Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History

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Overview

The definitive textbook on the archaeology and history of Mesoamerica

This essential textbook brings to life the cultures of Mexico and Central America in the centuries leading up to and including the Spanish conquest. The first edition won the Society for American Archaeology book award in 2005, and it has become a mainstay in courses throughout the United States and Canada. The third edition includes new box features, thoroughly revised ...

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More About This Book

Overview

The definitive textbook on the archaeology and history of Mesoamerica

This essential textbook brings to life the cultures of Mexico and Central America in the centuries leading up to and including the Spanish conquest. The first edition won the Society for American Archaeology book award in 2005, and it has become a mainstay in courses throughout the United States and Canada. The third edition includes new box features, thoroughly revised references, and an up-to-date account of the rise and heyday of the Aztecs.

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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
In his all-encompassing synthetic history of Native American cultures of the vast region comprising Mexico and Central America today, Evans (anthropology, Pennsylvania State Univ.) traverses many thousands of years, from the earliest hunter-foragers to the sophisticated, urbanized societies encountered by the Spaniards. With vast reading and dogged inclusiveness, Evans has produced what must be the most informative single-volume survey of Pre-Columbian social evolution available. The reader will not only learn about the current understanding of better-known peoples like the Maya and Aztec but will also be thoroughly immersed in the scholarship surrounding obscure and sometimes peripheral societies and sites. Less than perfectly attentive readers might be overwhelmed by the adherence to an outline that is "horizontally" structured according to stages of societal development and further subdivided into not always intelligible "phases" that "vertically" characterize a myriad of geographic regions. The textbook-like scaffolding and strong tendency toward repetition further diminish the work. Nevertheless, there is no denying the usefulness of the redactions of recent archaeological studies; the many inserts on topics of pervasive import, like maize and the ballgame; the excellent gathering of reference maps; the detailed bibliography; and the 459 illustrations. All of these qualities are more than sufficient to recommend this valuable reference resource to collections attentive to the needs of serious students and sophisticated travelers.-Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780500290651
  • Publisher: Thames & Hudson
  • Publication date: 2/6/2013
  • Edition description: Third Edition
  • Edition number: 3
  • Pages: 624
  • Sales rank: 1,156,757
  • Product dimensions: 7.20 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Susan Toby Evans is Professor of Anthropology at Pennsylvania State University and senior editor (with David Webster) of Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia.
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Table of Contents

Preface 11
Pt. 1 Mesoamerica, Middle America, and its peoples 15
Ch. 1 Ancient Mesoamerica, the civilization and its antecedents 17
Ch. 2 Ecology and culture : Mesoamerican beginnings 45
Ch. 3 Archaic foragers, collectors, and farmers (8000-2000 BC) 71
Ch. 4 The initial formative (c.2000-1200 BC) 99
Pt. 2 Complex societies of the formative 127
Ch. 5 The Olmecs : early formative (c.1200-900/800 BC) 129
Ch. 6 The Olmecs : middle formative (c.900-600 BC) 159
Ch. 7 Middle to late formative cultures (c. 600/500-300 BC) 185
Ch. 8 The emergence of states in the late formative (300 BC-AD 1) 205
Ch. 9 The terminal formative (AD 1-300) 235
Pt. 3 Cultures of the early classic 261
Ch. 10 Teotihuacan and its international influence (AD 250/300-600) 263
Ch. 11 The Maya in the early classic (AD 250-600) 291
Pt. 4 Late classic, classic collapse, and epiclassic 315
Ch. 12 The lowland Maya : apogee and collapse (AD 600-900) 317
Ch. 13 The late classic and epiclassic in the West (AD 600-1000/1100) 349
Ch. 14 The Maya in the terminal classic and early postclassic (AD 800-1200) 377
Ch. 15 The rise of Tula and other epiclassic transformations (AD 900-1200) 399
Pt. 5 The postclassic and the rise of the Aztecs 423
Ch. 16 The middle postclassic (1200s-1430) 425
Ch. 17 The Aztecs : an empire is born (1325-1440) 447
Ch. 18 The Aztec empire develops (1440-1481) 469
Ch. 19 The Aztec empire at its height (1481-1519) 497
Ch. 20 The conquest of Mexico and its aftermath 525
Reference maps 551
Further reading and bibliography 573
Sources of illustrations 588
Index 590
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