Reinterpreting Prehistory of Central America

Reinterpreting Prehistory of Central America PDF Author: Mark Miller Graham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Reinterpreting Prehistory of Central America provides reassessments of the paradigms that have guided - sometimes unconsciously and uncritically - interpretations of ancient Central American society, culture, and art. This volume challenges prevailing notions of Mesoamerica and other intellectual constructs of Central American prehistory, drawing on deconstruction, structuralism, diffusionism, and postprocessual archaeology. Nine chapters by distinguished art historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists from the United States, Costa Rica, and Panama illuminate diverse perspectives on common themes in Central American prehistory, such as the definition of center and periphery, the relation between ethnicity and polychrome ceramic traditions, the cultural meanings of color, and the social reality in mortuary art. A common focus among the authors is the relationship between the so-called high cultures, especially the Maya and their supposedly less-developed neighbors in southern Central America. This volume has more than 150 illustrations. The contributors include Mark Miller Graham, Terence Grieder, Rosemary Joyce, Oscar Fonseca Zamora, Peter S. Briggs, Mary W. Helms, Richard Cooke, Whitney Davis, and Frederick W. Lange.

Reinterpreting Prehistory of Central America

Reinterpreting Prehistory of Central America PDF Author: Mark Miller Graham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reinterpreting Prehistory of Central America provides reassessments of the paradigms that have guided - sometimes unconsciously and uncritically - interpretations of ancient Central American society, culture, and art. This volume challenges prevailing notions of Mesoamerica and other intellectual constructs of Central American prehistory, drawing on deconstruction, structuralism, diffusionism, and postprocessual archaeology. Nine chapters by distinguished art historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists from the United States, Costa Rica, and Panama illuminate diverse perspectives on common themes in Central American prehistory, such as the definition of center and periphery, the relation between ethnicity and polychrome ceramic traditions, the cultural meanings of color, and the social reality in mortuary art. A common focus among the authors is the relationship between the so-called high cultures, especially the Maya and their supposedly less-developed neighbors in southern Central America. This volume has more than 150 illustrations. The contributors include Mark Miller Graham, Terence Grieder, Rosemary Joyce, Oscar Fonseca Zamora, Peter S. Briggs, Mary W. Helms, Richard Cooke, Whitney Davis, and Frederick W. Lange.

Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America

Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America PDF Author: Susan Toby Evans
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780815308874
Category : Archaeology
Languages : en
Pages : 1322

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Book Description
This reference is devoted to the pre-Columbian archaeology of the Mesoamerican culture area, one of the six cradles of early civilization. It features in-depth articles on the major cultural areas of ancient Mexico and Central America; coverage of important sites, including the world-renowned discoveries as well as many lesser-known locations; articles on day-to-day life of ancient peoples in these regions; and several bandw regional and site maps and photographs. Entries are arranged alphabetically and cover introductory archaeological facts (flora, fauna, human growth and development, nonorganic resources), chronologies of various periods (Paleoindian, Archaic, Formative, Classic and Postclassic, and Colonial), cultural features, Maya, regional summaries, research methods and resources, ethnohistorical methods and sources, and scholars and research history. Edited by archaeologists Evans and Webster, both of whom are associated with Pennsylvania State University. c. Book News Inc.

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology PDF Author: Deborah L. Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195390938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 996

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology provides a current and comprehensive guide to the recent and on-going archaeology of Mesoamerica. Though the emphasis is on prehispanic societies, this Handbook also includes coverage of important new work by archaeologists on the Colonial and Republican periods. Unique among recent works, the text brings together in a single volume article-length regional syntheses and topical overviews written by active scholars in the field of Mesoamerican archaeology. The first section of the Handbook provides an overview of recent history and trends of Mesoamerica and articles on national archaeology programs and practice in Central America and Mexico written by archaeologists from these countries. These are followed regional syntheses organized by time period, beginning with early hunter-gatherer societies and the first farmers of Mesoamerica and concluding with a discussion of the Spanish Conquest and frontiers and peripheries of Mesoamerica. Topical and comparative articles comprise the remainder of Handbook. They cover important dimensions of prehispanic societies—from ecology, economy, and environment to social and political relations—and discuss significant methodological contributions, such as geo-chemical source studies, as well as new theories and diverse theoretical perspectives. The Handbook concludes with a section on the archaeology of the Spanish conquest and the Colonial and Republican periods to connect the prehispanic, proto-historic, and historic periods. This volume will be a must-read for students and professional archaeologists, as well as other scholars including historians, art historians, geographers, and ethnographers with an interest in Mesoamerica.

A Brief History of Central America

A Brief History of Central America PDF Author: Lynn V. Foster
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438108230
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Presents a comprehensive history of Central America, including the early pre-Columbian cultures and economic challenges currently being faced.

Ancient Americans

Ancient Americans PDF Author: Juan Schobinger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317476654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description
Lavishly illustrated in full color and black and white, this handsome reference provides a broad survey of the rich artistic heritage of pre-Columbian North and South America. Meticulously researched by archaeologists and anthropologists, the set features dramatic close-ups of engraved rock artifacts, cave paintings, pottery, and inscribed and sculpted bones. Covering the entire two continents from present-day Canada in the far north through Central America and down to the Andes Mountains and Patagonia in the south, it is a stunning visual and written record of the great variety of artworks created by Neolithic American peoples over many millennia.

Southeastern Mesoamerica

Southeastern Mesoamerica PDF Author: Whitney A. Goodwin
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646420977
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Southeastern Mesoamerica highlights the diversity and dynamism of the Indigenous groups that inhabited and continue to inhabit the borders of Southeastern Mesoamerica, an area that includes parts of present-day Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Chapters combine archaeological, ethnohistoric, and historic data and approaches to better understand the long-term sociopolitical and cultural changes that occurred throughout the entirety of human occupation of this area. Drawing on archaeological evidence ranging back to the late Pleistocene as well as extensive documentation from the historic period, contributors show how Southeastern Mesoamericans created unique identities, strategically incorporating cosmopolitan influences from cultures to the north and south with their own long-lived traditions. These populations developed autochthonous forms of monumental architecture and routes and methods of exchange and had distinct social, cultural, political, and economic traits. They also established unique long-term human-environment relations that were the result of internal creativity and inspiration influenced by local social and natural trajectories. Southeastern Mesoamerica calls upon archaeologists, anthropologists, historians, ethnohistorians, and others working in Mesoamerica, Central America, and other cultural boundaries around the world to reexamine the role Indigenous resilience and agency play in these areas and in the cultural developments and interactions that occur within them. Contributors: Edy Barrios, Christopher Begley, Walter Burgos, Mauricio Díaz García, William R. Fowler, Rosemary A. Joyce, Gloria Lara-Pinto, Eva L. Martínez, William J. McFarlane, Cameron L. McNeil, Lorena D. Mihok, Pastor Rodolfo Gómez Zúñiga, Timothy Scheffler, Edward Schortman, Russell Sheptak, Miranda Suri, Patricia Urban, Antolín Velásquez, E. Christian Wells

Embedding Ethics

Embedding Ethics PDF Author: Lynn Meskell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000189783
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Anthropologists who talk about ethics generally mean the code of practice drafted by a professional association for implementation by its members. As this book convincingly shows, such a conception is far too narrow. A more radical approach is to recognize that moral judgments are made at every juncture of scientific practice and they require a negotiation of responsibility with all stakeholders in the research enterprise.Embedding Ethics questions why ethics have been divorced from scientific expertise. Invoking different disciplinary practices from biological, archaeological, cultural, and linguistic anthropology, contributors show how ethics should be resituated at the heart of, rather than exterior to, scientific activity. Positioning the researcher as a negotiator of significant truths rather than an adjudicator of a priori precepts enables contributors to relocate ethics in new sets of social and scientific relationships triggered by recent globalization processes - from new forms of intellectual and cultural ownership to accountability in governance, and the very ways in which people are studied. Case studies from ethnographic research, museum display, archaeological fieldwork and professional monitoring illustrate both best practice and potential pitfalls.This important book is an essential guide for all anthropologists who wish to be active contributors to the discussion on ethics and the ethical practice of their profession.

New Approaches to Old Stones

New Approaches to Old Stones PDF Author: Yorke M. Rowan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134949642
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Ground stone artefacts were widely used in food production in prehistory. However, the archaeological community has widely neglected the dataset of ground stone artefacts until now. 'New Approaches to Old Stones' offers a theoretical and methodological analysis of the archaeological data pertaining to ground stone tools. The essays draw on a range of case studies - from the Levant, Egypt, Crete, Anatolia, Mexico and North America - to examine ground stone technologies. From medieval Islamic stone cooking vessels and late Minoan stone vases, to the use of stone in ritual and as a symbol of luxury, 'New Approaches to Old Stones' offers a radical reassessment of the impact of ground-stone artefacts on technological change, production and exchange.

Beyond Kinship

Beyond Kinship PDF Author: Rosemary A. Joyce
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 1512821624
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Beyond Kinship brings together ethnohistorians, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists for the first time in a common discussion of the social model of house societies proposed by Claude Levi-Strauss. While kinship theory has been central to the study of social organization, an alternative approach has emerged—that of seeing the "house" both as a physical and symbolic structure and a principle of social organization. The house stands as a model social formation that is distinguished by its attention to a number of material domains (land, the dwelling, ritual and nonritual objects). As the essays in this volume make clear, the focus on material culture and on place contributes to the ongoing convergence of anthropology and history and helps erase the artificial distinctions between prehistory and history. Contributions to the volume offer significant new interpretations of primary data as well as reconsidering classic ethnographic material. Beyond Kinship crosses the boundaries within anthropology—not only between cultural anthropology and archaeology but between structural—symbolic and materialist approaches and between American and British schools of anthropology; it is intended to advance the fruitful dialogue now taking place within the field.

The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires

The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires PDF Author: Tamara L. Bray
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0306482460
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This volume examines the commensal politics of early states and empires and offers a comparative perspective on how food and feasting have figured in the political calculus of archaic states in both the Old and New Worlds. It provides a cross-cultural and comparative analysis for scholars and graduate students concerned with the archaeology of complex societies, the anthropology of food and feasting, ancient statecraft, archaeological approaches to micro-political processes, and the social interpretation of prehistoric pottery.