institutionalization

In the next part of the exhibit, the history and legacy of the Mission and Presidio of San Sabá illustrate how an era of discovery resulted in new forms of European practices in a New World. Since 2000, faculty and students of the Texas Tech University Archaeological Field School have been excavating the remains of these 18th-century structures. Simultaneously, at the Texas Tech campus in Seville, scholars are studying the documentary record in the Archive of the Indies in the hopes of filling in historical gaps. Illustrated by many artifacts never before publicly displayed, the story of San Sabá exemplifies how new institutions, owing much to earlier European designs and technologies, came to be established in a new country.