Download or read book Embattled Bodies Embattled Places written by Andrew K. Scherer and published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection. This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places examines the nature of war in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Drawing on anthropological archaeology, bioarchaeology, and ethnohistory, the essays consider the similarities and differences of warfare in cross-cultural perspective, from the importance of captive-taking to rituals of sacrifice and performance.

Download or read book Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains written by Anna J. Osterholtz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ​Commingled and Disarticulated Human Remains:Working Toward Improved Theory, Method, and Data brings together research that provides innovative methodologies for the analysis of commingled human remains. It has temporal and spatial breadth, with case studies coming from pre-state to historic periods, as well as from both the New and Old World. Highlights of this volume include: standardizes methods and presents best practices in the field using a case study approach demonstrates how data gathered from commingled human remains can be incorporated into the overall interpretation of a site explores best way to formulate population size, using commingled remains Field archaeologists, bioarchaeologists, academic anthropologists, forensic anthropologists, zoo archaeologists, and students of anthropology and archaeology will find this to be an invaluable resource.

Download or read book A Global History of Pre Modern Warfare written by Kaushik Roy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the military histories of the regions beyond Western Europe in the pre-modern era. Existing works on global military history mainly focus on the western part of Eurasia after 1500 CE. As regards the ancient period, such works concentrate exclusively on Greece and Rome. So, ‘global’ military history is actually the triumphal story of the West from Classical Greece onwards. This volume focuses not only on the eastern part of Eurasia but also on South America, Africa and Australasia and seeks to explain the history and varied trajectories of warfare in non-Western regions in the pre-modern era. Further, it evaluates whether warfare in non-Western regions should be considered primitive or inferior when compared with Western warfare. The book notes that Western Europe became militarily significant only in the early modern era and argues that the military divergence that occurred during the early modern era is not unique – it had also occurred in the Bronze Age, the Classical era and in the medieval period. This was due to the dynamism and innovativeness of non-Western militaries and the interconnectedness that existed in parts of the Eurasian landmass. Further, those polities which were able to construct a balanced military force by synthesising diverse elements were not only able to survive but also became capable of projecting power across continents. This book will be of much interest to students of military history, strategic studies and world history.

Download or read book Archaeological and Ethnographic Evidence of Domination in Indigenous Latin America written by Yamilette Chacon and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2023-07-11 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New data and interpretations that shed light on the nature of power relations in prehistoric and contemporary Indigenous societies This volume explores the nature of power relations and social control in Indigenous societies of Latin America. Its chapters focus on instances of domination in different contexts as reflected in archaeological, osteological, and ethnohistorical records, beginning with prehistoric case studies to examples from the ethnographic present. Ranging from the development of nautical and lacustrine warfare technology in precontact Mesoamerica to the psychological functions of domestic violence among contemporary Amazonian peoples, these investigations shed light on how leaders often use violence or the threat of violence to advance their influence. The essays show that while social control can be overt, it may also be veiled in the form of monumental architecture, fortresses or pukara, or rituals that signal to friends and foes alike the power of those in control. Contributors challenge many widely accepted conceptions of violence, warfare, and domination by presenting new evidence, and they also offer novel interpretations of power relations in the domestic, local, and regional spheres. Encompassing societies from tribal to state levels of sociopolitical complexity, the studies in this volume present different dimensions of conflict and power found among the prehistoric and contemporary Indigenous peoples of Latin America. Contributors: Stephen Beckerman | Richard J. Chacon | Yamilette Chacon | Vincent Chamussy | Peter Eeckhout | Pamela Erickson | Mariana Favila Vázquez | Romuald Housse | Nam C. Kim | Krzysztof Makowski | Dennis E. Ogburn | Lawrence Stewart Owens | James Yost

Download or read book Playing with Things written by Mary Weismantel and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than a thousand years ago on the north coast of Peru, Indigenous Moche artists created a large and significant corpus of sexually explicit ceramic works of art. They depicted a diversity of sex organs and sex acts, and an array of solitary and interconnected human and nonhuman bodies. To the modern eye, these Moche “sex pots,” as Mary Weismantel calls them, are lively and provocative but also enigmatic creations whose import to their original owners seems impossible to grasp. In Playing with Things, Weismantel shows that there is much to be learned from these ancient artifacts, not merely as inert objects from a long-dead past but as vibrant Indigenous things, alive in their own human temporality. From a new materialist perspective, she fills the gaps left by other analyses of the sex pots in pre-Columbian studies, where sexuality remains marginalized, and in sexuality studies, where non-Western art is largely absent. Taking a decolonial approach toward an archaeology of sexuality and breaking with long-dominant iconographic traditions, this book explores how the “pots play jokes, make babies, give power, and hold water,” considering the sex pots as actual ceramic bodies that interact with fleshly bodies, now and in the ancient past. A beautifully written study that will be welcomed by students as well as specialists, Playing with Things is a model for archaeological and art historical engagement with the liberating power of queer theory and Indigenous studies.

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 309 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.

Download or read book The Odd the Unusual and the Strange written by Tracy K. Betsinger and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abnormal burial practices have long been a source of fascination and debate within the fields of mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeology. The Odd, the Unusual, and the Strange investigates an unparalleled geographic and temporal range of burials that differ from the usual customs of their broader societies, emphasizing the importance of a holistic, context-driven approach to these intriguing cases. From an Andean burial dating to 3500 BC to mummified bodies interred in the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, Sicily, during the twentieth century, the studies in this volume cross the globe and span millennia. The unusual cases explored here include Native American cemeteries in Illinois, “vampire” burials in medieval Poland, and a mass grave of decapitated soldiers in ancient China. Moving away from the simplistic assumption that these burials represent people who were considered deviant in society, contributors demonstrate the importance of an integrated biocultural approach in determining why an individual was buried in an unusual way. Drawing on historical, sociocultural, archaeological, and biological data, this volume critically evaluates the binary of “typical” versus “atypical” burials. It expands our understanding of the continuum of variation within mortuary practices, helping researchers better interpret burial evidence to learn about the people and cultures of the past. A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Paleopathology written by Anne L. Grauer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-12-30 with total page 693 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book 1. explores current methods and techniques employed by paleopathologists as means to highlight the range of data that can be generated. 2. introduces a range of diseases and conditions that have been noted in the fossil, archaeological, and historical record, offering readers a foundational understanding of pathological conditions, along with their potential etiologies. 3. will be indispensable for archaeologists, bioarchaeologists and historians, and those in medical fields, as it reflects current scholarship within paleopathology and the field’s impact on our understanding of health and disease in the past, the present, and implications for our future.

Download or read book The Cambridge World History of Slavery Volume 2 AD 500 AD 1420 written by Craig Perry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-12 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval slavery has received little attention relative to slavery in ancient Greece and Rome and in the early modern Atlantic world. This imbalance in the scholarship has led many to assume that slavery was of minor importance in the Middle Ages. In fact, the practice of slavery continued unabated across the globe throughout the medieval millennium. This volume – the final volume in The Cambridge World History of Slavery – covers the period between the fall of Rome and the rise of the transatlantic plantation complexes by assembling twenty-three original essays, written by scholars acknowledged as leaders in their respective fields. The volume demonstrates the continual and central presence of slavery in societies worldwide between 500 CE and 1420 CE. The essays analyze key concepts in the history of slavery, including gender, trade, empire, state formation and diplomacy, labor, childhood, social status and mobility, cultural attitudes, spectrums of dependency and coercion, and life histories of enslaved people.

Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Mesoamerican Bioarchaeology written by Vera Tiesler and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-05-23 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together a range of contributors with different and hybrid academic backgrounds to explore, through bioarchaeology, the past human experience in the territories that span Mesoamerica. This handbook provides systematic bioarchaeological coverage of skeletal research in the ancient Mesoamericas. It offers an integrated collection of engrained, bioculturally embedded explorations of relevant and timely topics, such as population shifts, lifestyles, body concepts, beauty, gender, health, foodways, social inequality, and violence. The additional treatment of new methodologies, local cultural settings, and theoretic frames rounds out the scope of this handbook. The selection of 36 chapter contributions invites readers to engage with the human condition in ancient and not-so-ancient Mesoamerica and beyond. The Routledge Handbook of Mesoamerican Bioarchaeology is addressed to an audience of Mesoamericanists, students, and researchers in bioarchaeology and related fields. It serves as a comprehensive reference for courses on Mesoamerica, bioarchaeology, and Native American studies.

Download or read book The Oxford World History of Empire written by Peter Fibiger Bang and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first world history of empire, reaching from the third millennium BCE to the present. By combining synthetic surveys, thematic comparative essays, and numerous chapters on specific empires, its two volumes provide unparalleled coverage of imperialism throughout history and across continents, from Asia to Europe and from Africa to the Americas. Only a few decades ago empire was believed to be a thing of the past; now it is clear that it has been and remains one of the most enduring forms of political organization and power. We cannot understand the dynamics and resilience of empire without moving decisively beyond the study of individual cases or particular periods, such as the relatively short age of European colonialism. The history of empire, as these volumes amply demonstrate, needs to be drawn on the much broader canvas of global history. Volume I: The Imperial Experience is dedicated to synthesis and comparison. Following a comprehensive theoretical survey and bold world history synthesis, fifteen chapters analyze and explore the multifaceted experience of empire across cultures and through the ages. The broad range of perspectives includes: scale, world systems and geopolitics, military organization, political economy and elite formation, monumental display, law, mapping and registering, religion, literature, the politics of difference, resistance, energy transfers, ecology, memories, and the decline of empires. This broad set of topics is united by the central theme of power, examined under four headings: systems of power, cultures of power, disparities of power, and memory and decline. Taken together, these chapters offer a comprehensive and unique view of the imperial experience in world history. Volume II: The History of Empires tracks the protean history of political domination from the very beginnings of state formation in the Bronze Age up to the present. Case studies deal with the full range of the historical experience of empire, from the realms of the Achaemenids and Asoka to the empires of Mali and Songhay, and from ancient Rome and China to the Mughals, American settler colonialism, and the Soviet Union. Forty-five chapters detailing the history of individual empires are tied together by a set of global synthesizing surveys that structure the world history of empire into eight chronological phases.

Download or read book Foreigners Among Us written by Christina Halperin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-14 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessing key questions such as who the foreigners and outsiders in ancient Maya societies were and how was the foreign a generative component of identity, Foreigners Among Us reassess the arrival of foreigners as part of archaeological understandings of Pre-Columbian Maya and questions not only who these foreigners might have been but who were making such designations of difference in the first place. Drawing from identity studies, standpoint theory, and ideas on alterity, Foreigners Among Us highlights the diverse ways being foreign was constituted, imitated, and marked – from quotidian practices of making corn tortillas to ceremonial acts between king and captive and their memorialization in scenes on sculpted stone monuments. Rather than treat the foreign as axiomatically determined by geographical distance or fixed at birth, the book considers the foreign as much performed as inherited. It examines practices of captivity, cuisine, body ornamentation and dress, diasporic objects, relationships with deities, migration, and pilgrimage. The book focuses, in particular, on diverse peoples in the Maya area during the Classic and Postclassic periods, but also necessarily peers into contacts, engagements and relations throughout Mesoamerica, the Americas more broadly, and with Europeans during the Colonial period – all the while insisting that outsider status must be approached as multi-scalar, relational, and intersectional rather than as neutral, intrinsic, and static. Contributing broadly to intellectual investigations on foreign identities from an anthropological perspective, this book enriches the understanding of Maya society for students and researchers of Mesoamerican archaeology and art history.

Download or read book Seeking Conflict in Mesoamerica written by Shawn G. Morton and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2019-11-29 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking Conflict in Mesoamerica focuses on the conflicts of the ancient Maya, providing a holistic history of Maya hostilities and comparing them with those of neighboring Mesoamerican villages and towns. Contributors to the volume explore the varied stories of past Maya conflicts through artifacts, architecture, texts, and images left to posterity. Many studies have focused on the degree to which the prevalence, nature, and conduct of conflict has varied across time and space. This volume focuses not only on such operational considerations but on cognitive and experiential issues, analyzing how the Maya understood and explained conflict, what they recognized as conflict, how conflict was experienced by various groups, and the circumstances surrounding conflict. By offering an emic (internal and subjective) understanding alongside the more commonly researched etic (external and objective) perspective, contributors clarify insufficiencies and address lapses in data and analysis. They explore how the Maya defined themselves within the realm of warfare and examine the root causes and effects of intergroup conflict. Using case studies from a wide range of time periods, Seeking Conflict in Mesoamerica provides a basis for understanding hostilities and broadens the archaeological record for the “seeking” of conflict in a way that has been largely untouched by previous scholars. With broad theoretical reach beyond Mesoamerican archaeology, the book will have wide interdisciplinary appeal and will be important to ethnohistorians, art historians, ethnographers, epigraphers, and those interested in human conflict more broadly. Contributors: Matthew Abtosway, Karen Bassie-Sweet, George J. Bey III, M. Kathryn Brown, Allen J. Christenson, Tomás Gallareta Negrón, Elizabeth Graham, Helen R. Haines, Christopher L. Hernandez, Harri Kettunen, Rex Koontz, Geoffrey McCafferty, Jesper Nielsen, Joel W. Palka, Kerry L. Sagebiel, Travis W. Stanton, Alexandre Tokovinine

Download or read book Marxist Archaeology Today written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-09-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume gathers papers written by archaeologists utilising the methods of historical materialism, attesting not only to what Marxism has contributed to archaeology, but also to what archaeology has contributed, and can contribute, to Marxism as a method for interpreting the history of humanity. The book’s contributors consider the question of what archaeology can contribute to a historical perspective on the overcoming of present-day capitalism, synthesising developments in world archaeology, and supplying concrete case studies of the archaeology of the Americas, Europe and the Near East. Contributors are: Guillermo Acosta Ochoa, Marcus Bajema, Bernardo Gandulla, Alex Gonzales-Panta, Pablo Jaruf, Vicente Lull, Savas Michael-Matsas, Rafael Micó, Ianir Milevski, Patricia Pérez Martínez, Cristina Rihuete Herrada, Roberto Risch, Steve Roskams, Henry Tantaleán, Marcelo Vitores, and LouAnn Wurst.

Download or read book Fifth Sun written by Camilla Townsend and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In November 1519, Hernando Cortés walked along a causeway leading to the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with Moctezuma. That story--and the story of what happened afterwards--has been told many times, but always following the narrative offered by the Spaniards. After all, we have been taught, it was the Europeans who held the pens. But the Native Americans were intrigued by the Roman alphabet and, unbeknownst to the newcomers, they used it to write detailed histories in their own language of Nahuatl. Until recently, these sources remained obscure, only partially translated, and rarely consulted by scholars. For the first time, in Fifth Sun, the history of the Aztecs is offered in all its complexity based solely on the texts written by the indigenous people themselves. Camilla Townsend presents an accessible and humanized depiction of these native Mexicans, rather than seeing them as the exotic, bloody figures of European stereotypes. The conquest, in this work, is neither an apocalyptic moment, nor an origin story launching Mexicans into existence. The Mexica people had a history of their own long before the Europeans arrived and did not simply capitulate to Spanish culture and colonization. Instead, they realigned their political allegiances, accommodated new obligations, adopted new technologies, and endured. This engaging revisionist history of the Aztecs, told through their own words, explores the experience of a once-powerful people facing the trauma of conquest and finding ways to survive, offering an empathetic interpretation for experts and non-specialists alike.

Download or read book A Concise History of the Aztecs written by Susan Kellogg and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-02-15 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Susan Kellogg's history of the Aztecs offers a concise yet comprehensive assessment of Aztec history and civilization, emphasizing how material life and the economy functioned in relation to politics, religion, and intellectual and artistic developments. Appreciating the vast number of sources available but also their limitations, Kellogg focuses on three concepts throughout – value, transformation, and balance. Aztecs created value, material, and symbolic worth. Value was created through transformations of bodies, things, and ideas. The overall goal of value creation and transformation was to keep the Aztec world—the cosmos, the earth, its inhabitants—in balance, a balance often threatened by spiritual and other forms of chaos. The book highlights the ethnicities that constituted Aztec peoples and sheds light on religion, political and economic organization, gender, sexuality and family life, intellectual achievements, and survival. Seeking to correct common misperceptions, Kellogg stresses the humanity of the Aztecs and problematizes the use of the terms 'human sacrifice', 'myth', and 'conquest'.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of the Incas written by Sonia Alconini Mujica and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 881 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Oxford Handbook of the Incas aims to be the first comprehensive book on the Inca, the largest empire in the pre-Columbian world. Using archaeology, ethnohistory and art history, the central goal of this handbook is to bring together novel recent research conducted by experts from different fields that study the Inca empire, from its origins and expansion to its demise and continuing influence in contemporary times"--Provided by publisher.