Archaeology of Manila Galleon Seaports and Early Maritime Globalization

This book focuses on the archaeological and historical research on the seaport heritage of galleon navigation in Asia-Pacific region. It reconstructs the Manila Galleons' era of early maritime globalization, established and operated by Spanish navigators from the 16th to 19th centuries. The galleons sailed across the Pacific via the hub seaports and trade centers of Manila in the Philippines and Acapulco in Mexico, forming a prosperous sea route connecting eastern Asia and New Spain on the American continent for more than 250 years. This pioneering navigation of the pan-Pacific regions promoted early global maritime trade along the new Maritime Silk Road between the East and the West.

Written by archaeologists and cultural historians from America, Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, it presents the latest investigations and research on the galleon-affiliated seaports, including Acapulco and San Blas in Mexico, Guam, Manila in Philippines, Yuegang (Crescent Harbor), Xiamen (Amoy), Keelung and Macao in China, Nagasaki in Japan. This joint research sheds new light on the history of navigation and maritime trade between galleon-affiliated harbors; the origin, production, transport and trade of the galleon cargo; social cultural exchange along the new Maritime Silk Road in the pan-Pacific region; and the history of maritime globalization in last 500 years. It offers a new perspective on maritime archaeology and traces the different stages of the galleon trade and affiliated maritime history, including Yuegang Outbound, Manila Entrepotting and Bound for Acapulco, presenting a panoramagram of Spanish pan-Pacific trade and early maritime globalization.

​Chunming Wu ( B.A. and M.A. in Archaeology and PH.D. in Chinese History from Xiamen University) is currently a researcher at Xiamen University's Center for Maritime Archaeology. Dr. Wu's interests are in the field of maritime archaeology, and the prehistoric culture and early aboriginal ethno- history of southeast China and Southeast Asia. He was awarded a visiting scholarship by the American Council of Learned Society & Luce Foundation at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Harvard Yenching Institute, Harvard University.
He has published 6 monographs: Archaeological Research of the History and Cultures of Prehistoric Aboriginals in Southeast China (1999), Archaeological Research of Capital of Min-Yue Kingdom of Han Dynasty(1998), The Shipwreck Archaeology in Seas Surrounding China (2003), Maritime Archaeology (2007), The Maritime Cultural Interaction between Indigenous Yue and Austronesian (2012), The Archaeological and Historical Research on the Maritime Cultural Heritage (2016), and more than 150 academic papers.
Roberto Junco Sanchez is an archaeological researcher and underwater archaeologist. He graduated from the National School of Anthropology and History in Mexico City with a master's degree and a PhD, and also holds a diploma in Historical Archaeology from Leicester University. Since 2004, he has worked at the Underwater Archaeology department at the National Institute of Anthropology and History. He has worked on projects in Veracruz, Campeche and Guerrero, and surveyed in the Gulf of Mexico for the lost galleons of the 1631 fleet. He has written on diverse topics, such as historical archaeology, Chinese porcelain in Mexico, and the prehispanic rituality of Mexico. He is currently excavating the Manila Galleonsat the port of Acapulco.
Miao Liu holds a PH.D. in Archaeology and Museology from Nankai University, and is an Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Department of History of Xiamen University. Her focus is maritime archaeology and the history of Chinese export ceramics. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Archaeology Institute of UCLA, USA. She has published numerous papers on the topic of maritime history, ceramic cultural history and southeast China's Maritime Silk Road.