Reconstructing Ancient Maya Diet
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| Author | : Christine D. White |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 296 |
| Release | : 1999 |
| Genre | : Cooking |
| ISBN | : 9780874806021 |
Annotation In light of recently discovered population centers of pre-colonial Maya that could not have been sustained by the slash-and-burn agriculture which most anthropologists believe was the dominant method of food production for the culture, the editors of this volume view the analysis of the Maya diet as particularly important for understanding the pre-Columbian population. They present 12 papers that discuss evidence from the fields of faunal and botanical analysis, paleopathology, and bone chemistry. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.
| Author | : Julia Lee-Thorp |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 785 |
| Release | : 2024-07-09 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0191071013 |
Humans are unique among animals for the wide diversity of foods and food preparation techniques that are intertwined with regional cultural distinctions around the world. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Diet explores evidence for human diet from our earliest ancestors through the dispersal of our species across the globe. As populations expanded, people encountered new plants and animals and learned how to exploit them for food and other resources. Today, globalization aside, the results manifest in a wide array of traditional cuisines based on locally available indigenous and domesticated plants and animals. How did this complexity emerge? When did early hominins actively incorporate animal foods into their diets, and later, exploit marine and freshwater resources? What were the effects of reliance on domesticated grains such as maize and rice on past populations and the health of individuals? How did a domesticated plant like maize move from its place of origin to the northernmost regions where it can be grown? Importantly, how do we discover this information, and what can be deduced about human health, biology, and cultural practices in the past and present? Such questions are explored in thirty-three chapters written by leading researchers in the study of human dietary adaptations. The approaches encompass everything from information gleaned from comparisons with our nearest primate relatives, tools used in procuring and preparing foods, skeletal remains, chemical or genetic indicators of diet and genetic variation, and modern or historical ethnographic observations. Examples are drawn from across the globe and information on the research methods used is embedded within each chapter. The Handbook provides a comprehensive reference work for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and for professionals seeking authoritative essays on specific topics about diet in the human past.
| Author | : Heather McKillop |
| Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing USA |
| Total Pages | : 472 |
| Release | : 2004-08-19 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1576076970 |
Thanks to powerful innovations in archaeology and other types of historical research, we now have a picture of everyday life in the Mayan empire that turns the long-accepted conventional wisdom on its head. Ranging from the end of the Ice Age to the flourishing of Mayan culture in the first millennium to the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, The Ancient Maya takes a fresh look at a culture that has long held the public's imagination. Originally thought to be peaceful and spiritual, the Mayans are now also known to have been worldly, bureaucratic, and violent. Debates and unanswered questions linger. Mayan expert Heather McKillop shows our current understanding of the Maya, explaining how interpretations of "dirt archaeology," hieroglyphic inscriptions, and pictorial pottery are used to reconstruct the lives of royalty, artisans, priests, and common folk. She also describes the innovative focus on the interplay of the people with their environments that has helped further unravel the mystery of the Mayans' rise and fall.
| Author | : Lori E. Wright |
| Publisher | : Vanderbilt University Press |
| Total Pages | : 282 |
| Release | : 2006 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780826514189 |
This volume presents the data, analyses, and interpretation of a wide range of osteological and burial data. The Petexbatun bioarchaeology subproject included complete assessment of burial practice and osteology. The chapters on this research explore population variability in time and space, paleopathology, and trauma from skeletal remains throughout the various sites and the inter-site areas of the Petexbatun, as well as from Seibal and Altar de Sacrificios. Yet Wright's innovative study goes on to apply the most recent physical and chemical techniques, particularly isotopic analysis, to assess diet and health in the populations of the Pasion region. Variability between sites, across levels of status, and over time are assessed and conservatively interpreted in the light of contemporary issues and problems of physical, chemical, and statistical methodology. Finally, the Petexbatun and Pasion region results are compared in order to reassess past and current studies and interpretation of skeletal remains in other regions of the ancient Maya lowlands. In the final chapters of this work, Wright's cutting-edge osteological analyses are used to critique current alternative interpretations of Late Classic to Postclassic culture history and alternative hypotheses on the role of changes in climate, ecology, diet, nutrition, invasion, and other factors in the end of Classic Maya civilization and the transition to the Postclassic period. This volume also provides an independent assessment of the results of other Petexbatun region subprojects and a comparative evaluation of recent studies by other projects of Late and Terminal Classic culture change. For bioarchaeologists, this work sets a new standard in breadth and depth of osteological study. For Pre-Columbian scholars in general, it provides new insights into the environmental and biological issues involved in the debate on the end of the Classic period of Maya civilization. VIMA Series #2
| Author | : Vera Tiesler |
| Publisher | : Taylor & Francis |
| Total Pages | : 771 |
| Release | : 2022-05-23 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 1000586278 |
This volume brings together a range of contributors with different and hybrid academic backgrounds to explore, through bioarchaeology, the past human experience in the territories that span Mesoamerica. This handbook provides systematic bioarchaeological coverage of skeletal research in the ancient Mesoamericas. It offers an integrated collection of engrained, bioculturally embedded explorations of relevant and timely topics, such as population shifts, lifestyles, body concepts, beauty, gender, health, foodways, social inequality, and violence. The additional treatment of new methodologies, local cultural settings, and theoretic frames rounds out the scope of this handbook. The selection of 36 chapter contributions invites readers to engage with the human condition in ancient and not-so-ancient Mesoamerica and beyond. The Routledge Handbook of Mesoamerican Bioarchaeology is addressed to an audience of Mesoamericanists, students, and researchers in bioarchaeology and related fields. It serves as a comprehensive reference for courses on Mesoamerica, bioarchaeology, and Native American studies.
| Author | : Traci Ardren |
| Publisher | : Rowman Altamira |
| Total Pages | : 316 |
| Release | : 2002 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 9780759100107 |
The flood of archaeological work in Maya lands has revolutionized our understanding of gender in ancient Maya society. The dozen contributors to this volume use a wide range of methodological strategies--archaeology, bioarchaeology, iconography, ethnohistory, epigraphy, ethnography--to tease out the details of the lives, actions, and identities of women of Mesoamerica. The chapters, most based upon recent fieldwork in Central America, examine the role of women in Maya society, their place in the political hierarchy and lineage structures, the gendered division of labor, and the discrepancy between idealized Mayan womanhood and the daily reality, among other topics. In each case, the complexities and nuances of gender relations is highlighted and the limitations of our knowledge acknowledged. These pieces represent an important advance in the understanding of Maya socioeconomic, political, and cultural life--and the archaeology of gender--and will be of great interest to scholars and students.
| Author | : Robert J. Sharer |
| Publisher | : Stanford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 986 |
| Release | : 2006 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 9780804748179 |
The rich findings of recent exploration and research are incorporated in this completely revised and greatly expanded sixth edition of this standard work on the Maya people. New field discoveries, new technical advances, new successes in the decipherment of Maya writing, and new theoretical perspectives on the Maya past have made this new edition necessary.
| Author | : Vera Tiesler |
| Publisher | : University of Arizona Press |
| Total Pages | : 343 |
| Release | : 2017-11-28 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0816537437 |
This volume illuminates human lifeways in the northern Maya lowlands prior to the rise of Chichén Itzá. This period and area have been poorly understood on their own terms, obscured by scholarly focus on the central lowland Maya kingdoms. Before Kukulkán is anchored in three decades of interdisciplinary research at the Classic Maya capital of Yaxuná, located at a contentious crossroads of the northern Maya lowlands. Using bioarchaeology, mortuary archaeology, and culturally sensitive mainstream archaeology, the authors create an in-depth regional understanding while also laying out broader ways of learning about the Maya past. Part 1 examines ancient lifeways among the Maya at Yaxuná, while part 2 explores different meanings of dying and cycling at the settlement and beyond: ancestral practices, royal entombment and desecration, and human sacrifice. The authors close with a discussion of the last years of occupation at Yaxuná and the role of Chichén Itzá in the abandonment of this urban center. Before Kukulkán provides a cohesive synthesis of the evolving roles and collective identities of locals and foreigners at the settlement and their involvement in the region’s trajectory. Theoretically informed and contextualized discussions offer unique glimpses of everyday life and death in the socially fluid Maya city. These findings, in conjunction with other documented series of skeletal remains from this region, provide a nuanced picture of the social and biocultural dynamics that operated successfully for centuries before the arrival of the Itzá.
| Author | : Scott Fedick |
| Publisher | : CRC Press |
| Total Pages | : 700 |
| Release | : 2003-09-18 |
| Genre | : Nature |
| ISBN | : 9781560229711 |
What can we learn from the people of the Maya Lowlands? Integrating history, biodiversity, ethnobotany, geology, ecology, archaeology, anthropology, and other disciplines, The Lowland Maya Area is a valuable guide to the fascinating relationship between man and his environment in the Yucatán peninsula. This book covers virtually every aspect of the biology and ecology of the Maya Lowlands and the many ways that human beings have interacted with their surroundings in that area for the last three thousand years. You'll learn about newly discovered archaeological evidence of wetland use; the domestication and use of cacao and henequen plants; a biodiversity assessment of a select group of plants, animals, and microorganisms; the area's forgotten cotton, indigo, and wax industries; the ecological history of the Yucatán Peninsula; and much more. This comprehensive book will open your eyes to all that we can learn from the Maya people, who continue to live on their native lands, integrating modern life with their old ways and teaching valuable lessons about human dependence on and management of environmental resources. The Lowland Maya Area explores: the impact of hurricanes and fire on local environments historic and modern Maya concepts of forests the geologic history of the Yucatán challenges to preserving Maya architecture newly-discovered evidence of fertilizer use among the ancient Maya cooperation between locals and researchers that fosters greater knowledge on both sides recommendations to help safeguard the future The Lowland Maya Area is an ideal single source for reliable information on the many ecological and social issues of this dynamic area. Providing you with the results of the most recent research into many diverse fields, including traditional ecological knowledge, the difficult transition to capitalism, agave production, and the diversity of insect species, this book will be a valuable addition to your collection. As the editors of The Lowland Maya Area say in their concluding chapter: “If we are to gain global perspective from the changing Maya world, it is that understanding space and time is absolutely critical to human persistence.” Understanding how the Maya have interacted with their environment for thousands of years while maintaining biodiversity will help us understand how we too can work for sustainable development in our own environments.
| Author | : Mark Q. Sutton |
| Publisher | : University of Arizona Press |
| Total Pages | : 386 |
| Release | : 2010-04-15 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0816508216 |
Paleonutrition is the analysis of prehistoric human diets and the interpretation of dietary intake in relation to health and nutrition. As a field of study, it addresses prehistoric diets in order to determine the biological and cultural implications for individuals as well as for entire populations, placing archaeological interpretations into an anthropological context. Throughout history, and long before written records, human culture has been constantly in flux. The study of paleonutrition provides valuable insights into shifts and changes in human history, whatever their causes. This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on the topic. Intended for students and professionals, it describes the nature of paleonutrition studies, reviews the history of paleonutrition research, discusses methodological issues in the reconstruction of prehistoric diets, presents theoretical frameworks frequently used in paleonutrition research, and showcases examples in which paleonutritional analyses have been successfully conducted on prehistoric individuals, groups, and populations. It offers an integrative approach to understanding state-of-the-art anthropological dietary, health, and nutritional assessments. The most recent and innovative methods used to reconstruct prehistoric diets are discussed, along with the major ways in which paleonutrition data are recovered, analyzed, and interpreted. Paleonutrition includes five contemporary case studies that provide useful models of how to conduct paleonutrition research. Topics range from ancient diets in medieval Nubia to children’s health in the prehistoric American Southwest to honey use by an ethnographic group of East African foragers. As well as providing interesting examples of applying paleonutrition techniques, these case studies illustrate the mutually beneficial linkages between ethnography and archaeology.
