianization of the Americas by examining the material culture of missions. Discussion centers on a summary of mission research in the Spanish-occupied territories of North America and Mayan Mesoamerica. I then draw conclusions from these data, and from anthropological and historical analyses of mission encounters, to suggest where mission studies should be headed and the role that archaeology can play in expanding our knowledge of the mission transformation.