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Book Pre Columbian Foodways

Download or read book Pre Columbian Foodways written by John Staller and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-11-24 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Book Chan

    Book Details:
  • Author : Cynthia Robin
  • Publisher : University Press of Florida
  • Release : 2012-06-03
  • ISBN : 0813043514
  • Pages : 414 pages

Download or read book Chan written by Cynthia Robin and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2012-06-03 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The farming community of Chan thrived for over twenty centuries, surpassing the longevity of many larger Maya urban centers. Between 800 BC and 1200 AD it was a major food production center, and this collection of essays reveals the important role played by Maya farmers in the development of ancient Maya society. Chan offers a synthesis of compelling and groundbreaking discoveries gathered over ten years of research at this one archaeological site in Belize. The contributors develop three central themes, which structure the book. They examine how sustainable farming practices maintained the surrounding forest, allowing the community to exist for two millennia. They trace the origins of elite Maya state religion to the complex religious belief system developed in small communities such as Chan. Finally, they describe how the group-focused political strategies employed by local leaders differed from the highly hierarchical strategies of the Classic Maya kings in their large cities. In breadth, methodology, and findings, this volume scales new heights in the study of Maya society and culture.

Book Ancient Maya Commerce

    Book Details:
  • Author : Scott R. Hutson
  • Publisher : University Press of Colorado
  • Release : 2017-03-01
  • ISBN : 1607325551
  • Pages : 396 pages

Download or read book Ancient Maya Commerce written by Scott R. Hutson and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Book Dwelling  Identity  and the Maya

Download or read book Dwelling Identity and the Maya written by Scott Hutson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dwelling, Identity, and the Maya offers a new perspective on the ancient Maya that emphasizes the importance of dwelling as a social practice. Contrary to contemporary notions of the self as individual and independent, the identities of the ancient Maya grew from their everyday relations and interactions with other people, the houses and temples they built, and the objects they created, exchanged, cherished, and left behind. Using excavations of ancient Chunchucmil as a case study, it investigates how Maya personhood was structured and transformed in and beyond the domestic sphere and examines the role of the past in the production of contemporary Maya identity.

Book The Technology of Maya Civilization

Download or read book The Technology of Maya Civilization written by Zachary X. Hruby and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient Maya shaped their world with stone tools. Lithic artifacts helped create the cityscape and were central to warfare and hunting, craft activities, cooking, and ritual performance. 'The Technology of Maya Civilization' examines Maya lithic artefacts made of chert, obsidian, silicified limestone, and jade to explore the relationship between ancient civilizations and natural resources. The volume presents case studies of archaeological sites in Guatemala, Mexico, Belize, and Honduras. The analysis draws on innovative anthropological theory to argue that stone artefacts were not merely cultural products but tools that reproduced, modified, and created the fabric of society.

Book The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica

Download or read book The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica written by Traci Ardren and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to focus on children in ancient Mesoamerica, this vital reference offers a key methodological guide for archaeologists studying children and their roles not only in Mesoamerica, but also in ancient societies worldwide. Contributors examine material evidence, historical records, and iconography, productively criticizing the claim that children are invisible in the archaeological record and elucidating an ancient childhood comprising multiple and complex identities. They explore the methodological and theoretical difficulties created when investigating childhood - a category defined by each culture - in the archaeological record. Sure to appeal widely to New World and Old World archaeologists and anthropologists, The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica will open up new avenues of research into the lives of this previously overlooked yet remarkably large population. Contributors include Traci Ardren, Ximena Chávez Balderas, Billie Follensbee, Byron Hamann, Scott R. Hutson, Rosemary A. Joyce, Stacie M. King, Jeanne Lopiparo, Patricia McAnany, Geoffrey G. McCafferty, Sharisse D. McCafferty, Juan Alberto Román Berrelleza, Rebecca Storey, Rissa M. Trachman, Fred Valdez Jr.

Book Dissertation Abstracts International

Download or read book Dissertation Abstracts International written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica

Download or read book The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica written by Traci Ardren and published by . This book was released on 2015-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first book to focus on children in ancient Mesoamerica, this vital reference offers a key methodological guide for archaeologists studying children and their roles not only in Mesoamerica, but also in ancient societies worldwide.

Book Reading the Past

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ian Hodder
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2003-12-04
  • ISBN : 9780521528849
  • Pages : 312 pages

Download or read book Reading the Past written by Ian Hodder and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-12-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents

Book Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands

Download or read book Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands written by Traci Ardren and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-04-15 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Book Political Strategies in Pre Columbian Mesoamerica

Download or read book Political Strategies in Pre Columbian Mesoamerica written by Sarah Kurnick and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2016-03-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political authority contains an inherent contradiction. Rulers must reinforce social inequality and bolster their own unique position at the top of the sociopolitical hierarchy, yet simultaneously emphasize social similarities and the commonalities shared by all. Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica explores the different and complex ways that those who exercised authority in the region confronted this contradiction. New data from a variety of well-known scholars in Mesoamerican archaeology reveal the creation, perpetuation, and contestation of politically authoritative relationships between rulers and subjects and between nobles and commoners. The contributions span the geographic breadth and temporal extent of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica—from Preclassic Oaxaca to the Classic Petén region of Guatemala to the Postclassic Michoacán—and the contributors weave together archaeological, epigraphic, and ethnohistoric data. Grappling with the questions of how those exercising authority convince others to follow and why individuals often choose to recognize and comply with authority, Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica discusses why the study of political authority is both timely and significant, reviews how scholars have historically understood the operation of political authority, and proposes a new analytical framework to understand how rulers rule. Contributors include Sarah B. Barber, Joanne Baron, Christopher S. Beekman, Jeffrey Brzezinski, Bryce Davenport, Charles Golden, Takeshi Inomata, Arthur A. Joyce, Sarah Kurnick, Carlo J. Lucido, Simon Martin, Tatsuya Murakami, Helen Perlstein Pollard, and Víctor Salazar Chávez.

Book Laruelle and Non Philosophy

Download or read book Laruelle and Non Philosophy written by John Mullarkey and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2012-07-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first collection of critical essays on the work of Francois Laruelle.

Book Introduction to Non Marxism

Download or read book Introduction to Non Marxism written by François Laruelle and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the collapse of the communist states it was assumed that Marxist philosophy had collapsed with it. In Introduction to Non-Marxism, François Laruelle aims to recover Marxism along with its failure by asking the question “What is to be done with Marxism itself?” To answer, Laruelle resists the temptation to make Marxism more palatable after the death of metaphysics by transforming Marxism into a mere social science or by simply embracing with evangelical fervor the idea of communism. Instead Laruelle proposes a heretical science of Marxism that will investigate Marxism in both its failure and power so as to fashion new theoretical tools. In the course of engaging with the material of Marxism, Laruelle takes on the philosophy of Marx along with important philosophers who have extended that philosophy including Althusser, Balibar, Negri as well as the attempt at a phenomenological Marxism found in the work of Michel Henry. Through this engagement Laruelle develops with great precision the history and function of his concept of determination-in-the-last-instance. In the midst of the assumed failure of Marxism and the defections and resentment that followed, Laruelle’s non-Marxism responds with the bold declaration: “Do not give up on theory!”

Book Mimesis and Empire

    Book Details:
  • Author : Barbara Fuchs
  • Publisher : Cambridge University Press
  • Release : 2001
  • ISBN : 9780521543507
  • Pages : 232 pages

Download or read book Mimesis and Empire written by Barbara Fuchs and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As powerful, pointed imitation, cultural mimesis can effect inclusion in a polity, threaten state legitimacy, or undo the originality upon which such legitimacy is based. In Mimesis and Empire , first published in 2001, Barbara Fuchs explores the intricate dynamics of imitation and contradistinction among early modern European powers in literary and historiographical texts from sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spain, Italy, England and the New World. The book considers a broad sweep of material, including European representations of New World subjects and of Islam, both portrayed as 'other' in contemporary texts. It supplements the transatlantic perspective on early modern imperialism with an awareness of the situation in the Mediterranean and considers problems of reading and literary transmission; imperial ideology and colonial identities; counterfeits and forgery; and piracy.

Book The Ceren Site

    Book Details:
  • Author : Payson D. Sheets
  • Publisher : Cengage Learning
  • Release : 2006
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 172 pages

Download or read book The Ceren Site written by Payson D. Sheets and published by Cengage Learning. This book was released on 2006 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discovered in 1976 by Sheets, and under continuous excavation and study since, the spectacular Ceren site provides us with an unusually clear window into the ancient past with which to view family activities on the frontier of the Mayan civilization. Since volcanic ash did not allow people to selectively remove artifacts, the site is well-preserved and it also largely stopped natural processes of decomposition offering this rare opportunity to study the Mayan past through household archaeology. Known as the New World Pompeii, this study provides a detailed portrait of the life, houses, artifacts, and activity areas of the people who supported the elites with labor, food and goods. As Sheets says, "With any civilization that's being studied, if the households of commoners aren't being investigated, you've eliminated the bulk of the population. How can you understand the society if you ignore most of the people? It's like an ethnography. Only we can't interview people, so their possessions have to speak for them." Art and images from the author's own collection help illuminate the discussions and bring them to life, while the author's discussion of his personal trials and triumphs add a more human dimension to working in the field.

Book General Theory of Victims

Download or read book General Theory of Victims written by François Laruelle and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-15 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most accessible expression of François Laruelle's non-philosophical, or 'non-standard', thought, General Theory of Victims forges a new role for contemporary philosophers and intellectuals by rethinking their relation to victims. A key text in recent continental philosophy, it is indispensable for anyone interested in the debates surrounding materialism, philosophy of religion, and ethics. Transforming Joseph de Maistre's adage that the executioner is the cornerstone of society, General Theory of Victims instead proposes the victim as the cornerstone of humanity and the key figure for contemporary thought. Laruelle condemns philosophy for participating in and legitimating the great persecutions of the twentieth century, and lays out a new vision of victim-oriented ethics. To do this, he engages the resources of both quantum physics and theology in order to adapt a key concept of non-philosophy, Man-in-person, for a new understanding of the victim. As Man-in-person, the victim is no longer exclusively defined by suffering, but has the capacity to rise up against the world?s persecution. Based on this, Laruelle develops a new ethical role for the intellectual in which he does not merely 'represent' the victim, but imitates or 'clones' it, thereby assisting the victim?s uprising within thought.