Before Columbus

Before Columbus
Author: Charles C. Mann
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2009-09-08
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1416949003

A companion book for young readers based upon the explorations of the Americas in 1491, before those of Christopher Columbus.

The Reconstructed Past

The Reconstructed Past
Author: John H. Jameson
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2004-01-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0759115893

To reconstruct or not to reconstruct? That is the question facing many agencies and site managers throughout the world. While reconstructed sites provide a three-dimensional pedagogic environment in which visitors can acquire a heightened sense of the past, an ethical conflict emerges when on-site reconstructions and restorations contribute to the damage or destruction of the original archaeological record. The case studies in this volume contribute to the ongoing debates between data and material authenticity and educational and interpretive value of reconstructions. Discussing diverse reconstruction sites from the Golan Region to Colonial Williamsburg, the authors present worldwide examples that have been affected by agency policies, divergent presentation philosophies, and political and economic realities.

The Origins of Native Americans

The Origins of Native Americans
Author: Michael H. Crawford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2001-02-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521004107

A fascinating account of the genetic, archaeological and demographic evidence for the peopling of the New World.

Res

Res
Author: Francesco Pellizzi
Publisher: Peabody Museum Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2005-09-30
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0873658566

Res is a journal of anthropology and comparative aesthetics dedicated to the study of the object, in particular cult and belief objects and objects of art. The journal presents contributions by philosophers, art historians, archaeologists, critics, linguists, architects, artists, among others.

The Ethnobotany of Pre-Columbian Peru

The Ethnobotany of Pre-Columbian Peru
Author: Margaret Towle
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1351303945

All of man's life is in some way associated with the plant world, from his food and shelter to his art, religion and language. The study of this all-pervading relationship between man and the plant world is called ethnobotany. This book provides a systematic reconstruction of the ethnobotany of one of the hearths of American civilization, in the prehistoric cultures of the Peruvian Central Andes.As we learn more about the rise and spread of New World agriculture, it becomes evident that Peru was one of the sources of its development. Plants were cultivated here at least 2,000 years before the beginning of the Christian era. Village life was intimately bound up with this cultivation, later civilizations rested upon it as a foundation, and from Peru agriculture was diffused to other parts of the Americas.Towle bases her work on the evidence of plant remains found in archeological sites, surveys of botanical and ethnological literature, and field studies of modern plant utilization. After a methodological and historical introduction, she proceeds to a systematic listing of plant species, each fully described. She then presents the ethnobotanical data for each of the cultural-geographic divisions of the area, giving a chronological picture of the use of wild and cultivated plants against a background of the cultures of which they were part. A summary of the evolutionary trends in the region as a whole is followed by a full bibliography and index. The book contains fifteen pages of plates.Margaret A. Towle (1902-1985) received her doctorate from Columbia University in 1958 and was research fellow in ethnobotany in the Botanical Museum of Harvard University.

Carlos Chávez and His World

Carlos Chávez and His World
Author: Leonora Saavedra
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2015-08-25
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0691169489

Carlos Chávez (1899–1978) is the central figure in Mexican music of the twentieth century and among the most eminent of all Latin American modernist composers. An enfant terrible in his own country, Chávez was an integral part of the emerging music scene in the United States in the 1920s. His highly individual style—diatonic, dissonant, contrapuntal—addressed both modernity and Mexico's indigenous past. Chávez was also a governmental arts administrator, founder of major Mexican cultural institutions, and conductor and founder of the Orquesta Sinfónica de México. Carlos Chávez and His World brings together an international roster of leading scholars to delve into not only Chávez’s music but also the history, art, and politics surrounding his life and work. Contributors explore Chávez’s vast body of compositions, including his piano music, symphonies, violin concerto, late compositions, and Indianist music. They look at his connections with such artistic greats as Aaron Copland, Miguel Covarrubias, Henry Cowell, Silvestre Revueltas, and Paul Strand. The essays examine New York’s modernist scene, Mexican symphonic music, portraits of Chávez by major Mexican artists of the period, including Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo, and Chávez’s impact on El Colegio Nacional. A quantum leap in understanding Carlos Chávez and his milieu, this collection will stimulate further work in Latin American music and culture. The contributors are Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, Amy Bauer, Leon Botstein, David Brodbeck, Helen Delpar, Christina Taylor Gibson, Susana González Aktories, Anna Indych-López, Roberto Kolb-Neuhaus, James Krippner, Rebecca Levi, Ricardo Miranda, Julián Orbón, Howard Pollack, Leonora Saavedra, Antonio Saborit, Stephanie Stallings, and Luisa Vilar Payá. Bard Music Festival 2015: Carlos Chávez and His World Bard College August 7-9 and August 14-16, 2015

Janaab' Pakal of Palenque

Janaab' Pakal of Palenque
Author: Vera Tiesler
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816537313

Excavations of Maya burial vaults at Palenque, Mexico, half a century ago revealed what was then the most extraordinary tomb finding of the pre-Columbian world; its discovery has been crucial to an understanding of the dynastic history and ideology of the ancient Maya. This volume communicates the broad scope of applied interdisciplinary research conducted on the Pakal remains to provide answers to old disputes over the accuracy of both skeletal and epigraphic studies, along with new questions in the field of Maya dynastic research. A benchmark in biological anthropology that presents an updated study of a well-known personage, the volume also offers innovative approaches to the biocultural and interdisciplinary re-creation of Maya dynastic history.

Archaeometry of Pre-Columbian Sites and Artifacts

Archaeometry of Pre-Columbian Sites and Artifacts
Author: David A. Scott
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 437
Release: 1994-10-27
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0892362499

Based on the 28th International Archaeometry Symposium jointly sponsored by the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Getty Conservation Institute, this volume offers a rare opportunity to survey under a single cover a wide range of investigations concerning pre-Columbian materials. Twenty chapters detail research in five principal areas: anthropology and materials science; ceramics; stone and obsidian; metals; and archaeological sites and dating. Contributions include Heather Lechtman's investigation of “The Materials Science of Material Culture,” Ron L. Bishop on the compositional analysis of pre-Columbian pottery from the Maya region, Ellen Howe on the use of silver and lead from the Mantaro Valley in Peru, and J. Michael Elam and others on source identification and hydration dating of obsidian artifacts.

Walking with the Unicorn: Social Organization and Material Culture in Ancient South Asia

Walking with the Unicorn: Social Organization and Material Culture in Ancient South Asia
Author: Dennys Frenez
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 680
Release: 2018-08-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1784919187

This volume, a compilation of original papers written to celebrate the outstanding contributions of Jonathan Mark Kenoyer to the archaeology of South Asia over the past forty years, highlights recent developments in the archaeological research of ancient South Asia, with specific reference to the Indus Civilization.

Ritual Arts of the New World

Ritual Arts of the New World
Author: Octavio Paz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 454
Release: 2000
Genre: Art
ISBN:

A collection of historical and cultural essays explores the history of the New World before its discovery by Christopher Columbus, and of the magnificent civilizations overrun and destroyed by the Spanish conquerors in the early 16th century: from the empire of the Incas in Peru and the Mayan civilization on the high plateaux of Guatemala to the Olmec and Aztec cultures in Mexico and the populations of the Amazon territories.