Download or read book Graphing Culture Change in North American Archaeology written by R. Lee Lyman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-10 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documentation, analysis, and explanation of culture change have long been goals of archaeology. Scientific graphs facilitate the visual thinking that allow archaeologists to determine the relationship between variables, and, if well designed, comprehend the processes implied by the relationship. Different graph types suggest different ontologies and theories of change, and particular techniques of parsing temporally continuous morphological variation of artefacts into types influence graph form. North American archaeologists have grappled with finding a graph that effectively and efficiently displays culture change over time. Line graphs, bar graphs, and numerous one-off graph types were used between 1910 and 1950, after which spindle graphs displaying temporal frequency distributions of specimens within each of multiple artefact types emerged as the most readily deciphered diagram. The variety of graph types used over the twentieth century indicate archaeologists often mixed elements of both Darwinian variational evolutionary change and Midas-touch like transformational change. Today, there is minimal discussion of graph theory or graph grammar in introductory archaeology textbooks or advanced texts, and elements of the two theories of evolution are still mixed. Culture has changed, and archaeology provides unique access to the totality of humankind's cultural past. It is therefore crucial that graph theory, construction, and decipherment are revived in archaeological discussion.
Download or read book Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America written by Susan Toby Evans and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2001 with total page 1322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Historical Dictionary of Mesoamerica written by Walter Robert Thurmond Witschey and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mesoamerica is one of six major areas of the world where humans independently changed their culture from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle into settled communities, cities, and civilization. In addition to China (twice), the Indus Valley, the Fertile Crescent of southwest Asia, Egypt, and Peru, Mesoamerica was home to exciting and irreversible changes in human culture called the "Neolithic Revolution." The changes included domestication of plants and animals, leading to agriculture, husbandry, and eventually sedentary village life. These developments set the stage for the growth of cities, social stratification, craft specialization, warfare, writing, mathematics, and astronomy, or what we call the rise of civilization. These changes forever transformed humankind. The Historical Dictionary of Mesoamerica covers the history of Mesoamerica through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 900 cross-referenced dictionary entries covering the major peoples, places, ideas, and events related to Mesoamerica. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Mesoamerica.
Download or read book Soldiers of the Virgin written by Kevin Gosner and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 1992-07 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early summer of 1712, a young Maya woman from the village of Cancuc in southern Mexico encountered an apparition of the Virgin Mary while walking in the forest. The miracle soon attracted Indian pilgrims from pueblos throughout the highlands of Chiapas. When alarmed Spanish authorities stepped in to put a stop to the burgeoning cult, they ignited a full-scale rebellion. Declaring "Now there is no God or King," rebel leaders raised an army of some five thousand "soldiers of the Virgin" to defend their new faith and cast off colonial rule.Using the trial records of Mayas imprisoned after the rebellion, as well as the letters of Dominican priests, the local bishop, and Spaniards who led the army of pacification, Kevin Gosner reconstructs the history of the Tzeltal Revolt and examines its causes. He characterizes the rebellion as a defense of the Maya moral economy, and shows how administrative reforms and new economic demands imposed by colonial authorities at the end of the seventeenth century challenged Maya norms about the ritual obligations of community leaders, the need for reciprocity in political affairs, and the supernatural origins of power.The first book-length study of the Tzeltal Revolt, Soldiers of the Virgin goes beyond the conventions of the regional monograph to offer an expansive view of Maya social and cultural history. With an eye to the contributions of archaeologists and ethnographers, Gosner explores many issues that are central to Maya studies, including the origins of the civil-religious hierarchy, the role of shamanism in political culture, the social dynamics of peasant corporate communities, and the fate of the native nobility after the Spanish conquest.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology written by Deborah L. Nichols and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-24 with total page 996 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 by 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.
Download or read book Maya Threads written by Walter F. Morris and published by Schiffer + ORM. This book was released on 2015-02-15 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of: IBPA 2016 Benjamin Franklin Gold Award, Multicultural Through the pages of this incredibly-researched history and photo gallery, the world of the Maya lives on through the lens of its culture and costume, still seen today in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. In a region battered by centuries of invasions, subjugations, civil wars, and severe economic hardship, the Maya continue to celebrate and sustain their heritage in extraordinary traditional dress and festivals that are both riotous and sacred. Their ever-evolving, colorful, beautifully-handcrafted dress features exquisite gauze fabrics that trace their origins from the 9th century AD to a present-day lowland village; festival wear that blends Roman Catholicism and paganism, reverence and mockery; gloriously brocaded and embroidered wardrobes that tie communities together; and embroidery techniques that reflect displacements and migrations—in other words, fabrics that trace the history and evolution of a people. Two Maya experts and a photographer painstakingly record the remnants of influence from the Aztecs, Spanish conquistadors, Catholic missionaries, and the unseen gods and spirits that guide Maya culture today.
Download or read book The Origins of Maya States written by Loa P. Traxler and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-10-28 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pre-Columbian Maya were organized into a series of independent kingdoms or polities rather than unified into a single state. The vast majority of studies of Maya states focus on the apogee of their development in the classic period, ca. 250-850 C.E. As a result, Maya states are defined according to the specific political structures that characterized classic period lowland Maya society. The Origins of Maya States is the first study in over 30 years to examine the origins and development of these states specifically during the preceding preclassic period, ca. 1000 B.C.E. to 250 C.E. Attempts to understand the origins of Maya states cannot escape the limitations of archaeological data, and this is complicated by both the variability of Maya states in time and space and the interplay between internal development and external impacts. To mitigate these factors, editors Loa P. Traxler and Robert J. Sharer assemble a collection of essays that combines an examination of topical issues with regional perspectives from both the Maya area and neighboring Mesoamerican regions to highlight the role of interregional interaction in the evolution of Maya states. Topics covered include material signatures for the development of Maya states, evaluations of extant models for the emergence of Maya states, and advancement of new models based on recent archaeological data. Contributors address the development of complexity during the preclassic era within the Maya regions of the Pacific coast, highlands, and lowlands and explore preclassic economic, social, political, and ideological systems that provide a developmental context for the origins of Maya states. Contributors: Marcello A. Canuto, John E. Clark, Ann Cyphers, Francisco Estrada-Belli, David C. Grove, Norman Hammond, Richard D. Hansen, Eleanor King, Michael Love, Simon Martin, Astrid Runggaldier, Robert Sharer, Loa Traxler.
Download or read book The Lowland Maya Postclassic written by Arlen F. Chase and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection represents a major step forward in understanding the era from the end of Classic Maya civilization to the Spanish conquest.
Download or read book Architecture and Urbanization in Colonial Chiapas Mexico written by Sidney David Markman and published by American Philosophical Society. This book was released on 1984 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covers colonial architecture in the two westernmost provinces of the Reino de Guatemala: Audiencia & Capitania General -- a region largely isolated from the rest of Central America & Mexico until recent times. The buildings of this region (known as Chiapas) reflect the soc. that produced them: the geographical setting, the conquest & Christianization of the natives, & the ethnic composition of the population. 47 buildings are discussed supported by material from contemporary sources as well as by photos & measurements gathered on the sites. This catalog of archival texts will be useful not only to historians of art & architecture, but also to archaeologists, anthropologists, & ethnohistorians working in Chiapas. Photos & drawings.
Download or read book Histories and Stories from Chiapas written by R. Aída Hernández Castillo and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1994 Zapatista uprising of Chiapas' Maya peoples against the Mexican government shattered the state myth that indigenous groups have been successfully assimilated into the nation. In this wide-ranging study of identity formation in Chiapas, Aída Hernández delves into the experience of a Maya group, the Mam, to analyze how Chiapas' indigenous peoples have in fact rejected, accepted, or negotiated the official discourse on "being Mexican" and participating in the construction of a Mexican national identity. Hernández traces the complex relations between the Mam and the national government from 1934 to the Zapatista rebellion. She investigates the many policies and modernization projects through which the state has attempted to impose a Mexican identity on the Mam and shows how this Maya group has resisted or accommodated these efforts. In particular, she explores how changing religious affiliation, women's and ecological movements, economic globalization, state policies, and the Zapatista movement have all given rise to various ways of "being Mam" and considers what these indigenous identities may mean for the future of the Mexican nation. The Spanish version of this book won the 1997 Fray Bernardino de Sahagún national prize for the best social anthropology research in Mexico.
Download or read book Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians Volume 6 written by Barbara W. Edmonson and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-06-28 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1981, UT Press began to issue supplemental volumes to the classic sixteen-volume work, Handbook of Middle American Indians. These supplements are intended to update scholarship in various areas and to cover topics of current interest. Supplements devoted to Archaeology, Linguistics, Literatures, Ethnohistory, and Epigraphy have appeared to date. In this Ethnology supplement, anthropologists who have carried out long-term fieldwork among indigenous people review the ethnographic literature in the various regions of Middle America and discuss the theoretical and methodological orientations that have framed the work of areal scholars over the last several decades. They examine how research agendas have developed in relationship to broader interests in the field and the ways in which the anthropology of the region has responded to the sociopolitical and economic policies of Mexico and Guatemala. Most importantly, they focus on the changing conditions of life of the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. This volume thus offers a comprehensive picture of both the indigenous populations and developments in the anthropology of the region over the last thirty years.
Download or read book Dictionary Catalog of the Research Libraries of the New York Public Library 1911 1971 written by New York Public Library. Research Libraries and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Handbook of Middle American Indians Volumes 14 and 15 written by Robert Wauchope and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2015-02-18 with total page 831 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volumes 14 and 15 of the Handbook of Middle American Indians, published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979), constitute Parts 3 and 4 of the Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources. The Guide has been assembled under the volume editorship of the late Howard F. Cline, Director of the Hispanic Foundation in the Library of Congress, with Charles Gibson, John B. Glass, and H. B. Nicholson as associate volume editors. It covers geography and ethnogeography (Volume 12); sources in the European tradition (Volume 13); and sources in the native tradition: prose and pictorial materials, checklist of repositories, title and synonymy index, and annotated bibliography on native sources (Volumes 14 and 15). The present volumes contain the following studies on sources in the native tradition: “A Survey of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” by John B. Glass “A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” by John B. Glass in collaboration with Donald Robertson “Techialoyan Manuscripts and Paintings, with a Catalog,” by Donald Robertson “A Census of Middle American Testerian Manuscripts,” by John B. Glass “A Catalog of Falsified Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts,” by John B. Glass “Prose Sources in the Native Historical Tradition,” by Charles Gibson and John B. Glass “A Checklist of Institutional Holdings of Middle American Manuscripts in the Native Historical Tradition,” by John B. Glass “The Botutini Collection,” by John B. Glass “Middle American Ethnohistory: An Overview” by H. B. Nicholson The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.
Download or read book Rethinking the Aztec Economy written by Deborah L. Nichols and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rethinking the Aztec Economy provides new perspectives on the society and economy of the ancient Aztecs by focusing on goods and their patterns of circulation"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation written by and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Archaeology of Greater Nicoya written by Larry Steinbrenner and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2021-11-01 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Archaeology of Greater Nicoya is the first edited volume in a quarter century to provide an overview of this fascinating archaeological subarea of Mesoamerica, encompassing Pacific Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica. Inhabited by diverse peoples of Mesoamerican origin centuries before Spanish colonization, Greater Nicoya remains controversial in the twenty-first century as scholars struggle to achieve consensus on questions of geography, chronology, and cultural identity. Drawing on approaches ranging from ethnohistory to bioarchaeology to scientific and culture-historical archaeology, the book is organized into sections on redefining Greater Nicoya, projects and surveys, material culture, and mortuary practices. Individual chapters explore Indigenous groups and their origins, extensive summaries of the three largest scholarly archaeological projects completed in Pacific Nicaragua in the last quarter century, clear evidence of Mesoamerican connections from Costa Rica’s Bay of Culebra, detailed histories of lithic analysis and rock art studies in Nicaragua, new insights into mortuary and cultural practices based on osteological evidence, and reinterpretations of diagnostic ceramic types as products of related potting communities and the first definitive identification of production centers for these types. Drawing upon new 14C dates, this volume also provides the most substantial revision of the late pre-colonial chronology since the 1960s, a correction that has critical implications for understanding the prehistory of Greater Nicoya.
Download or read book Mesoamerican Studies written by and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
