Archaeological Frontiers and External Connections is the fourth volume in the Handbook of Middle American Indians, published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979). Volume editors are Gordon R. Willey (1913–2002), Bowditch Professor of Mexican and Central American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, and Gordon F. Ekholm (1909–1987), Associate Curator of Mexican Archaeology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

This volume presents an intensive study of matters of significance in various areas: archaeology and ethnohistory of the Northern Sierra, Sonora, Lower California, and northeastern Mexico; external relations between Mesoamerica and the southwestern United States and eastern United States; archaeology and ethnohistory of El Salvador, western Honduras, and lower Central America; external relations between Mesoamerica and the Caribbean area, Ecuador, and the Andes; and the case for and against Old World pre-Columbian contacts via the Pacific. Many photographs accompany the text.

The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.