Download or read book R o Azul written by Richard E. W. Adams and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deep within the forest in northern Guatemala lie the ruins of Río Azul, a Maya city that reached one-third the size of Tikal. Discovered and partially explored in the early 1960s, Río Azul and the surrounding region were more fully investigated between 1983 and 1987 by an archaeological team led by Richard E. W. Adams. In this summary, Adams integrates the findings of field archaeologists with those of the epigraphers and art historians to recreate the life of this Maya city from the little-known Early Classic period. Remains in the Río Azul area date from 900 B.C. to A.D. 850. The data indicate that, unlike most Maya cities that have been studied, Río Azul was a frontier town, an administrative center, with alternating defense and trade outpost functions. About A.D. 385, the Río Azul region was conquered and the city founded by Tikal, serving as a Teotihuacan-linked garrison for that capital. Nearly all of the more than seven hundred structures found within Río Azul were erected between A.D. 390 and 530. Acres of pavement were laid down around some thirty complexes of residences, temples, and tombs notable for the brightly painted red hieroglyphs and murals on their walls. The elaborate complexes and sumptuous artifacts suggest a city with a heavy proportion of aristocratic families and retainers. Around A.D. 530, Río Azul appears to have been suddenly destroyed. The city was abandoned, then reoccupied--only to stagnate and finally collapse, like many other Classic Maya cities, in the late ninth century.

Download or read book Archaeology and Bioarchaeology of Population Movement among the Prehispanic Maya written by Andrea Cucina and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeological evidence - i.e. presence of exogenous, foreign material objects (pottery, obsidian and so on) - is used to make inferences on ancient trade, while population movement can only be assessed when the biological component of an ancient community is analyzed (i.e. the human skeletal remains). But the exchange of goods or the presence of foreign architectural patterns does not necessarily imply genetic admixture between groups, while at the same time humans can migrate for reasons that may not be related only to trading. The Prehispanic Maya were a complex, highly stratified society. During the Classic period, city-states governed over large regions, establishing complex ties of alliance and commerce with the region’s minor centers and their allies, against other city-states within and outside the Maya realm. The fall of the political system during the Classic period (the Maya collapse) led to hypothetical invasions of leading groups from the Gulf of Mexico into the northern Maya lowland at the onset of the Postclassic. However, it is still unclear whether this collapse was already underway when this movement of people started. The whole picture of population dynamics in Maya Prehispanic times, during the Classic and the Postclassic, can slowly emerge only when all the pieces of the puzzle are put together in a holistic and multidisciplinary fashion. The contributions of this volume bring together contributions from archaeology, archaeometry, paleodemography and bioarchaeology. They provide an initial account of the dynamic qualities behind large–scale ancient population dynamics, and at the same time represent novel multidisciplinary points of departure towards an integrated reconstruction and understanding of Prehispanic population dynamics in the Maya region.

Download or read book Community Action for Conservation written by Luciana Porter-Bolland and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth analysis on community conservation in Mexico. The volume explores vivid examples and case studies that illustrate some of the critical issues at stake, including the participation of local communities in national and global conservation, indigenous and local perceptions of conservation initiatives in Southern Mexico, and challenges in ICCA governance and ecotourism. The book also reviews methodological approaches for understanding and strengthening community conservation, touching upon such topics as community-based biodiversity monitoring and tools for understanding children's perceptions of community conservation. Written by international experts in the field, Community Action for Conservation: Mexican Experiences is a lively and deep-running resource that offers invaluable stories and analyses of the Mexican experience with conservation.

Download or read book Ecology and Conservation of Tropical Ungulates in Latin America written by Sonia Gallina-Tessaro and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together the latest information on tropical ungulates in different Latin American countries. These animals are not only important from the point of view of their role in different ecosystems, but also have cultural value for people. The book also discusses topics such as habitat transformation and hunting as these species are an important source of food in many places. Addressing ungulate natural communities in diverse ecosystems and countries, the book provides information on specific aspects of each of the most representative species, and highlights topics to help readers better understand these species and develop effective management and conservation strategies. The information presented also reveals the need for more knowledge and will hopefully provide the incentive for continued studies on this important group of animals. This publication serves as a reference for academic research on ungulate ecology, behavior and dynamics, as well as the basis for conservation strategies.

Download or read book Maya Political Science written by Prudence M. Rice and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2013-08-28 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the ancient Maya rule their world? Despite more than a century of archaeological investigation and glyphic decipherment, the nature of Maya political organization and political geography has remained an open question. Many debates have raged over models of centralization versus decentralization, superordinate and subordinate status—with far-flung analogies to emerging states in Europe, Asia, and Africa. But Prudence Rice asserts that neither the model of two giant "superpowers" nor that which postulates scores of small, weakly independent polities fits the accumulating body of material and cultural evidence. In this groundbreaking book, Rice builds a new model of Classic lowland Maya (AD 179-948) political organization and political geography. Using the method of direct historical analogy, she integrates ethnohistoric and ethnographic knowledge of the Colonial-period and modern Maya with archaeological, epigraphic, and iconographic data from the ancient Maya. On this basis of cultural continuity, she constructs a convincing case that the fundamental ordering principles of Classic Maya geopolitical organization were the calendar (specifically a 256-year cycle of time known as the may) and the concept of quadripartition, or the division of the cosmos into four cardinal directions. Rice also examines this new model of geopolitical organization in the Preclassic and Postclassic periods and demonstrates that it offers fresh insights into the nature of rulership, ballgame ritual, and warfare among the Classic lowland Maya.

Download or read book Biological Diversity written by Louise E. Buck and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2001-06-21 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a world of wide pendulum swings regarding management policies for protected areas, particularly as they affect the involvement of local people in management. Such swings can be polarizing and halt on-the-ground progress. There is a need to find ways to protect biodiversity while creating common ground and building management capacity thr

Download or read book The Holocene and Anthropocene Environmental History of Mexico written by Nuria Torrescano- Valle and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-12-02 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides essential information on Mexico’s Holocene and Anthropocene climate and vegetation history. Considering the geography of Mexico – which is home to a variety of climatic and environmental conditions, from desert and tropical to high mountain climates – this book focuses on its postglacial paleoecology and paleoclimatology. Further, it analyses human intervention since the middle Holocene as a major agent of environmental change. Offering a valuable tool for understanding past climate change and its relationship with present climate change, the book is a must-read for botanists, ecologists, palaeontologists and graduate students in related fields.

Download or read book Integrated Land Change Science and Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatan written by B. L. Turner and published by . This book was released on 2004-02-19 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This highly topical study of tropical deforestation in Mexico reports on the first phase of the Land-Cover and Land-Use Change in the Southern Yucatan Peninsular Region Project (LCLUC-SYPR): a large, multi-institutional, and team-based study designed to understand and project land changes in a development frontier that pits the rapidly growing needs of smallholder farmers to cut down forests for cultivation against federally sponsored initiatives committed to various internationalprogrammes of forest preservation and complementary economic programmes.The SYPR project is a response to inderdisciplinary defined research themes deemed critical to global environmental change and complementary international research agendas (e.g. environment and development, ecosystem assessment, biotic diversity). Pivotal among these agendas are those posed by the Land-Use/Cover Change (LUCC) effort of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Programme as it is linked through such USsponsors as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The themes (i.e. questions and subjects) posed by these programmes and organization are 'integrated' or 'synthesis' in kind, meaning that they rest within the intersection of formaldisciplines and are intended to fit into a larger, systems framework about human-environment relationships and the structure and function of the biosphere.The editors of this volume, as most of its contributors, come from the disciplines of geography, ecology, and economics. The lead editor, the geographer B. L. Turner II, has spent most of his career in pursuit of understanding different aspects of tropical deforestation and agriculture.

Download or read book Incidents of Archaeology in Central America and Yucat n written by Michael Love and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Incidents of Archaeology in Central America and Yucatán is a collection of cutting edge archaeological studies of the Maya and their neighbors. Written by leading scholars, this book is an up-to-date collection, emphasizing recent fieldwork in the Yucatán, Belize, and Guatemala. It includes reports on recent fieldwork not previously published in any form. This book is a tribute to Edwin M. Shook, the last surviving member of the Division of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Shook's career has spanned seven decades, and has included associations with such luminaries as Sylvanus Morley and Alfred V. Kidder. Most notably, Shook served as the first director of the Tikal Project, from 1955-1964.

Download or read book Land Change Science Political Ecology and Sustainability written by Christian Brannstrom and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-23 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent claims regarding convergence and divergence between land change science and political ecology as approaches to the study of human-environment relationships and sustainability science are examined and analyzed in this innovative volume. Comprised of 11 commissioned chapters as well as introductory and concluding/synthesis chapters, it advances the two fields by proposing new conceptual and methodological approaches toward integrating land change science and political ecology. The book also identifies areas of fundamental difference and disagreement between fields. These theoretical contributions will help a generation of young researchers refine their research approaches and will advance a debate among established scholars in geography, land-use studies, and sustainability science that has been developing since the early 2000s. At an empirical level, case studies focusing on sustainable development are included from Africa, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia. The specific topics addressed include tropical deforestation, swidden agriculture, mangrove forests, gender, and household issues.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology written by Christian Isendahl and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Historical Ecology and Applied Archaeology presents theoretical discussions, methodological outlines, and case-studies describing the field of overlap between historical ecology and the emerging sub-discipline of applied archaeology to highlight how modern environments and landscapes have been shaped by humans. Historical ecology is based on the recognition that humans are not only capable of modifying their environments, but that all environments on earth have already been directly or indirectly modified. This includes anthropogenic climate change, widespread deforestations, and species extinctions, but also very local alterations, the effects of which may last a few years, or may have legacies lasting centuries or more. With contributions from anthropologists, archaeologists, human geographers, and historians, this volume focuses not just on defining human impacts in the past, but on the ways that understanding these changes can help inform contemporary practices and development policies. Some chapters present examples of how ancient or current societies have modified their environments in sustainable ways, while others highlight practices that had unintended long-term consequences. The possibilities of learning from these practices are discussed, as is the potential of using the long history of human resource exploitation as a method for building or testing models of future change. The volume offers overviews for students, researchers, and professionals with an interest in conservation or development projects who want to understand what practical insights can be drawn from history, and who seek to apply their work to contemporary issues.

Download or read book Calakmul written by Hernán Lara Zavala and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Bioarchaeology of Space and Place written by Gabriel D. Wrobel and published by Springer Science & Business. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bioarchaeology of Space and Place investigates variations in social identity among the ancient Maya by focusing on individuals and small groups identified archaeologically by their inclusion in specific, discrete mortuary contexts or by unusual mortuary treatments. Utilizing archaeological, biological and taphonomic data from these contexts, the studies employ a variety of methodological approaches to reconstruct aspects of individuals’ life-course and mortuary pathways. Following this, specific mortuary behaviors are discussed in relation to their local or regional cultural setting using relevant archaeological, ethnohistoric, and/or ethnographic data in an effort to interpret their meaning within the broader social, political and economic contexts in which they were carried out. This volume covers a number of topics that are currently being debated in Maya archaeology, including identification and discussion of the role and extent of human sacrifice in Maya culture, the use of ancestors for maintaining political power, the mortuary use of caves by both elites and non-elites, ethnic distinctions within urban areas and the extent of movement of people between communities. Importantly, the papers in this volume attempt to test and move beyond static, dichotic categories that are often employed in mortuary studies in an effort to better understand the complex ways in which the Maya conceptualized and manipulated social identity. This type of nuanced case-study approach that incorporates historical, archaeological and theoretical contextualization is becoming increasingly important in the field of bioarchaeology, providing valuable sources of data where small, diverse samples impede populational approaches.

Download or read book Deforestation Around the World written by Paulo Moutinho and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2012-03-30 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deforestation and forest degradation represent a significant fraction of the annual worldwide human-induced emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the main source of biodiversity losses and the destruction of millions of people's homes. Despite local/regional causes, its consequences are global. This book provides a general view about deforestation dynamics around the world, incorporating analyses of its causes, impacts and actions to prevent it. Its 17 Chapters, organized in three sections, refer to deforestation impacts on climate, soil, biodiversity and human population, but also describe several initiatives to prevent it. A special emphasis is given to different remote-sensing and mapping techniques that could be used as a source for decision-makers and society to promote forest conservation and control deforestation.

Download or read book Contributions from the United States National Herbarium written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Ecosystems and Land Use Change written by Ruth DeFries and published by American Geophysical Union. This book was released on 2004-01-09 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Geophysical Monograph Series, Volume 153. Land use is at the center of one of the most vexing challenges for the coming decades: to provide enough food, fiber and shelter for the world's population; raise the standard of living for the billion people currently below the poverty line; and simultaneously sustain the world's ecosystems for use by humans and other species. The intended consequence of cropland expansion, urban growth, and other land use changes is to satisfy demands from the increasing appetite of the world's population. Unintended consequences, however, can alter ecological processes and have far-reaching and long-term effects that potentially compromise the basic functioning of ecosystems. Recently, the scientific community has begun to confront such issues. Several national and international programs have been at the forefront of scientific enquiry on the causes and consequences of land use change, including: the Land Use and Land Cover Change Program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Land Use program element in the interagency U.S. Climate Change Science Program, and the International Geosphere-Biosphere's Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) core project. The result has been significant advances in understanding the complex socioeconomic, technological, and biophysical factors that drive land use change worldwide.

Download or read book The Environment in Anthropology written by Nora Haenn and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting ecology and current environmental studies from an anthropological point of view, this book gives readers a strong intellectual foundation as well as offering practical tools for solving environmental problems.