Author: Arthur Andrew Demarest
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700
Book Description
The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands revisits one of the great problems in Mayan archaeology - the apparent collapse of Classic Maya civilization from roughly A.D. 830 to 950. During this period the Maya abandoned their power centers in the southern lowlands and rather abruptly ceased the distinctive cultural practices that marked their apogee in the Classic period. Archaeological fieldwork during the past three decades, however, has uncovered enormous regional variability in the ways the Maya experienced the shift from Classic to Postclassic society, revealing a period of cultural change more complex than acknowledged by traditional models. Featuring an impressive roster of scholars, The Terminal Classic presents the most recent data and interpretations pertaining to this perplexing period of cultural transformation in the Maya lowlands. Although the research reveals clear interregional patterns, the contributors resist a single overarching explanation. Rather, this volume's diverse and nuanced interpretations provide a new, more properly grounded beginning for continued debate on the nature of lowland Terminal Classic Maya civilization.
The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands
Author: Arthur Andrew Demarest
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700
Book Description
The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands revisits one of the great problems in Mayan archaeology - the apparent collapse of Classic Maya civilization from roughly A.D. 830 to 950. During this period the Maya abandoned their power centers in the southern lowlands and rather abruptly ceased the distinctive cultural practices that marked their apogee in the Classic period. Archaeological fieldwork during the past three decades, however, has uncovered enormous regional variability in the ways the Maya experienced the shift from Classic to Postclassic society, revealing a period of cultural change more complex than acknowledged by traditional models. Featuring an impressive roster of scholars, The Terminal Classic presents the most recent data and interpretations pertaining to this perplexing period of cultural transformation in the Maya lowlands. Although the research reveals clear interregional patterns, the contributors resist a single overarching explanation. Rather, this volume's diverse and nuanced interpretations provide a new, more properly grounded beginning for continued debate on the nature of lowland Terminal Classic Maya civilization.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700
Book Description
The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands revisits one of the great problems in Mayan archaeology - the apparent collapse of Classic Maya civilization from roughly A.D. 830 to 950. During this period the Maya abandoned their power centers in the southern lowlands and rather abruptly ceased the distinctive cultural practices that marked their apogee in the Classic period. Archaeological fieldwork during the past three decades, however, has uncovered enormous regional variability in the ways the Maya experienced the shift from Classic to Postclassic society, revealing a period of cultural change more complex than acknowledged by traditional models. Featuring an impressive roster of scholars, The Terminal Classic presents the most recent data and interpretations pertaining to this perplexing period of cultural transformation in the Maya lowlands. Although the research reveals clear interregional patterns, the contributors resist a single overarching explanation. Rather, this volume's diverse and nuanced interpretations provide a new, more properly grounded beginning for continued debate on the nature of lowland Terminal Classic Maya civilization.
Geographies of Power
Author: Sandra L. López Varela
Publisher: BAR International Series
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
Twelve contributors present the contents of the Terminal Classic (the Mayan Lowlands, Central America) ceramic complexes in their area of study, and discuss them against the complexity and diversity of social processes illuminated by recent investigations. Contents: An Introduction to Geographies of Power (Sandra L. Lopez Varela and Antonia E. Foias); A Survey of Terminal Classic Ceramic Complexes and Their Socioeconomic Implications (Donald W. Forsyth); Fine Paste Wares and the Terminal Classic in the Petexbatun and Pasion Regions, Peten, Guatemala (Antonia E. Foias and Ronald L. Bishop); Dynamics of Engagement in the Usumacinta River Valley and the Coastal Plains of Tabasco: traversing Terminal Classic Hypotheses (Sandra L. Lopez Varela); The communities of the Holmul river drainage at the periphery of Tikal during the terminal classic and the identification of a distinctive micaceous paste component (Vilma Fialko); Contextualizing the Collapse Hegemony and Terminal Classic Ceramics from Caracol, Belize (Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase); Continuity and Change in the Ceramic Complex of Xunantunich during the Late and Terminal Classic Periods (Lisa J. LeCount); Terminal Classic Pottery Production in the Ulua Valley, Honduras (Jeanne L. Lopiparo, Rosemary A. Joyce, and Julia A. Hendon); Pushing the Limits: Late to Terminal Classic Settlement and Economies on the Northern Belize Coast (Shirley Boteler Mock); Western Puuc Sociopolitical and Community Organization as Viewed through Terminal Classic Ceramics (Lorraine A. Williams-Beck); Late and Terminal Classic Puuc Ceramics as seen from Xkipche (Michael Vallo); Future Directions in the Study of Terminal Classic Ceramics: some brief Comments (Jeremy A. Sabloff).
Publisher: BAR International Series
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
Twelve contributors present the contents of the Terminal Classic (the Mayan Lowlands, Central America) ceramic complexes in their area of study, and discuss them against the complexity and diversity of social processes illuminated by recent investigations. Contents: An Introduction to Geographies of Power (Sandra L. Lopez Varela and Antonia E. Foias); A Survey of Terminal Classic Ceramic Complexes and Their Socioeconomic Implications (Donald W. Forsyth); Fine Paste Wares and the Terminal Classic in the Petexbatun and Pasion Regions, Peten, Guatemala (Antonia E. Foias and Ronald L. Bishop); Dynamics of Engagement in the Usumacinta River Valley and the Coastal Plains of Tabasco: traversing Terminal Classic Hypotheses (Sandra L. Lopez Varela); The communities of the Holmul river drainage at the periphery of Tikal during the terminal classic and the identification of a distinctive micaceous paste component (Vilma Fialko); Contextualizing the Collapse Hegemony and Terminal Classic Ceramics from Caracol, Belize (Arlen F. Chase and Diane Z. Chase); Continuity and Change in the Ceramic Complex of Xunantunich during the Late and Terminal Classic Periods (Lisa J. LeCount); Terminal Classic Pottery Production in the Ulua Valley, Honduras (Jeanne L. Lopiparo, Rosemary A. Joyce, and Julia A. Hendon); Pushing the Limits: Late to Terminal Classic Settlement and Economies on the Northern Belize Coast (Shirley Boteler Mock); Western Puuc Sociopolitical and Community Organization as Viewed through Terminal Classic Ceramics (Lorraine A. Williams-Beck); Late and Terminal Classic Puuc Ceramics as seen from Xkipche (Michael Vallo); Future Directions in the Study of Terminal Classic Ceramics: some brief Comments (Jeremy A. Sabloff).
The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context
Author: Gyles Iannone
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607322803
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
In The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context, contributors reject the popularized link between societal collapse and drought in Maya civilization, arguing that a series of periodic “collapses,” including the infamous Terminal Classic collapse (AD 750–1050), were not caused solely by climate change–related droughts but by a combination of other social, political, and environmental factors. New and senior scholars of archaeology and environmental science explore the timing and intensity of droughts and provide a nuanced understanding of socio-ecological dynamics, with specific reference to what makes communities resilient or vulnerable when faced with environmental change.Contributors recognize the existence of four droughts that correlate with periods of demographic and political decline and identify a variety of concurrent political and social issues. They argue that these primary underlying factors were exacerbated by drought conditions and ultimately led to societal transitions that were by no means uniform across various sites and subregions. They also deconstruct the concept of “collapse” itself—although the line of Maya kings ended with the Terminal Classic collapse, the Maya people and their civilization survived. The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context offers new insights into the complicated series of events that impacted the decline of Maya civilization. This significant contribution to our increasingly comprehensive understanding of ancient Maya culture will be of interest to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, geography, and environmental studies.
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607322803
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 489
Book Description
In The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context, contributors reject the popularized link between societal collapse and drought in Maya civilization, arguing that a series of periodic “collapses,” including the infamous Terminal Classic collapse (AD 750–1050), were not caused solely by climate change–related droughts but by a combination of other social, political, and environmental factors. New and senior scholars of archaeology and environmental science explore the timing and intensity of droughts and provide a nuanced understanding of socio-ecological dynamics, with specific reference to what makes communities resilient or vulnerable when faced with environmental change.Contributors recognize the existence of four droughts that correlate with periods of demographic and political decline and identify a variety of concurrent political and social issues. They argue that these primary underlying factors were exacerbated by drought conditions and ultimately led to societal transitions that were by no means uniform across various sites and subregions. They also deconstruct the concept of “collapse” itself—although the line of Maya kings ended with the Terminal Classic collapse, the Maya people and their civilization survived. The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context offers new insights into the complicated series of events that impacted the decline of Maya civilization. This significant contribution to our increasingly comprehensive understanding of ancient Maya culture will be of interest to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, geography, and environmental studies.
Ancient Maya
Author: Arthur Demarest
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521533904
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
Ancient Maya comes to life in this new holistic and theoretical study.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521533904
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
Ancient Maya comes to life in this new holistic and theoretical study.
Ancient Maya Commerce
Author: Scott R. Hutson
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607325551
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
Ancient Maya Commerce presents nearly two decades of multidisciplinary research at Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico—a thriving Classic period Maya center organized around commercial exchange rather than agriculture. An urban center without a king and unable to sustain agrarian independence, Chunchucmil is a rare example of a Maya city in which economics, not political rituals, served as the engine of growth. Trade was the raison d’être of the city itself. Using a variety of evidence—archaeological, botanical, geomorphological, and soil-based—contributors show how the city was a major center for both short- and long-distance trade, integrating the Guatemalan highlands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the interior of the northern Maya lowlands. By placing Chunchucmil into the broader context of emerging research at other Maya cities, the book reorients the understanding of ancient Maya economies. The book is accompanied by a highly detailed digital map that reveals the dense population of the city and the hundreds of streets its inhabitants constructed to make the city navigable, shifting the knowledge of urbanism among the ancient Maya. Ancient Maya Commerce is a pioneering, thoroughly documented case study of a premodern market center and makes a strong case for the importance of early market economies in the Maya region. It will be a valuable addition to the literature for Mayanists, Mesoamericanists, economic anthropologists, and environmental archaeologists. Contributors: Anthony P. Andrews, Traci Ardren, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Timothy Beach, Chelsea Blackmore, Tara Bond-Freeman, Bruce H. Dahlin, Patrice Farrell, David Hixson, Socorro Jimenez, Justin Lowry, Aline Magnoni, Eugenia Mansell, Daniel E. Mazeau, Travis Stanton, Ryan V. Sweetwood, Richard E. Terry
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607325551
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 397
Book Description
Ancient Maya Commerce presents nearly two decades of multidisciplinary research at Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico—a thriving Classic period Maya center organized around commercial exchange rather than agriculture. An urban center without a king and unable to sustain agrarian independence, Chunchucmil is a rare example of a Maya city in which economics, not political rituals, served as the engine of growth. Trade was the raison d’être of the city itself. Using a variety of evidence—archaeological, botanical, geomorphological, and soil-based—contributors show how the city was a major center for both short- and long-distance trade, integrating the Guatemalan highlands, the Gulf of Mexico, and the interior of the northern Maya lowlands. By placing Chunchucmil into the broader context of emerging research at other Maya cities, the book reorients the understanding of ancient Maya economies. The book is accompanied by a highly detailed digital map that reveals the dense population of the city and the hundreds of streets its inhabitants constructed to make the city navigable, shifting the knowledge of urbanism among the ancient Maya. Ancient Maya Commerce is a pioneering, thoroughly documented case study of a premodern market center and makes a strong case for the importance of early market economies in the Maya region. It will be a valuable addition to the literature for Mayanists, Mesoamericanists, economic anthropologists, and environmental archaeologists. Contributors: Anthony P. Andrews, Traci Ardren, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Timothy Beach, Chelsea Blackmore, Tara Bond-Freeman, Bruce H. Dahlin, Patrice Farrell, David Hixson, Socorro Jimenez, Justin Lowry, Aline Magnoni, Eugenia Mansell, Daniel E. Mazeau, Travis Stanton, Ryan V. Sweetwood, Richard E. Terry
Bones of the Maya
Author: Stephen L. Whittington
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817353763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
Includes an indexed bibliography of the first 150 years of Maya osteology. This volume pulls together a spectrum of bioarchaeologists that reveal remarkable data on Maya genetic relationship, demography, and diseases.
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817353763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307
Book Description
Includes an indexed bibliography of the first 150 years of Maya osteology. This volume pulls together a spectrum of bioarchaeologists that reveal remarkable data on Maya genetic relationship, demography, and diseases.
3,000 Years of War and Peace in the Maya Lowlands
Author: Geoffrey E. Braswell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351267981
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
3,000 Years of War and Peace in the Maya Lowlands presents the cutting-edge research of 25 authors in the fields of archaeology, biological anthropology, art history, ethnohistory, and epigraphy. Together, they explore issues central to ancient Maya identity, political history, and warfare. The Maya lowlands of Guatemala, Belize, and southeast Mexico have witnessed human occupation for at least 11,000 years, and settled life reliant on agriculture began some 3,100 years ago. From the earliest times, Maya communities expressed their shifting identities through pottery, architecture, stone tools, and other items of material culture. Although it is tempting to think of the Maya as a single unified culture, they were anything but homogeneous, and differences in identity could be expressed through violence. 3,000 Years of War and Peace in the Maya Lowlands explores the formation of identity, its relationship to politics, and its manifestation in warfare from the earliest pottery-making villages through the late colonial period by studying the material remains and written texts of the Maya. This volume is an invaluable reference for students and scholars of the ancient Maya, including archaeologists, art historians, and anthropologists.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351267981
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 375
Book Description
3,000 Years of War and Peace in the Maya Lowlands presents the cutting-edge research of 25 authors in the fields of archaeology, biological anthropology, art history, ethnohistory, and epigraphy. Together, they explore issues central to ancient Maya identity, political history, and warfare. The Maya lowlands of Guatemala, Belize, and southeast Mexico have witnessed human occupation for at least 11,000 years, and settled life reliant on agriculture began some 3,100 years ago. From the earliest times, Maya communities expressed their shifting identities through pottery, architecture, stone tools, and other items of material culture. Although it is tempting to think of the Maya as a single unified culture, they were anything but homogeneous, and differences in identity could be expressed through violence. 3,000 Years of War and Peace in the Maya Lowlands explores the formation of identity, its relationship to politics, and its manifestation in warfare from the earliest pottery-making villages through the late colonial period by studying the material remains and written texts of the Maya. This volume is an invaluable reference for students and scholars of the ancient Maya, including archaeologists, art historians, and anthropologists.
Ancient Maya Life in the Far West Bajo
Author: Julie L. Kunen
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816549400
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
Human activity during centuries of occupation significantly altered the landscape inhabited by the ancient Maya of northwestern Belize. In response, the Maya developed new techniques to harvest the natural resources of their surroundings, investing increased labor and raw materials into maintaining and even improving their ways of life. In this lively story of life in the wetlands on the outskirts of the major site of La Milpa, Julie Kunen documents a hitherto unrecognized form of intensive agriculture in the Maya lowlands—one that relied on the construction of terraces and berms to trap soil and moisture around the margins of low-lying depressions called bajos. She traces the intertwined histories of residential settlements on nearby hills and ridges and agricultural terraces and other farming-related features around the margins of the bajo as they developed from the Late Preclassic perios (400 BC-AD 250) until the area's abandonment in the Terminal Classic period (about AD 850). Kunen examines the organization of three bajo communities with respect to the use and management of resources critical to agricultural production. She argues that differences in access to spatially variable natural resources resulted in highly patterned settlement remains and that community founders and their descendents who had acquired the best quality and most diverse set of resources maintained an elevated status in the society. The thorough integration of three lines of evidence—the settlement system, the agricultural system, and the ancient environment—breaks new ground in landscape research and in the study of Maya non-elite domestic organization. Kunen reports on the history of settlement and farming in a small corner of the Maya world but demonstrates that for any study of human-environment interactions, landscape history consists equally of ecological and cultural strands of influence.
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816549400
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
Human activity during centuries of occupation significantly altered the landscape inhabited by the ancient Maya of northwestern Belize. In response, the Maya developed new techniques to harvest the natural resources of their surroundings, investing increased labor and raw materials into maintaining and even improving their ways of life. In this lively story of life in the wetlands on the outskirts of the major site of La Milpa, Julie Kunen documents a hitherto unrecognized form of intensive agriculture in the Maya lowlands—one that relied on the construction of terraces and berms to trap soil and moisture around the margins of low-lying depressions called bajos. She traces the intertwined histories of residential settlements on nearby hills and ridges and agricultural terraces and other farming-related features around the margins of the bajo as they developed from the Late Preclassic perios (400 BC-AD 250) until the area's abandonment in the Terminal Classic period (about AD 850). Kunen examines the organization of three bajo communities with respect to the use and management of resources critical to agricultural production. She argues that differences in access to spatially variable natural resources resulted in highly patterned settlement remains and that community founders and their descendents who had acquired the best quality and most diverse set of resources maintained an elevated status in the society. The thorough integration of three lines of evidence—the settlement system, the agricultural system, and the ancient environment—breaks new ground in landscape research and in the study of Maya non-elite domestic organization. Kunen reports on the history of settlement and farming in a small corner of the Maya world but demonstrates that for any study of human-environment interactions, landscape history consists equally of ecological and cultural strands of influence.
The Ancient Maya of Mexico
Author: Geoffrey E Braswell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317543599
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
The archaeological sites of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula are among the most visited ancient cities of the Americas. Archaeologists have recently made great advances in our understanding of the social and political milieu of the northern Maya lowlands. However, such advances have been under-represented in both scholarly and popular literature until now. 'The Ancient Maya of Mexico' presents the results of new and important archaeological, epigraphic, and art historical research in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Campeche, and Quintana Roo. Ranging across the Middle Preclassic to the Modern periods, the volume explores how new archaeological data has transformed our understanding of Maya history. 'The Ancient Maya of Mexico' will be invaluable to students and scholars of archaeology and anthropology, and all those interested in the society, rituals and economic organisation of the Maya region.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317543599
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
The archaeological sites of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula are among the most visited ancient cities of the Americas. Archaeologists have recently made great advances in our understanding of the social and political milieu of the northern Maya lowlands. However, such advances have been under-represented in both scholarly and popular literature until now. 'The Ancient Maya of Mexico' presents the results of new and important archaeological, epigraphic, and art historical research in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Campeche, and Quintana Roo. Ranging across the Middle Preclassic to the Modern periods, the volume explores how new archaeological data has transformed our understanding of Maya history. 'The Ancient Maya of Mexico' will be invaluable to students and scholars of archaeology and anthropology, and all those interested in the society, rituals and economic organisation of the Maya region.
Maya Kingship
Author: Tsubasa Okoshi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813066691
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813066691
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 464
Book Description