Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology

Introduction / 13
salient reminder of how international politics can affect scholarship, even in
an area as seemingly benign as archaeology. Still, the openings created by
scholarly exchanges in the 1990s and the proliferation of electronic communications
have created a stronger bond between Cuban and American scholars,
both personally and professionally. On the personal and scholarly front,
relations between Cuban and American scholars have become warmer and
stronger due to improved communications. Travel can still be complicated
for both sides, but conditions are certainly better than they were during the
Cold War era.
Although my personal exploration of Cuban archaeology did not lead to
an immediate ¤eld project, it did lead to collaboration, one that has expanded
far beyond my original ambitions. One of the archaeologists who gave me
such a warm welcome in Havana was Gabino La Rosa Corzo. As we sat and
talked for the ¤rst time at the Centro de Antropología over shots of black,
sweet coffee, we discovered we shared a mutual curiosity about the state of
archaeology in our respective countries and a mutual lack of information.
Talking, we excitedly began to satisfy this curiosity but realized that a lot
more talking, by a lot more people, was needed to bridge the communication
gap imposed by political conditions. We thus formed the idea of a joint Cuban
and American session on Cuban archaeology and the possibilities for
collaborative work. From there, the session at the 2002 Society for American
Archaeology meeting came to be. As the session co-organizer, I myself
adopted the Cuban style of informal networking that demands combining
sociability with scholarship. The Cuban approach is infectious. Through it, I
met Antonio Curet, who then decided to take this collaboration to a new level
by transforming it into a publication.
Ultimately, this book is a gift born out of Cuban hospitality, a welcoming
gesture that I hope American scholars will return in kind. They may need to
adopt the Cuban style of networking through friendship rather than of¤cial
channels in order to form meaningful collaborations, but I can assure them
that gestures of friendship will be genuinely reciprocated.
Cuban Archaeology:
The View from Inside, by Gabino La Rosa Corzo
Just as it is dif¤cult for Cuban scientists, as a consequence of the embargo, to
stay abreast of the latest research ¤ndings published in the United States,
North American scholars are limited by their lack of access to the results of
our work, and today they know little about archaeology in Cuba. However,