Mesoamerican Archaeology - Science topic

Archaeology of the extreme southeast of Mesoamerica, despite receiving a fair amount of scholarly attention, still remains a relatively poorly developed field. In this article I identify main factors that hamper our understanding of the ancient past of this region, including population density, volcanism, multiple historical reasons, and exceptiona...

'The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology' is intended to be a showcase of the discipline’s recent developments and provide a comprehensive - but non-exhaustive - overview of early 21st century work in the region. It is probably one of the most ambitious such projects since the sixteen volume series 'Handbook of Middle American Indians' publ...

The application of light detection and ranging (LiDAR), a laser-based remote-sensing technology that is capable of penetrating overlying vegetation and forest canopies, is generating a fundamental shift in Mesoamerican archaeology and has the potential to transform research in forested areas world-wide. Much as radiocarbon dating that half a centur...

Introduction Artificial cranial modification (ACM) is a widespread cultural phenomenon that has been reported in human populations from Late Pleistocene to present day all over the world. Although ACM techniques have been documented in western and central Mesoamerica, the state of preservation of bone has occasionally limited the possibility of dia...

The origin of the Museum of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, dates to the late nineteenth century—only a few years after the city was formally incorporated. Initially intended to showcase curios and items of interest, among the early donations were objects from various Mesoamerican cultures. Over the years the Mesoamerican archaeology collect...

Introduction: Along the Mesoamerican western margin, the Zacapu basin has yielded a large number of human remains demonstrating usage of artificial cranial modification (ACM). However, at the onset of the Middle Postclassic (1200-1400 AD) only few individuals still exhibit clear signs of ACM. Some authors have suggested that, rather than disappear...

Mesoamerica, a region located in modern-day Mexico and northern Central America, is one of the cradles of early civilization in the New World. It is home to myriad culture groups, from the well-known Maya, Aztecs, Olmecs, and Toltecs to more obscure but equally fascinating peoples. The culture area is defined by multiple traits shared by these diff...

Ancient Maya Cities of the Eastern Lowlands. Houk Brett A. 2015. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, xvii + 343 pp., 66 illus. $79.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8130-6063-7. Community and Difference: Change in Late Classic Maya Villages of the Petexbatun Region. Eberl Markus 2014. Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology, Vol. 8, Vanderbilt...

In 1956 H. B. Nicholson presented his paper "The Mixteca-Puebla Concept in Mesoamerican Archaeology: A Re-examination" to a rapt audience at the Fifth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the first public dissemination of a theme that would interest him throughout his entire pro...

One of H. B. Nicholson's many contributions to the study of Mesoamerica was his work on the Mixteca-Puebla Style. In a brief but influential essay entitled "The Mixteca-Puebla Concept in Mesoamerican Archaeology: A Re-examination" (1960), Nicholson revisited three studies published by George Vaillant (1938, 1940, 1941) that outlined what he called...

Mesoamerica is a culture-area construct recognizing shared practices among pre-Hispanic societies and traditional peoples descended from them in an area extending from Mexico to Honduras and El Salvador. Mesoamerican features cross pre-Hispanic political, social, and linguistic boundaries. They can be understood as products of historical relationsh...

Diet, Health and Status among the Pasión Maya. A Reappraisal of the Collapse. Wright Lori E. . Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, 2006. Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology, Arthur Demarest Series Editor, Volume 2. 288 pp., $69.95. - Volume 20 Issue 2 - Vera Tiesler

Diet, Health, and Status among the Pasión Maya:. Reappraisal of the Collapse. Lori E. Wright. Vanderbilt Institute of Mesoamerican Archaeology Series, vol. 2. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2006. 256 pp.

This article is a review of regional archaeological surveys in Mexico, emphasizing published full-coverage surveys from the last 20 years. The geographic focus is non-Maya Mexico terminating at the Tropic of Cancer. The temporal focus is the 3000-year period from the earliest settled villages to the Spanish conquest (A.D. 1521), with emphasis on lo...

Centuries before the creation of archaeology as a scientific discipline in the modern West, indigenous people in Mesoamerica developed their own interpretations for the physical remains of their past. This study draws on archaeological, ethnographic, and historical sources to explore a tradition of indigenous Mesoamerican archaeology. By resorting...