Mark Paul Leone was an historical archaeologist who taught at the University of Maryland. He earned his graduate degrees in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He turned to historical archaeology while working in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. In 1976 he moved to the University of Arizona, where he founded "Archaeology in Annapolis." He trained over 20 PhDs whose work is in historical archaeology. His books include The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital (University of California Press, 2005) and Black Faith: The Archaeology of Spirit Bundles in Annapolis and in Talbot County, Maryland (University of Virginia Press, 2025). He passed away in 2024, just as the Handbook was nearing completion. Jane Louise Webster is a Historical Archaeologist whose research and teaching has centred on both Roman and early modern slavery, often in comparative perspective.

She has worked at the Universities of Leicester (1995-1999) and Newcastle (2004-2024), and from 2008-2024 was Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology at Newcastle. Between these posts, she held a Caird Visiting Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum, London. In 2023, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. Her 2024 OUP book, Materializing the Middle Passage: A Historical Archaeology of British Slave Shipping, 1680-1807, won the 2024 Lyman Book Award for Maritime and Nautical Archaeology from the North American Society for Atlantic History and the 2025 Scholarly Book Award from the Society for American Archaeology.