Palaces and Power in the Americas

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Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292782616
Total Pages : 429 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Palaces and Power in the Americas by : Jessica Joyce Christie

Download or read book Palaces and Power in the Americas written by Jessica Joyce Christie and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient American palaces still captivate those who stand before them. Even in their fallen and ruined condition, the palaces project such power that, according to the editors of this new collection, it must have been deliberately drawn into their formal designs, spatial layouts, and choice of locations. Such messages separated palaces from other elite architecture and reinforced the power and privilege of those residing in them. Indeed, as Christie and Sarro write, "the relation between political power and architecture is a pervasive and intriguing theme in the Americas." Given the variety of cultures, time periods, and geographical locations examined within, the editors of this book have grouped the articles into four sections. The first looks at palaces in cultures where they have not previously been identified, including the Huaca of Moche Site, the Wari of Peru, and Chaco Canyon in the U.S. Southwest. The second section discusses palaces as "stage sets" that express power, such as those found among the Maya, among the Coast Salish of the Pacific Northwest, and at El Tajín on the Mexican Gulf Coast. The third part of the volume presents cases in which differences in elite residences imply differences in social status, with examples from Pasado de la Amada, the Valley of Oaxaca, Teotihuacan, and the Aztecs. The final section compares architectural strategies between cultures; the models here are Farfán, Peru, under both the Chimú and the Inka, and the separate states of the Maya and the Inka. Such scope, and the quality of the scholarship, make Palaces and Power in the Americas a must-have work on the subject.

In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199779848
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers by : Mark Carey

Download or read book In the Shadow of Melting Glaciers written by Mark Carey and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-07 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is producing profound changes globally. Yet we still know little about how it affects real people in real places on a daily basis because most of our knowledge comes from scientific studies that try to estimate impacts and project future climate scenarios. This book is different, illustrating in vivid detail how people in the Andes have grappled with the effects of climate change and ensuing natural disasters for more than half a century. In Peru's Cordillera Blanca mountain range, global climate change has generated the world's most deadly glacial lake outburst floods and glacier avalanches, killing 25,000 people since 1941. As survivors grieved, they formed community organizations to learn about precarious glacial lakes while they sent priests to the mountains, hoping that God could calm the increasingly hostile landscape. Meanwhile, Peruvian engineers working with miniscule budgets invented innovative strategies to drain dozens of the most unstable lakes that continue forming in the twenty first century. But adaptation to global climate change was never simply about engineering the Andes to eliminate environmental hazards. Local urban and rural populations, engineers, hydroelectric developers, irrigators, mountaineers, and policymakers all perceived and responded to glacier melting differently-based on their own view of an ideal Andean world. Disaster prevention projects involved debates about economic development, state authority, race relations, class divisions, cultural values, the evolution of science and technology, and shifting views of nature. Over time, the influx of new groups to manage the Andes helped transform glaciated mountains into commodities to consume. Locals lost power in the process and today comprise just one among many stakeholders in the high Andes-and perhaps the least powerful. Climate change transformed a region, triggering catastrophes while simultaneously jumpstarting modernization processes. This book's historical perspective illuminates these trends that would be ignored in any scientific projections about future climate scenarios.

The Bioarchaeology of Artificial Cranial Modifications

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Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 1461487609
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (614 download)

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Book Synopsis The Bioarchaeology of Artificial Cranial Modifications by : Vera Tiesler

Download or read book The Bioarchaeology of Artificial Cranial Modifications written by Vera Tiesler and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The artificial shaping of the skull vault of infants expresses fundamental aspects of crafted beauty, of identity, status and gender in a way no other body practice does. Combining different sources of information, this volume contributes new interpretations on Mesoamerican head shaping traditions. Here, the head with its outer insignia was commonly used as a metaphor for designating the “self” and personhood and, as part of the body, served as a model for the indigenous universe. Analogously, the outer “looks” of the head and its anatomical constituents epitomized deeply embedded worldviews and longstanding traditions. It is in this sense that this book explores both the quotidian roles and long-standing ideological connotations of cultural head modifications in Mesoamerica and beyond, setting new standards in the discussion of the scope, caveats, and future directions involved in this study. The systematic examination of Mesoamerican skeletal series fosters an explained review of indigenous cultural history through the lens of emblematic head models with their nuanced undercurrents of religious identity and ethnicity, social organization and dynamic cultural shift. The embodied expressions of change are explored in different geocultural settings and epochs, being most visible in the centuries surrounding the Maya collapse and following the cultural clash implied by the European conquest. These glimpses on the Mesoamerican past through head practices are novel, as is the general treatment of methodology and theoretical frames. Although it is anchored in physical anthropology and archaeology (specifically bioarchaeology), this volume also integrates knowledge derived from anatomy and human physiology, historical and iconographic sources, linguistics (polisemia) and ethnography. The scope of this work is rounded up by the transcription and interpretation of the many colonial eye witness accounts on indigenous head treatments in Mesoamerica and beyond.

The Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project

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Publisher : Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780826514431
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (144 download)

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Book Synopsis The Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project by : Arthur Andrew Demarest

Download or read book The Petexbatun Regional Archaeological Project written by Arthur Andrew Demarest and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Then, based on the project's findings, Demarest presents interpretive reconstructions of the linked histories of the Pasion River kingdoms and correlates these interpretations with the variable evidence and culture-histories of other regions of the Classic Maya lowlands. He points out that only through linking such accurate regional culture-histories can we begin to understand the eighth- through tenth-century changes in Classic Maya civilization. The volume describes how the Petexbatun project addressed this challenge in its research design, structure, and large, multicentered zone of study. Building on the previous twenty years of Harvard research in adjacent zones, the Vanderbilt projects succeeded in reconstructing events and processes throughout the Pasion River Valley, the largest single inland trade route of the ancient Maya world.

Human Adaptation in Ancient Mesoamerica

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Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1607323923
Total Pages : 405 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis Human Adaptation in Ancient Mesoamerica by : Nancy Gonlin

Download or read book Human Adaptation in Ancient Mesoamerica written by Nancy Gonlin and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2015-12-01 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the dynamics of human adaptation to social, political, ideological, economic, and environmental factors in Mesoamerica and includes a wide array of topics, such as the hydrological engineering behind Teotihuacan’s layout, the complexities of agriculture and sustainability in the Maya lowlands, and the nuanced history of abandonment among different lineages and households in Maya centers. The authors aptly demonstrate how culture is the mechanism that allows people to adapt to a changing world, and they address how ecological factors, particularly land and water, intersect with nonmaterial and material manifestations of cultural complexity. Contributors further illustrate the continuing utility of the cultural ecological perspective in framing research on adaptations of ancient civilizations. This book celebrates the work of Dr. David Webster, an influential Penn State archaeologist and anthropologist of the Maya region, and highlights human adaptation in Mesoamerica through the scientific lenses of anthropological archaeology and cultural ecology. Contributors include Elliot M. Abrams, Christopher J. Duffy, Susan Toby Evans, Kirk D. French, AnnCorinne Freter, Nancy Gonlin, George R. Milner, Zachary Nelson, Deborah L. Nichols, David M. Reed, Don S. Rice, Prudence M. Rice, Rebecca Storey, Kirk Damon Straight, David Webster, Stephen L. Whittington, Randolph J. Widmer, John D. Wingard, and W. Scott Zeleznik.

Maya Palaces and Elite Residences

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Author :
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292782624
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Maya Palaces and Elite Residences by : Jessica Joyce Christie

Download or read book Maya Palaces and Elite Residences written by Jessica Joyce Christie and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maya "palaces" have intrigued students of this ancient Mesoamerican culture since the early twentieth century, when scholars first applied the term "palace" to multi-room, gallery-like buildings set on low platforms in the centers of Maya cities. Who lived in these palaces? What types of ceremonial and residential activities took place there? How do the physical forms and spatial arrangement of the buildings embody Maya concepts of social organization and cosmology? This book brings together state-of-the-art data and analysis regarding the occupants, ritual and residential uses, and social and cosmological meanings of Maya palaces and elite residences. A multidisciplinary team of senior researchers reports on sites in Belize (Blue Creek), Western Honduras (Copan), the Peten (Tikal, Dos Pilas, Aguateca), and the Yucatan (Uxmal, Chichen-Itza, Dzibilchaltun, Yaxuna). Archaeologist contributors discuss the form of palace buildings and associated artifacts, their location within the city, and how some palaces related to landscape features. Their approach is complemented by art historical analyses of architectural sculpture, epigraphy, and ethnography. Jessica Joyce Christie concludes the volume by identifying patterns and commonalties that apply not only to the cited examples, but also to Maya architecture in general.

The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context

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Publisher : University Press of Colorado
ISBN 13 : 1607322803
Total Pages : 489 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (73 download)

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Book Synopsis The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context by : Gyles Iannone

Download or read book The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context written by Gyles Iannone and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2014-03-15 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context, contributors reject the popularized link between societal collapse and drought in Maya civilization, arguing that a series of periodic “collapses,” including the infamous Terminal Classic collapse (AD 750–1050), were not caused solely by climate change–related droughts but by a combination of other social, political, and environmental factors. New and senior scholars of archaeology and environmental science explore the timing and intensity of droughts and provide a nuanced understanding of socio-ecological dynamics, with specific reference to what makes communities resilient or vulnerable when faced with environmental change.Contributors recognize the existence of four droughts that correlate with periods of demographic and political decline and identify a variety of concurrent political and social issues. They argue that these primary underlying factors were exacerbated by drought conditions and ultimately led to societal transitions that were by no means uniform across various sites and subregions. They also deconstruct the concept of “collapse” itself—although the line of Maya kings ended with the Terminal Classic collapse, the Maya people and their civilization survived. The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context offers new insights into the complicated series of events that impacted the decline of Maya civilization. This significant contribution to our increasingly comprehensive understanding of ancient Maya culture will be of interest to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, geography, and environmental studies.

Bulletin

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1072 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (319 download)

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Book Synopsis Bulletin by :

Download or read book Bulletin written by and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 1072 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Archaeology of Culture Contact and Colonialism in Spanish and Portuguese America

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319080695
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Archaeology of Culture Contact and Colonialism in Spanish and Portuguese America by : Pedro Paulo A. Funari

Download or read book Archaeology of Culture Contact and Colonialism in Spanish and Portuguese America written by Pedro Paulo A. Funari and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-11 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume contributes to disrupt the old grand narrative of cultural contact and colonialism in Spanish and Portuguese America in a wide and complete sense. This edited volume aims at exploring contact archaeology in the modern era. Archaeology has been exploring the interaction of peoples and cultures from early times, but only in the last few decades have cultural contact and material world been recognized as crucial elements to understanding colonialism and the emergence of modernity. Modern colonialism studies pose questions in need of broader answers. This volume explores these answers in Spanish and Portuguese America, comprising present-day Latin America and formerly Spanish territories now part of the United States. The volume addresses studies of the particular features of Spanish-Portuguese colonialism, as well as the specificities of Iberian colonization, including hybridism, religious novelties, medieval and modern social features, all mixed in a variety of ways unique and so different from other areas, particularly the Anglo-Saxon colonial thrust. Cultural contact studies offer a particularly in-depth picture of the uniqueness of Latin America in terms of its cultural mixture. This volume particularly highlights local histories, revealing novelty, diversity, and creativity in the conformation of the new colonial realities, as well as presenting Latin America as a multicultural arena, with astonishing heterogeneity in thoughts, experiences, practices, and, material worlds.

Bibliography of North American Geology

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1054 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (319 download)

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Book Synopsis Bibliography of North American Geology by :

Download or read book Bibliography of North American Geology written by and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 1054 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1919/28 cumulation includes material previously issued in the 1919/20-1935/36 issues and also material not published separately for 1927/28. 1929/39 cumulation includes material previously issued in the 1929/30-1935/36 issues and also material for 1937-39 not published separately.

Geological Survey Bulletin

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1052 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (319 download)

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Book Synopsis Geological Survey Bulletin by :

Download or read book Geological Survey Bulletin written by and published by . This book was released on 1957 with total page 1052 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

A Natural History of Peace

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Publisher : Vanderbilt University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780826512802
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (128 download)

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Book Synopsis A Natural History of Peace by : Thomas Gregor

Download or read book A Natural History of Peace written by Thomas Gregor and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stimulating and innovative consideration of the concept, causes, and practice of peace in societies both ancient and modern, human and primate. We know a great deal about aggression, conflict, and war, but relatively little about peace, partially because it has been such a scarce phenomenon throughout history and in our own times. Peace is more than the absence of war. Peace requires special relationships, structures, and attitudes to promote and protect it. A Natural History of Peace provides the first broadly interdisciplinary examination of peace as viewed from the perspectives of social anthropology, primatology, archeology, psychology, political science, and economics. Among other notable features, this volume offers: a major theory concerning the evolution of peace and violence through human history; an in-depth comparative study of peaceful cultures with the goal of discovering what it is that makes them peaceful; one of the earliest reports of a new theory of the organization and collapse of ancient Maya civilization; a comparative examination of peace from the perspective of change, including the transition of one of the world's most violent societies to a relatively peaceful culture, and the decision-making process of terrorists who abandon violence; and a theory of political change that sees the conclusion of wars as uniquely creative periods in the evolution of peace among modern nations.

Bibliography of North American Geology, 1929-1939

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1626 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis Bibliography of North American Geology, 1929-1939 by : Emma Mertins Thom

Download or read book Bibliography of North American Geology, 1929-1939 written by Emma Mertins Thom and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 1626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Maya Figurines

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Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 0292771304
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (927 download)

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Book Synopsis Maya Figurines by : Christina T. Halperin

Download or read book Maya Figurines written by Christina T. Halperin and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2014-05-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rather than view the contours of Late Classic Maya social life solely from towering temple pyramids or elite sculptural forms, this book considers a suite of small anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and supernatural figurative remains excavated from household refuse deposits. Maya Figurines examines these often neglected objects and uses them to draw out relationships between the Maya state and its subjects. These figurines provide a unique perspective for understanding Maya social and political relations; Christina T. Halperin argues that state politics work on the microscale of everyday routines, localized rituals, and small-scale representations. Her comprehensive study brings together archeology, anthropology, and art history with theories of material culture, performance, political economy, ritual humor, and mimesis to make a fascinating case for the role politics plays in daily life. What she finds is that, by comparing small-scale figurines with state-sponsored, often large-scale iconography and elite material culture, one can understand how different social realms relate to and represent one another. In Maya Figurines, Halperin compares objects from diverse households, archeological sites, and regions, focusing especially on figurines from Petén, Guatemala, and comparing them to material culture from Belize, the northern highlands of Guatemala, the Usumacinta River, the Campeche coastal area, and Mesoamerican sites outside the Maya zone. Ultimately, she argues, ordinary objects are not simply passive backdrops for important social and political phenomena. Instead, they function as significant mechanisms through which power and social life are intertwined.

Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras

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Publisher : Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press
ISBN 13 : 1938770811
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (387 download)

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Book Synopsis Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras by : Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett

Download or read book Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras written by Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 1993-07-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this volume have addressed issues of systematics in pottery analysis that perplex archaeologists wherever they work. These issues are not approached by setting forth rules or by adopting a how-to approach but rather by example as the various researchers give the background to their work, explain their methods, and present the classified pottery from their investigations. An in-process statement of what we are learning from pottery about chronology, interactions, and the nature of regional cultural development, this volume can be used by archaeologists working in southern Mesoamerica and northern Central America, who will find it valuable for comparative analysis, and by archaeologists dealing with issues of systematics in pottery analysis in different culture areas but facing many of the same problems that researchers do in Honduras.

Special Publication

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 1040 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Special Publication by : United States Board on Geographic Names

Download or read book Special Publication written by United States Board on Geographic Names and published by . This book was released on 1946 with total page 1040 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Bones of the Maya

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Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817353763
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Bones of the Maya by : Stephen L. Whittington

Download or read book Bones of the Maya written by Stephen L. Whittington and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2006-08-20 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes an indexed bibliography of the first 150 years of Maya osteology. This volume pulls together a spectrum of bioarchaeologists that reveal remarkable data on Maya genetic relationship, demography, and diseases.