Society for American Archaeology Book Award

For more information about the Society for American Archaeology, sponsors of this award, click here.

2018     Where the land meets the sea : fourteen millennia of human history at Huaca Prieta, Peru, edited by Tom D. Dillehay (Scholarly); The Barbarians : lost civilizations by Peter Bogucki (Popular)
2017     The white shaman mural : an enduring creation narrative in rock art of the lower Pecos by Carolyn E. Boyd (Scholarly); honorable mention: The archaeology and history of colonial Mexico : mixing epistemologies by Enrique Rodriguez-Alegría (Scholarly);
At home with the Aztecs : an archaeologist uncovers their daily life by Michael E. Smith (Popular)
2016     Orderly anarchy : sociopolitical evolution in aboriginal California by Robert L. Bettinger (Scholarly); Bog bodies uncovered : solving Europe's ancient mystery by Miranda Aldhouse-Green (Popular)
2015     Negotiated settlements : Andean communities and landscapes under Inka and Spanish colonialism by Steven A. Wernke (Scholarly); The Neanderthals rediscovered : how modern science is rewriting their story by Dimitra Papagianni and Michael A. Morse
2014     Light and shadow : isolation and interaction in the Shala Valley of northern Albania by Michael L. Galaty, Ols Lafe, Wayne E. Lee, and Zamir Tafilica; The prehistory of home by Jerry D. Moore
2013     Hillforts of the ancient Andes : Colla warfare, society and landscape by Elizabeth Arkush (Scholarly); A shark going inland is my chief : the island civilization of ancient Hawaiʻi by Patrick Kirch (Popular)
2012     The island of fogs : archaeological and ethnohistorical investigations of Isla Cedros, Baja California by Matthew R. Des Lauriers (Scholarly); The statues that walked : unraveling the mystery of Easter Island by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo (Popular)
2011     Mound excavations at Moundville : architecture, elites, and social order by Vernon James Knight, Jr.; Traces of Fremont : society and rock art in ancient Utah by Steven R. Simms
2010     The horse, the wheel, and language : how bronze-age riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world by David W. Anthony; Digging in the City of Brotherly Love : stories from Philadelphia archaeology by Rebecca Yamin
2009     Chinese society in the age of Confucius (1000-250 BC) : the archaeological evidence by Lothar von Falkenhausen; Imagining Head-Smashed-In : Aboriginal buffalo hunting on the northern Plains by Jack Brink
2008     Monuments, empires, and resistance : the Araucanian polity and ritual narratives by Tom D. Dillehay; Before Albany by James W. Bradley
2007     Transformations by Kristian Kristiansen & Thomas B. Larsson; Ohio archaeology : an illustrated chronicle of Ohio's ancient American Indian cultures by Bradley T. Lepper
2006     The first farmers : the origins of agricultural societies by Peter Bellwood; From a Watery Grave: The Discovery and Excavation of La Salle's Shipwreck, La Belle by James E. Bruseth and Toni S. Turner
2005     Ambiguous images : gender and rock art by Kelley Hays-Gilpin; Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History by Susan Toby Evans
2004     Before California : an archaeologist looks at our earliest inhabitant by Brian Fagan; Archaeological landscapes of the Near East by T.J. (Tony) Wilkinson
2003     Archaeology at La Isabela : America's first European town and Columbus's outpost among the Tainos by Kathleen Deagan and José María Cruxent; Amelia Earhart's shoes : is the mystery solved? by Thomas F. King, Randall S. Jacobson, Karen Ramey Burns, and Kenton Spading
2002     Constructing frames of reference : an analytical method for archaeological theory building using hunter-gatherer and environmental data sets by Lewis R. Binford; Unearthing Gotham : the archaeology of New York City by Ann-Marie Cantwell and Diana Dizerega Wall
2001     Vikings : the North Atlantic saga by William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward
2000     The paleolithic societies of Europe by Clive Gamble
1999     Mississippian political economy by Jon Muller; The complete pyramids by Mark Lehner
1998     Monte Verde : a late Pleistocene settlement in Chile by Tom D. Dillehay; Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest by Stephen Plog
1997     The emergence of agriculture by Bruce D. Smith; Digging through darkness : chronicles of an archaeologist by Carmel Schrire
1996     Honor among thieves : a zooarchaeological study of Neandertal ecology by Mary C. Stiner