Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology

Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology PDF Author: Charles W. Golden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781135946029
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Presents the current state of of Maya archaeology by focusing on the history of the field for the past hundred years, present day research, and forward looking prescription for the direction of the.

Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology

Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology PDF Author: Charles Golden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135946078
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
This book presents the current state of Maya archaeology by focusing on the history of the field for the last 100 years, present day research, and forward looking prescription for the direction of the field.

Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology

Continuities and Changes in Maya Archaeology PDF Author: Charles W. Golden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780203603543
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description


Pre-Columbian Foodways

Pre-Columbian Foodways PDF Author: John Staller
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441904719
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 691

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Book Description
The significance of food and feasting to Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures has been extensively studied by archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians. Foodways studies have been critical to our understanding of early agriculture, political economies, and the domestication and management of plants and animals. Scholars from diverse fields have explored the symbolic complexity of food and its preparation, as well as the social importance of feasting in contemporary and historical societies. This book unites these disciplinary perspectives — from the social and biological sciences to art history and epigraphy — creating a work comprehensive in scope, which reveals our increasing understanding of the various roles of foods and cuisines in Mesoamerican cultures. The volume is organized thematically into three sections. Part 1 gives an overview of food and feasting practices as well as ancient economies in Mesoamerica. Part 2 details ethnographic, epigraphic and isotopic evidence of these practices. Finally, Part 3 presents the metaphoric value of food in Mesoamerican symbolism, ritual, and mythology. The resulting volume provides a thorough, interdisciplinary resource for understanding, food, feasting, and cultural practices in Mesoamerica.

Cultural Continuity in Mesoamerica

Cultural Continuity in Mesoamerica PDF Author: David L. Browman
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110807777
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 453

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Book Description
Of archaeological evidence from the Valsequillo region, Puebla, Mexico / Cynthia Irwin-Williams -- The origin of Zea mays / George W. Beadle -- Obsidian exchange networks: inferences and speculation on the development of social organization in formative Mesoamerica / Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira -- Shell exchange networks in formative Mesoamerica / Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira -- Mossbauer spectral analysis of Olmec iron ore mirrors: new evidence of formative period exchange networks in Mesoamerica / Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira and Billy Joe Evans -- The significance of the 'epiclassic' period in Mesoamerican prehistory / Malcolm C. Webb -- Ports of trade in Mesoamerica: a reappraisal / Frances Frei Berdan -- The ancient Maya in light of their ethnographic present / James C. Gifford -- Ideas concerning Maya concepts of the future / James C. Gifford -- Ethnographic realities of Mayan prehistory / Jeffrey C. Howry -- Mesoamericans as cultural brokers in northern New Spain / John Hobgood and Carroll L. Riley -- Toward the reconstruction of the Olmec mythological system / R.V. Kinzhalov -- Maya and Teotihuacan traits in classic Maya vase painting of the Peten / Jacinto Quirarte -- The Aztec system of writing: problems of research / Joaquin Galarza -- The deciphering of glyphs representing Mexica governmental titles / Horacio Corona Olea -- The Aztec day names / Herbert Landar -- The relationship between painting and scripts / Jorge Elliott -- Petroglyphs of the Antilles / Ripley P. Bullen -- Contribution to the study of cultural sequences in the central area of Costa Rica / Carlos H. Aguilar.

The Archaeology of Environmental Change

The Archaeology of Environmental Change PDF Author: Christopher T. Fisher
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816514844
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
In this book, a diverse collection of case studies reveal how archaeology can contribute to a better understanding of humans' relation to the environment. The Archaeology of Environmental Change shows that the environmental challenges facing humanity today can be better approached through an attempt to understand how past societies dealt with similar circumstances.

Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands

Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands PDF Author: Kasey Diserens Morgan
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646422848
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands explores what has been required of the Maya to survive both internal and external threats and other destabilizing forces. These include shifting power dynamics and sociocultural transformations, tumultuous political regimes, the precarity of newly formed nation states, migration in search of refuge, and newly globalizing economies in the Yucatecan lowlands in the Late Colonial to Early National periods—the times when formal Spanish colonial rule was giving way to Yucatecan and Mexican neocolonial settler systems. The work takes a hemispheric approach to the historical and material analysis of colonialism, bridging the often disparate literatures on coloniality and settler colonialism. Archaeologists and anthropologists working in what are today southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras grapple with the material realities of coloniality at a regional level. They provide sustained discussions of Maya experiences with wide-ranging colonial endurances: violence, resource insecurity, land rights, refugees, the control of borders, the movement of contraband, surveillance, individual and collective agency, consumption, and use of historic resources. Considering a future for historical archaeologies of the Maya region that bridges anthropology, ethnohistory, Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and Latin American studies, Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands presents a new understanding of how ways of being in the Maya world have formed and changed over time, as well as the shared investments of historical archaeologists and sociocultural anthropologists working in the Maya region. Contributors: Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, Alejandra Badillo Sánchez, Adolfo Iván Batún Alpuche, A. Brooke Bonorden, Maia C. Dedrick, Scott L. Fedick, Fior García Lara, John Gust, Brett A. Houk, Rosemary A. Joyce, Gertrude B. Kilgore, Jennifer P. Mathews, Patricia A. McAnany, James W. Meierhoff, Fabián A. Olán de la Cruz, Julie K. Wesp

Continuity and Change in Text and Image at Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico

Continuity and Change in Text and Image at Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico PDF Author: Erik Boot
Publisher: Leiden University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 604

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Book Description
The archaeological site of Chichén Itzá, one of the best known ancient Maya cities, is located in the northern section of the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico. Chichén Itzá has figured prominently in both past and present discussions on the Terminal Classic and Early Postclassic periods in the northern Maya lowlands. Based on archaeological information and information derived from ethnohistorical sources, this city can be dated to a period from circa A.D. 700 to circa A.D. 1250, with its apogee placed between about A.D. 800 to A.D. 1050. The past and present discussions were directed specifically towards the origin of the inhabitants of the city, the arrival of K'uk'ulkán ("Feathered Serpent"), the origin of non-Mayan ("Toltec") architecture and sculptural programmes at the site, and the model of its political organization. The centre of Chichén Itzá is dominated by a raised platform, which harbours buildings now known as El Castillo (The Castle), the Great Ballcourt, and the Temple of the Warriors. These buildings contain various non-Mayan architectural and sculptural traits. Buildings south of the centre, erected in a regional Maya style, contain a large number of inscribed monuments (mostly lintels) carrying long hieroglyphic texts, which provide Chichén Itzá with the largest corpus of surviving inscriptions in the northern Maya lowlands. Chichén Itzá figures prominently in a wide range of ethnohistorical sources from the Colonial period, such as the "Relación de las Cosas de Yucatán" by Fray Diego de Landa and the "Relaciones Geográficas" by various authors, all in Spanish, and the so-called "Books of Chilam Balam" of Chumayel, Maní, and Tizimín, all in Yucatec Maya. In this study Erik Boot discusses the southern Maya lowland origin of the inhabitants of Chichén Itzá, the arrival of K'uk'ulkán and the introduction of so-called Toltec architecture and iconography, the identification of both gods and human beings in the inscriptions, and the political organization at Chichén Itzá. He presents extensive and detailed analyses of architectural and sculptural programmes, hieroglyphic inscriptions, and the Yucatec Maya "chronicles" from the Books of Chilam Balam.

The Myths of the Popol Vuh in Cosmology, Art, and Ritual

The Myths of the Popol Vuh in Cosmology, Art, and Ritual PDF Author: Holley Moyes
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 164642199X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
This volume offers an integrated and comparative approach to the Popol Vuh, analyzing its myths to elucidate the ancient Maya past while using multiple lines of evidence to shed light on the text. Combining interpretations of the myths with analyses of archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and literary resources, the work demonstrates how Popol Vuh mythologies contribute to the analysis and interpretation of the ancient Maya past. The chapters are grouped into four sections. The first section interprets the Highland Maya worldview through examination of the text, analyzing interdependence between deities and human beings as well as the textual and cosmological coherence of the Popol Vuh as a source. The second section analyzes the Precolumbian Maya archaeological record as it relates to the myths of the Popol Vuh, providing new interpretations of the use of space, architecture, burials, artifacts, and human remains found in Classic Maya caves. The third explores ancient Maya iconographic motifs, including those found in Classic Maya ceramic art; the nature of predatory birds; and the Hero Twins’ deeds in the Popol Vuh. The final chapters address mythological continuities and change, reexamining past methodological approaches using the Popol Vuh as a resource for the interpretation of Classic Maya iconography and ancient Maya religion and mythology, connecting the myths of the Popol Vuh to iconography from Preclassic Izapa, and demonstrating how narratives from the Popol Vuh can illuminate mythologies from other parts of Mesoamerica. The Myths of the Popol Vuh in Cosmology, Art, and Ritual is the first volume to bring together multiple perspectives and original interpretations of the Popol Vuh myths. It will be of interest not only to Mesoamericanists but also to art historians, archaeologists, ethnohistorians, iconographers, linguists, anthropologists, and scholars working in ritual studies, the history of religion, historic and Precolumbian literature and historic linguistics. Contributors: Jaime J. Awe, Karen Bassie-Sweet, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, Michael D. Coe, Iyaxel Cojtí Ren, Héctor Escobedo, Thomas H. Guderjan, Julia Guernsey, Christophe Helmke, Nicholas A. Hopkins, Barbara MacLeod, Jesper Nielsen, Colin Snider, Karl A. Taube

The Maya World

The Maya World PDF Author: Scott R. Hutson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351029568
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 983

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Book Description
The Maya World brings together over 60 authors, representing the fields of archaeology, art history, epigraphy, geography, and ethnography, who explore cutting-edge research on every major facet of the ancient Maya and all sub-regions within the Maya world. The Maya world, which covers Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, contains over a hundred ancient sites that are open to tourism, eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and many thousands more that have been dug or await investigation. In addition to captivating the lay public, the ancient Maya have attracted scores of major interdisciplinary research expeditions and hundreds of smaller projects going back to the 19th century, making them one of the best-known ancient cultures. The Maya World explores their renowned writing system, towering stone pyramids, exquisitely painted murals, and elaborate funerary tombs as well as their creative agricultural strategies, complex social, economic, and political relationships, widespread interactions with other societies, and remarkable cultural resilience in the face of historical ruptures. This is an invaluable reference volume for scholars of the ancient Maya, including archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists.

The Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology PDF Author: Umberto Albarella
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019150999X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 784

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Book Description
Animals have played a fundamental role in shaping human history, and the study of their remains from archaeological sites - zooarchaeology - has gradually been emerging as a powerful discipline and crucible for forging an understanding of our past. The Oxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology offers a cutting-edge compendium of zooarchaeology the world over that transcends environmental, economic, and social approaches, seeking instead to provide a holistic view of the roles played by animals in past human cultures. Incisive chapters written by leading scholars in the field incorporate case studies from across five continents, from Iceland to New Zealand and from Japan to Egypt and Ecuador, providing a sense of the dynamism of the discipline, the many approaches and methods adopted by different schools and traditions, and an idea of the huge range of interactions that have occurred between people and animals throughout the world and its history. Adaptations of human-animal relationships in environments as varied as the Arctic, temperate forests, deserts, the tropics, and the sea are discussed, while studies of hunter-gatherers, farmers, herders, fishermen, and even traders and urban dwellers highlight the importance that animals have had in all forms of human societies. With an introduction that clearly contextualizes the current practice of zooarchaeology in relation to both its history and the challenges and opportunities that can be expected for the future, and a methodological glossary illuminating the way in which zooarchaeologists approach the study of their material, this Handbook will be invaluable not only for specialists in the field, but for anybody who has an interest in our past and the role that animals have played in forging it.