The title of this book, On the Periphery of the Periphery, is a not so subtle allusion to the nature of historical relationships, first between the Yucatan Peninsula and greater Mexico, and second between Yucatan and evolving global economic, political, and social networks beginning in the late-eighteenth century. My theoretical approach to the history of the peninsula has developed out of particular research interests concerning the rise of capitalism and the modern global economy that has characterized an increasingly integrated world-system. As an archaeologist I am particularly interested in how the local, as expressed through archaeological remains and landscapes, articulated with larger global processes to create change in the lives of individuals. My approach has been at once to place both the local region within the larger context of national and world dynamics, and at the same time to elucidate the larger contexts of nation and world within the dynamics of the local. It is from this perspective – the interrelatedness of cultural systems in a global context – that I approach the study of hacienda/plantation archaeology.