The Latin American Historical Archaeology Lab (LAHAL) is committed to critically approaching Latin American history and heritage through interdisciplinary, multivocal, anti-racist, and ethical research. The principal project of the lab focuses on the revitalization of Cimarronaje (Marronage) in Ecuador, which contributes to articulating the historical strategies of survival and resistance transmitted by Afro-Ecuadorian maroon women in the context of colonial slavery and modern legacies of racial discrimination and gender violence.

In the lab, undergraduate and graduate students transcribe, organize, and investigate 18th-century documents, modern oral traditions, and geographical information that will be incorporated into the Repository of Afro-Ecuadorian Historical Memory of the Chota-Mira Valley (a collaboration with the grassroots organization National Coordinator of Black Women-Carchi Chapter, Ecuador).

The lab also works with a database that includes excavated archaeological remains, including ceramics, metal, and glass, related to the Afro-descendent population that inhabited the Jesuit and post-Jesuit Hacienda La Concepción (18th-19th centuries).

Furthermore, the LAHAL aims to provide a platform for a multi-situated dialogue between Latin American, Latinx, Black, and Indigenous faculty, scholars, students, and descendent communities to ground collaborative and ethical archaeological research. Graduate students and scholars actively investigating under the frame of African Diaspora, Indigenous, and Feminist archaeology are also welcome to work in LAHAL.