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By contextualizing classes and their kinship behavior within the overall political economy, Crafting Prehispanic Maya Kinship provides an example of how archaeology can help to explain the formation of disparate classes and kinship patterns within an ancient state-level society. Bradley E. Ensor provides a new theoretical contribution to Maya ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological research. Rather than operating solely as a symbolic order unobservable to archaeologists, kinship, according to Ensor, forms concrete social relations that structure daily life and can be reflected in the material remains of a society. Ensor argues that the use of cross-culturally identified and confirmed material indicators of postmarital residence and descent group organization enable archaeologists—those with the most direct material evidence on prehispanic Maya social organization—to overturn a traditional reliance on competing and problematic ethnohistorical models. Using recent data from an arch aeological project within the Chontalpa Maya region of Tabasco, Mexico, Ensor illustrates how archaeologists can interpret and explain the diversity of kinship behavior and its influence on gender within any given Maya social formation.
Oysters in the Land of Cacao delivers a long-overdue presentation of the archaeology, material culture, and regional synthesis on the Formative to Late Classic period societies of the western Chontalpa region (Tabasco, Mexico) through contemporary theory. It offers a significant new understanding of the Mesoamerican Gulf Coast.
"Bradley Ensor shows how kinship can be a valuable tool for archaeologists. The Archaeology of Kinship explains how kinship is relevant to contemporary archaeological theory, detailing methods appropriate for archaeological analysis, and provides long-overdue solutions to problems plaguing ethnological hypotheses on the origins and contexts of kinship behaviors"--Provided by publisher.
Two decades of strontium isotope research on Neolithic European burials – reinforced by high-profile ancient DNA studies – has led to widespread interpretations that these were patrilocal societies, implying significant residential mobility for women. This volume questions that narrative from a social anthropological perspective on kinship.
Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism tears down entrenched misconceptions of Maya cities to build a new archaeology of Maya urbanism by highlighting the residential dynamics that underwrote one of the most famous and debated civilizations of the ancient Americas. Exploring the diverse yet interrelated agents and processes that modified Maya urban landscapes over time, this volume highlights the adaptive flexibility of urbanization in the tropical Maya lowlands. Integrating recent lidar survey data with more traditional excavation and artifact-based archaeological practices, chapters in this volume offer broadened perspectives on the patterns of Maya urban design and planning by viewing bottom-up and self-organizing processes as integral to the form, development, and dissolution of Classic lowland cities alongside potentially centralized civic designs. Full of innovative examples of how to build an archaeology of urbanism that can be applied not just to the lowland Maya and across the region, Building an Archaeology of Maya Urbanism simultaneously improves interpretations of lowland Maya culture history and contributes to empirical and comparative discussions of tropical, non-Western cities worldwide. Contributors: Divina Perla Barrera, Arianna Campiani, Cyril Castanet, Adrian S. Z. Chase, Lydie Dussol, Sara Dzul Góngora, Keith Eppich, Thomas Garrison, María Rocio González de la Mata, Timothy Hare, Julien Hiquet, Takeshi Inomata, Eva Lemonnier, José Francisco Osorio León, Marilyn Masson, Elsa Damaris Menéndez, Timothy Murtha, Philippe Nondédéo, Keith M. Prufer, Louise Purdue, Francisco Pérez Ruíz, Julien Sion, Travis Stanton, Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo, Karl A. Taube, Marc Testé, Amy E. Thompson, Daniela Triadan
Time and History in Prehistory explores the many processes through which time and history are conceptualized and constructed, challenging the perception of prehistoric societies as ahistorical. Drawing equally on contemporary theory and illustrative case studies, and firmly rooted in material evidence, this book rearticulates concepts of time and history, questions the kind of narratives to be written about the past and underlines the fundamentally historical nature of prehistory. From a range of multi-disciplinary perspectives, the authors of this volume address the scales at which archaeological evidence and narrative are interwoven, from a single day to deep history and from a solitary pot to a complete city. In doing so, they argue the need for a multi-scalar approach to prehistoric data that allows for the interplay between short and long term, and for analytical units that encourage us to move continuously between scales. The growing interest in time and history in archaeology and across a wide range of disciplines concerned with human action and the human past highlights that these are exceptionally active fields. By juxtaposing varied viewpoints, this volume bridges gaps in narrative, finds a place for inclusive histories and makes clear the benefit of integrative and interdisciplinary approaches, including different disciplines and types of data.
The islands of the Caribbean are remarkably diverse, environmentally and culturally. They range from low limestone islands barely above sea level to volcanic islands with mountainous peaks; from large islands to small cays; from islands with tropical rainforests to those with desert habitats. Today's inhabitants have equally diverse culture histories. The islands are home to a mosaic of indigenous communities and to the descendants of Spanish, French, Dutch, English, Swedish, Danish, Irish, African, East Indian, Chinese, Syrian, Seminole and other nationalities who settled there during historic times. The islands are now being homogenized, all to create a standard experience for the Caribbean tourist. There is a similar attempt to homogenize the Caribbean's pre-Columbian past. It was assumed that every new prehistoric culture had developed out of the culture that preceded it. We now know that far more complicated processes of migration, acculturation, and accommodation occurred. Furthermore, the overly simplistic distinction between the "peaceful Arawak" and the "cannibal Carib," which forms the structure for James Michener's Caribbean, still dominates popular notions of precolonial Caribbean societies. This book documents the diversity and complexity that existed in the Caribbean prior to the arrival of Europeans, and immediately thereafter. The diversity results from different origins, different histories, different contacts between the islands and the mainland, different environmental conditions, and shifting social alliances. Organized chronologically, from the arrival of the first humans-the paleo-Indians-in the sixth millennium BC to early contact with Europeans, The Caribbean before Columbus presents a new history of the region based on the latest archaeological evidence. The authors also consider cultural developments on the surrounding mainland, since the islands' history is a story of mobility and exchange across the Caribbean Sea, and possibly the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Straits. The result is the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey of the richly complex cultures who once inhabited the six archipelagoes of the Caribbean.
A fresh examination of variable social and economic processes, Framing Complexity in Formative Mesoamerica explores nascent social complexity during the Preclassic/Formative period in Mesoamerica and addresses broader social questions about egalitarian and transegalitarian prehispanic Mesoamerican cultural groups. Contributors present multiple lines of evidence demonstrating the process of social complexity and reconsider a number of traditionally accepted models and presumed tenets as a result of the wealth of empirical data that has been gathered over the past four decades. Their chapters approach complexity as a process rather than a state of being by exploring social aggregation, the emergence of ethnic affiliations, and aspects of regional and macroregional variability. Framing Complexity in Formative Mesoamerica presents some of the most recent data—and the implications of that data—for understanding the development of complex societies as human beings moved into urban environments. The book is an especially important volume for researchers and students working in Mesoamerica, as well as archaeologists taking a comparative approach to questions of complexity. Contributors: Jaime J. Awe, Sarah B. Barber, Jeffrey S. Brezezinski, M. Kathryn Brown, Ryan H. Collins, Kaitlin Crow, Lisa DeLance, Gary M. Feinman, Sara Dzul Gongora, Guy David Hepp, Arthur A. Joyce, Rodrigo Martin Morales, George Micheletti, Deborah L. Nichols, Terry G. Powis, Zoe J. Rawski, Prudence M. Rice, Michael P. Smyth, Katherine E. South, Jon Spenard, Travis W. Stanton, Wesley D. Stoner, Teresa Tremblay Wagner
The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology provides an overview of archaeological investigations in the insular Caribbean, understood here as the islands whose shores surround the Caribbean Sea and the islands of the Bahama Archipelago. Though these islands were never isolated from the surrounding mainland, their histories are sufficiently diverse to warrant their identification as distinct areas of culture. Over the past 20 years, Caribbean archaeology has been transformed from a focus on reconstructing culture histories to one on the mobility and exchange expressed in cultural and social dynamics. This Handbook brings together, for the first time, examples of the best research conducted by scholars from across the globe to address the complexity of the Caribbean past. The Handbook is divided into five sections. Part I, Islands of History and the Precolonial History of the Caribbean Islands, provides an introduction to Caribbean Archaeology and its history. The papers in the following Ethnohistory section address the diversity of cultural practices expressed in the insular Caribbean and develop historical descriptions in concert with archaeological evidence in order to place language, social organization, and the native Taínos and Island Caribs in perspective. The following section, Culture History, provides the latest research on specific geographical locations and cross-cultural engagements, from Jamaica and the Bahama archigelago to the Saladoid and the Isthmo-Antillean Engagements. Creating History, the fourth section, includes papers on specific issues related to the field, such as Zooarchaeology, Rock Art, and DNA analysis, among others. The final section, World History, centers on the consequences of European colonization.
This volume presents a comprehensive overview of gender archaeology, both theory and practice, and contributes a substantial and definitive reference work by bringing together state-of-the-art research, theoretical overviews, and the latest debates in the field. Responding to the shifts in the theoretical landscape and the societal and political frameworks within which we produce our knowledge, chapters create both a solid theoretical baseline which help readers grasp the significance of gender in archaeology as well as offer perspectives on how to engender produced knowledge about the past. In line with recent focus on the shortcomings of gender and archaeological representation, chapters also detangle academic discourse and popular representations in order to present novel ways of successfully negotiating the pitfalls of gendered ideas about past behaviours. By encouraging novel ways of integrating theoretical perspectives with scrutiny of gender stereotypes, original empirical examinations of identity markers and behaviours, and re-examinations of static representations of identities through new lenses, such as intersectional perspectives, personhood, and materiality debates, the volume is theoretically rich and will simultaneously provide a necessary benchmark for future archaeological discourses. Finally, it will incorporate perspectives from researchers with diverse backgrounds and viewpoints to provide a truly comprehensive overview. It will not shy away from engaging with politically contentious issues surrounding knowledge production but will include perspectives from researchers whose focus is less on feminist critiques and more on gender and identities. Thus, the volume bridges the two most prominent directions currently discernible within the focus area, namely, feminist re-examinations on the one hand and research focused more on bodily practice and gendered experiences on the other. The Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology is an invaluable resource for students and researchers in gender archaeology as well as gender studies more widely.