The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands

The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands PDF Author: Arthur Andrew Demarest
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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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

The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands PDF Author: Arthur Andrew Demarest
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 700

Get Book

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

Geographies of Power PDF Author: Sandra L. López Varela
Publisher: BAR International Series
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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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).

Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands

Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands PDF Author: Traci Ardren
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292768133
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Using new archaeological data from four major cities of the Classic Maya world, this book explores how gender, age, familial and community memories, and the experience of living in an urban setting interacted to form social identities. Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands plumbs the archaeological record for what it can reveal about the creation of personal and communal identities in the Maya world. Using new primary data from her excavations at the sites of Yaxuna, Chunchucmil, and Xuenkal, and new analysis of data from Dzibilchaltun in Yucatan, Mexico, Traci Ardren presents a series of case studies in how social identities were created, shared, and manipulated among the lowland Maya. Ardren argues that the interacting factors of gender, age, familial and community memories, and the experience of living in an urban setting were some of the key aspects of Maya identities. She demonstrates that domestic and civic spaces were shaped by gender-specific behaviors to communicate and reinforce gendered ideals. Ardren discusses how child burials disclose a sustained pattern of reverence for the potential of childhood and the power of certain children to mediate ancestral power. She shows how small shrines built a century after Yaxuna was largely abandoned indicate that its remaining residents used memory to reenvision their city during a time of cultural reinvention. And Ardren explains how Chunchucmil’s physical layout of houses, plazas, and surrounding environment denotes that its occupants shared an urban identity centered in the movement of trade goods and economic exchange. Viewing this evidence through the lens of the social imaginary and other recent social theory, Ardren demonstrates that material culture and its circulations are an integral part of the discourse about social identity and group membership.

Ancient Maya

Ancient Maya PDF Author: Arthur Demarest
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521533904
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Ancient Maya comes to life in this new holistic and theoretical study.

Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands

Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands PDF Author: Damien B. Marken
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 160732413X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands investigates Maya political and social structure in the southern lowlands, assessing, comparing, and interpreting the wide variation in Classic period Maya polity and city composition, development, and integration. Traditionally, discussions of Classic Maya political organization have been dominated by the debate over whether Maya polities were centralized or decentralized. With new, largely unpublished data from several recent archaeological projects, this book examines the premises, strengths, and weaknesses of these two perspectives before moving beyond this long-standing debate and into different territory. The volume examines the articulations of the various social and spatial components of Maya polity—the relationships, strategies, and practices that bound households, communities, institutions, and dynasties into enduring (or short-lived) political entities. By emphasizing the internal negotiation of polity, the contributions provide an important foundation for a more holistic understanding of how political organization functioned in the Classic period. Contributors include Francisco Estrada Belli, James L. Fitzsimmons, Sarah E. Jackson, Caleb Kestle, Brigitte Kovacevich, Allan Maca, Damien B. Marken, James Meierhoff, Timothy Murtha, Cynthia Robin, Alexandre Tokovinine, and Andrew Wyatt.

Water and Ritual

Water and Ritual PDF Author: Lisa J. Lucero
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292778236
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
In the southern Maya lowlands, rainfall provided the primary and, in some areas, the only source of water for people and crops. Classic Maya kings sponsored elaborate public rituals that affirmed their close ties to the supernatural world and their ability to intercede with deities and ancestors to ensure an adequate amount of rain, which was then stored to provide water during the four-to-five-month dry season. As long as the rains came, Maya kings supplied their subjects with water and exacted tribute in labor and goods in return. But when the rains failed at the end of the Classic period (AD 850-950), the Maya rulers lost both their claim to supernatural power and their temporal authority. Maya commoners continued to supplicate gods and ancestors for rain in household rituals, but they stopped paying tribute to rulers whom the gods had forsaken. In this paradigm-shifting book, Lisa Lucero investigates the central role of water and ritual in the rise, dominance, and fall of Classic Maya rulers. She documents commoner, elite, and royal ritual histories in the southern Maya lowlands from the Late Preclassic through the Terminal Classic periods to show how elites and rulers gained political power through the public replication and elaboration of household-level rituals. At the same time, Lucero demonstrates that political power rested equally on material conditions that the Maya rulers could only partially control. Offering a new, more nuanced understanding of these dual bases of power, Lucero makes a compelling case for spiritual and material factors intermingling in the development and demise of Maya political complexity.

The Ancient Maya of Mexico

The Ancient Maya of Mexico PDF Author: Geoffrey E. Braswell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317543599
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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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.

Bones of the Maya

Bones of the Maya PDF Author: Stephen L. Whittington
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817353763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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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.

Ritual, Violence, and the Fall of the Classic Maya Kings

Ritual, Violence, and the Fall of the Classic Maya Kings PDF Author: Gyles Iannone
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813063809
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
Maya kings who failed to ensure the prosperity of their kingdoms were subject to various forms of termination, including the ritual defacing and destruction of monuments and even violent death. This is the first comprehensive volume to focus on the varied responses to the failure of Classic period dynasties in the southern lowlands. The contributors offer new insights into the Maya "collapse," evaluating the trope of the scapegoat king and the demise of the traditional institution of kingship in the early ninth century AD--a time of intense environmental, economic, social, political, and even ideological change. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

Ancient Maya Commerce

Ancient Maya Commerce PDF Author: Scott R. Hutson
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1607325551
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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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