Microchange in eighteenth-century Spanish colonial material culture.

In the late 18th century some of the Minorcans who left New Smyrna arranged for themselves a chapel in the house that had been the residence of Antonia de Avero, a member of a prominent criollo family. Because the several rebuildings of the house in the 18th century preserved the earlier floor levels of the structure in sealed proveniences, the house on the Avero site has offered an unusual opportunity for the study of microchange in Spanish colonial material culture.
Research at the site in 1974 and subsequently has been carried out as a cooperative venture of the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board, the National Greek Orthodox Church representative Mr. Ted Pappas, historical architect Mr. Herschel Shepard, and archaeologist Kathleen Deagan.
Two decades of serious archaeological investigation of St. Augustine preceded the work reported in this volume. Building on knowledge of Hispanic architecture, town element locations, and their dating that the earliest systematic work recovered, archaeology in

St. Augustine in the 1970s has turned more to the study of cultural processes.
The Avero site offered an opportunity for study of the spatial and temporal ranges of St. Augustine’s material culture. A related concern of the investigation has been the comparison of this criollo site with mestizo sites known through other digs.
The dig was conducted by Florida State University students of archaeology under the direction of Professor Deagan. The FSU archaeology field school in St. Augustine is a continuing investigation of the Spanish culture of North America and is one of the most popular such field schools in the U.S. The student investigators who excavated the Avero site, and their instructor Professor Deagan (lower left) are pictured on the back of this dustjacket.