A Forest of History: The Maya after the Emergence of Divine Kingship

A Forest of History: The Maya after the Emergence of Divine Kingship

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David Freidel and Linda Schele’s monumental work A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya (1990) offered an innovative, rigorous, and controversial approach to studying the ancient Maya, unifying archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic data in a form accessible to both scholars and laypeople. Travis Stanton and Kathryn Brown’s A Forest of History: The Maya after the Emergence of Divine Kingship presents a collection of essays that critically engage with and build upon the lasting contributions A Forest of Kings made to Maya epigraphy, iconography, material culture, and history.   These original papers present new, cutting-edge research focusing on the social changes leading up to the spread of divine kingship across the lowlands in the first part of the Early Classic. The contributors continue avenues of inquiry such as the timing of the Classic Maya collapse across the southern lowlands, the nature of Maya warfare, the notion of usurpation and “stranger-kings” in the Classic period, the social relationships between the ruler and elite of the Classic period Yaxchilán polity, and struggles for sociopolitical dominance among the later Classic period polities of Chichén Itzá, Cobá, and the Puuc kingdoms.   Many of the interpretations and approaches in A Forest of Kings have withstood the test of time, while others have not a complete understanding of the Classic Maya world is still developing. In A Forest of History recent discoveries are considered in the context of prior scholarship, illustrating both the progress the field has made in the past quarter century and the myriad questions that remain. The volume will be a significant contribution to the literature for students, scholars, and general readers interested in Mesoamerican and Maya archaeology.   Contributors: Wendy Ashmore, Arlen F. Chase, Diane Z. Chase, Wilberth Cruz Alvarado, Arthur A. Demarest, Keith Eppich, David A. Freidel, Charles W. Golden, Stanley P. Guenter, Annabeth Headrick, Aline Magnoni, Joyce Marcus, Marilyn A. Masson, Damaris Menéndez, Susan Milbrath, Olivia C. Navarro-Farr, José Osorio León, Carlos Peraza Lope, Juan Carlos Pérez Calderón, Griselda Pérez Robles, Francisco Pérez Ruíz, Michelle Rich, Jeremy A. Sabloff, Andrew K. Scherer, Karl A. Taube

 

The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos

The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos

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Winner, Society for American Archaeology Book Award, 2017 San Antonio Conservation Society Publication Award, 2019The prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, created some of the most spectacularly complex, colorful, extensive, and enduring rock art of the ancient world. Perhaps the greatest of these masterpieces is the White Shaman mural, an intricate painting that spans some twenty-six feet in length and thirteen feet in height on the wall of a shallow cave overlooking the Pecos River. In The White Shaman Mural, Carolyn E. Boyd takes us on a journey of discovery as she builds a convincing case that the mural tells a story of the birth of the sun and the beginning of time—making it possibly the oldest pictorial creation narrative in North America.Unlike previous scholars who have viewed Pecos rock art as random and indecipherable, Boyd demonstrates that the White Shaman mural was intentionally composed as a visual narrative, using a graphic vocabulary of images to communicate multiple levels of meaning and function. Drawing on twenty-five years of archaeological research and analysis, as well as insights from ethnohistory and art history, Boyd identifies patterns in the imagery that equate, in stunning detail, to the mythologies of Uto-Aztecan-speaking peoples, including the ancient Aztec and the present-day Huichol. This paradigm-shifting identification of core Mesoamerican beliefs in the Pecos rock art reveals that a shared ideological universe was already firmly established among foragers living in the Lower Pecos region as long as four thousand years ago.

 

A Pocket History of Human Evolution: How We Became Sapiens

A Pocket History of Human Evolution: How We Became Sapiens

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Few disciplines have experienced such significant changes over the last few years as has the study of prehistory. Thanks to the progress of genetics, we now know for instance that 40,000 years ago, we shared the planet with three other species of the Homo genus. As for new dating methods, they have taught us that Sapiens left its African cradle a good 100,000 years earlier than we had first imagined . . . Meanwhile, anthropology has tackled the issue of what is inherent to mankind: Is it the use of tools? The presence of a ‘large’ brain? Articulated language? Bipedalism? Empathy? All of which suggests the urgent need to take stock of our ancestors and to listen to the latest news on Homo Sapiens. Not only do the authors deliver a valuable overview of the latest findings on the topic, they also look at the future of our strange species. They offer a riveting account of the social animals that we are, migrants with a rapidly expanding population, who have forever transformed their environment.

 

The Archaeology of Ancient North America

The Archaeology of Ancient North America

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This volume surveys the archaeology of Native North Americans from their arrival on the continent 15,000 years ago up to contact with European colonizers. Offering rich descriptions of monumental structures, domestic architecture, vibrant objects, and spiritual forces, Timothy R. Pauketat and Kenneth E. Sassaman show how indigenous people shaped both their history and North America's many varied environments. They place the student in the past as they trace how Native Americans dealt with challenges such as climate change, the rise of social hierarchies and political power, and ethnic conflict. Written in a clear and engaging style with a compelling narrative, The Archaeology of Ancient North America presents the grand historical themes and intimate stories of ancient Americans in full, living color.

 

The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Catalhoyuk

The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Catalhoyuk

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A firsthand account of the discoveries at this seminal ancient site in Turkey, one of the first farming settlements in history.Çatalhöyük, in central Turkey, became internationally famous in the 1960s when an ancient town--thought to be the oldest in the world--was discovered there together with wonderful wall paintings and animals, including leopards, sculpted in high relief. The archaeological finds included the remains of textiles, plants, and animals, and some female terra-cotta figures that suggested the existence of a mother goddess cult.The initial excavation was interrupted in 1965, and answers to the riddles of this Neolithic site remained unresolved until Ian Hodder initiated a new campaign of research in the 1990s. Described by Colin Renfrew as one of the most ambitious excavation projects currently in progress, undertaken at one of the world's great archaeological sites, this has been a truly multidisciplinary undertaking, involving the participation of over one hundred archaeologists, scientists, and specialists. Hodder and his colleagues have established that this great site, dating back some 9,000 years, provides the key to understanding the most important change in human existence--the time when people moved into villages and towns, adopted farming as a way of life, and began to accept domination of one social group by another. Through meticulous excavation procedures and laboratory analyses, they peel back the layers of history to reveal how people lived and died and how they engaged with one another, with their environment, and with the spirit world.Full of insights into past lives and momentous events, The Leopard's Tale is superbly illustrated with images of the art, the excavations, and the people involved in this world-famous dig.

 

Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans

Britain BC: Life in Britain and Ireland Before the Romans

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Francis Pryor's radical re-examination of Britain and Ireland before the coming of the Romans, based on compelling new evidence recently uncovered by aerial photography, coastal erosion and advanced scientific techniques, reveals a much more sophisticated life among the Ancient Britons than has previously been supposed.It bounds along, wonderfully enlivened by Pryor's earthy enthusiasm. If you want to be introduced painlessly to the fascinating debates surrounding our British past, then Britain BC is the book for you - Barry Cunliffe, New ScientistFrancis Pryor is a modern field archaeologist with a reputation second to none. He has written a book as successful and exciting as its ambition is huge...lucid and engaging - Alan Garner, The TimesSplendid...a remarkable, imaginative and persuasive account of those other Britons before that [Roman] enslavement: its enthusiastic and confident approach deserves to be very influential - Christopher Chippendale, Times Literary Supplement

 

The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest

The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest

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In this thrilling story of intellectual and archaeological discovery, David Roberts recounts his last twenty years of far-flung exploits in search of spectacular prehistoric ruins and rock art panels known to very few modern travelers. His adventures range across Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado, and illuminate the mysteries of the Ancestral Puebloans and their contemporary neighbors the Mogollon and Fremont, as well as of the more recent Navajo and Comanche.