The history of the plantation system and the Yucatán Peninsula during and after the Spanish colonial period is covered in a new book by Allan Meyers, one of the excavators of Hacienda Tabi.

Called Outside the Hacienda Walls: The Archaeology of Plantation Peonage in 19th Century Yucatán, the 2012 book from the University of Arizona press is a great introductory text for undergraduate or beginning graduate students in historical archaeology. But it is also for anyone who might want to know how the disparate parts of archaeological research--excavation, survey, historical research, oral history, ethnography, faunal and floral analysis, the works--fit together to provide a picture of the context and people of the era when Mexico changed from being a Spanish colony to an independent republic.

During that time, the infamous plantation system exploited indigenous and immigrant workers in a debt slavery relationship that lasted between the mid-16th century and the Mexican Revolution of 1915. All of that is visible in the archaeological record at Hacienda Tabi.

• Hacienda Tabi, summary of research
• Outside the Hacienda Walls: The Archaeology of Plantation Peonage in 19th Century Yucatán, Review of the new book by Allan Meyers
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