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Isotope Research in Zooarchaeology
New techniques for understanding animal and human interactions in the past Through case studies of faunal remains from Roman Britain, prehistoric Southeast Asia, ancient African pastoral cultures, and beyond, this volume illustrates some of the ways stable isotope analysis of ancient animals can address key questions in human prehistory. Contributors use a diverse set of isotopic techniques to investigate social and biological topics, including human paleodiets and foodways, hunting and procurement strategies, exchange patterns, animal husbandry and the genetic consequences of domestication, and short- and long-term environmental change. They demonstrate how different isotopes can be used alone or in conjunction to address questions of animal diet, movement, ecology, and management. Studies also examine how sampling strategies, statistical techniques, and regional and temporal considerations can influence isotopic results and interpretations. By applying these new methods in concert with traditional zooarchaeological analyses, archaeologists can explore questions about human ecology and environmental archaeology that were previously deemed inaccessible.
Her Cup for Sweet Cacao
For the ancient Maya, food was both sustenance and a tool for building a complex society. This collection, the first to focus exclusively on the social uses of food in Classic Maya culture, deploys a variety of theoretical approaches to examine the meaning of food beyond diet—ritual offerings and restrictions, medicinal preparations, and the role of nostalgia around food, among other topics. For instance, how did Maya feasts build community while also reinforcing social hierarchy? What psychoactive substances were the elite Maya drinking in their caves, and why? Which dogs were good for eating, and which breeds became companions? Why did even some non-elite Maya enjoy cacao, but rarely mea...
Reimagining Human-Animal Relations in the Circumpolar North
This volume provides fresh insight into northern human–animal relations and illustrates the breadth and practical utility of archaeological human–animal studies. It surveys recent archaeological research in northern North America and Eurasia that frames human–animal relations as not merely economically exploitative but often socially complex and deeply meaningful, and attuned to the intelligence and agency of nonhuman prey and domesticates. The case studies sample a wide swath of the circumpolar region, from Alaska, Nunavut, and Greenland to northern Fennoscandia and western Siberia, and span sites, finds, and scenarios ranging in age from the Mesolithic to the twenty-first century. Ma...
Foreigners Among Us
Assessing key questions such as who the foreigners and outsiders in ancient Maya societies were and how was the foreign a generative component of identity, Foreigners Among Us reassess the arrival of foreigners as part of archaeological understandings of Pre-Columbian Maya and questions not only who these foreigners might have been but who were making such designations of difference in the first place. Drawing from identity studies, standpoint theory, and ideas on alterity, Foreigners Among Us highlights the diverse ways being foreign was constituted, imitated, and marked – from quotidian practices of making corn tortillas to ceremonial acts between king and captive and their memorializati...
The Real Business of Ancient Maya Economies
A timely synthesis of the latest research and perspectives on ancient Maya economics, this volume illuminates the sophistication and intricacy of economic systems in the Preclassic, Classic, and Postclassic periods. Contributors from a wide range of disciplines move beyond paradigms of elite control and centralized exchange to focus on individual agency, highlighting production and exchange that took place at all levels of society. Case studies draw on new archaeological evidence from rural households and urban marketplaces to reconstruct the trade networks for tools, ceramics, obsidian, salt, and agricultural goods throughout the empire. They also describe the ways household production inte...
Zooarchaeology in Practice
Zooarchaeology in Practice unites depth of treatment with broad topical coverage to advance methodological discussion and development in archaeofaunal analysis. Through case studies, historical accounts, and technical reviews authored by leading figures in the field, the volume examines how zooarchaeological data and interpretation are shaped by its methods of practice and explores the impact of these effects at varying levels of investigation. Contributing authors draw on geographically and taxonomically diverse datasets, providing instructive approaches to problems in traditional and emerging areas of methodological concern. Readers, from specialists to students, will gain an extensive, sophisticated look at important disciplinary issues that are sure to provoke critical reflection on the nature and importance of sound methodology. With implications for how archaeologists reconstruct human behavior and paleoecology, and broader relevance to fields such as paleontology and conservation biology, Zooarchaeology in Practice makes an enduring contribution to the methodological advancement of the discipline.
Avian Illuminations
An exquisitely illustrated journey through the complex and crucial relationship between humans and birds. Avian Illuminations examines the many roles birds have played in human society, from food, messengers, deities, and pets, to omens, muses, timekeepers, custodians, hunting companions, decorative motifs, and, most importantly, embodiments of our aspirations. Boria Sax narrates the history of our relationships with a host of bird species, including crows, owls, parrots, falcons, eagles, nightingales, hummingbirds, and many more. Along the way, Sax describes how birds’ nesting has symbolized human romance, how their flight has inspired inventors throughout history, and he concludes by showing that the interconnections between birds and humans are so manifold that a world without birds would effectively mean an end to human culture itself. Beautifully illustrated, Avian Illuminations is a superb overview of humanity’s long and rich association with our avian companions.
Night and Darkness in Ancient Mesoamerica
Night and Darkness in Ancient Mesoamerica is the first volume to explicitly incorporate how nocturnal aspects of the natural world were imbued with deep cultural meanings and expressed by different peoples from various time periods in Mexico and Central America. Material culture, iconography, epigraphy, art history, ethnohistory, ethnographies, and anthropological theory are deftly used to illuminate dimensions of darkness and the night that are often neglected in reconstructions of the past. The anthropological study of night and darkness enriches and strengthens the understanding of human behavior, power, economy, and the supernatural. In eleven case studies featuring the residents of Teot...
Unmaking Waste
"In Unmaking Waste, Sarah Newman asks what happens when there are disagreements about what constitutes waste and what one should do with it, both at singular moments in time (for example, when ideas about waste collide in emerging colonial contexts) and across time (such as between those who left things behind in the past and the archaeologists who recover them). Newman examines ancient Mesoamerican understandings of waste, Euro-American perceptions of waste in New Spain, and early modern European ideals of civility and Christian understandings of good and bad, expressed metaphorically through cleanliness and filth. These differing perceptions, Newman argues, demands that we rethink centuries of assumptions imposed on other places, times, and peoples: so long as "waste" remains a category misunderstood to be common-sensical and stable, archaeological methods will prove unequal to their task. Newman instead proposes "anamorphic archaeology," an approach that emphasizes the possibility that archaeological objects have multiple physical and conceptual lives"--
