Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--Vanderbilt University.

In The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context, contributors reject the popularized link between societal collapse and drought in Maya civilization, arguing that a series of periodic “collapses,” including the infamous Terminal Classic collapse (AD 750–1050), were not caused solely by climate change–related droughts but by a combination of other social, political, and environmental factors. New and senior scholars of archaeology and environmental science explore the timing and intensity of droughts and provide a nuanced understanding of socio-ecological dynamics, with specific reference to what makes communities resilient or vulnerable when faced with environmental change.Contributors recognize the existence of four droughts that correlate with periods of demographic and political decline and identify a variety of concurrent political and social issues. They argue that these primary underlying factors were exacerbated by drought conditions and ultimately led to societal transitions that were by no means uniform across various sites and subregions. They also deconstruct the concept of “collapse” itself—although the line of Maya kings ended with the Terminal Classic collapse, the Maya people and their civilization survived. The Great Maya Droughts in Cultural Context offers new insights into the complicated series of events that impacted the decline of Maya civilization. This significant contribution to our increasingly comprehensive understanding of ancient Maya culture will be of interest to students and scholars of archaeology, anthropology, geography, and environmental studies.

Caves have been used in various ways across human society, but despite the persistence within popular culture of the iconic caveman, deep caves were never used primarily as habitation sites for early humans. Rather, in both ancient and contemporary contexts, caves have served primarily as ritual spaces. In Sacred Darkness, contributors use archaeological evidence as well as ethnographic studies of modern ritual practices to envision the cave as place of spiritual and ideological power that emerges as a potent venue for ritual practice. Covering the ritual use of caves in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, Mesoamerica, and the US Southwest and Eastern woodlands, this book brings together case studies by prominent scholars whose research spans from the Paleolithic period to the present day. These contributions demonstrate that cave sites are as fruitful as surface contexts in promoting the understanding of both ancient and modern religious beliefs and practices. This state-of-the-art survey of ritual cave use will be one of the most valuable resources for understanding the role of caves in studies of religion, sacred landscape, or cosmology and a must-read for any archaeologist interested in caves.

The decision to publish scholarly findings bearing on the question of Amerindian environmental degradation, warfare, and/or violence is one that weighs heavily on anthropologists. This burden stems from the fact that documentation of this may render descendant communities vulnerable to a host of predatory agendas and hostile modern forces. Consequently, some anthropologists and community advocates alike argue that such culturally and socially sensitive, and thereby, politically volatile information regarding Amerindian-induced environmental degradation and warfare should not be reported. This admonition presents a conundrum for anthropologists and other social scientists employed in the academy or who work at the behest of tribal entities. This work documents the various ethical dilemmas that confront anthropologists, and researchers in general, when investigating Amerindian communities. The contributions to this volume explore the ramifications of reporting--and, specifically,--of non-reporting instances of environmental degradation and warfare among Amerindians. Collectively, the contributions in this volume, which extend across the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, ethnohistory, ethnic studies, philosophy, and medicine, argue that the non-reporting of environmental mismanagement and violence in Amerindian communities generally harms not only the field of anthropology but the Amerindian populations themselves.

Following the metaphor of “the world upside-down,” this essay collection highlights the importance of the humanities in addressing, along with the sciences, pressing challenges in today’s rapidly changing world. Crossing across a variety of disciplines, historical periods, and regions in the world, this volume represents a useful tool for humanities scholars and students exploring the key role of our disciplines in public debates about pressing issues, such as the refugee crisis, climate change denialism, environmental justice, racism, and the current worldwide crisis of democracy. It provides practical examples of how societies throughout the world have historically coped with unexpected and distressing changes in government, core values, axiomatic systems, assumptions, beliefs, ideology, or cultural constructions. The feeling of topsy-turvy consternation as a result of sudden, harrowing change, as is shown here, is not new; rather, it has simply evolved throughout time and space.

From 400 BC to AD 250, the southern Maya region was one of the most remarkable civilizations of the ancient Americas. Filled with great cities linked by flourishing long-distance trade, shared elite ideologies, and a vibrant material culture, this region was pivotal not only for the Maya but for Mesoamerica as a whole. Although it has been of great interest to scholars, gaps in the knowledge have led to debate on the most vital questions about the southern region. Recent research has provided a wealth of broadly based new data that have expanded the understanding of this region and its influence on greater Mesoamerica. In The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic, prominent contributors debate whether the southern region was indeed "Maya" or instead a region of intense multiethnic interaction, with speakers of many languages and many sources of identity. The chapters address a host of advanced developments to which this area can lay claim--urbanism and city-states, the earliest Maya writing, and the origin of the Maya calendar--as well as additional issues including the construction of social and cultural identities, economic networks of early complex societies, relationships between the Maya and the Olmec, and a comprehensive discussion of the ancient city of Kaminaljuyu and its relationship to other cities in the region.

DIVAn interdisciplinary anthology on the largest, most populous nation in Central America, covering Guatemalan history, culture, literature and politics and containing many primary sources not previously published in English./div

Final report of the 1970-1974 research conducted in the Salama Valley, Baja Verapaz, and adjacent areas of the highlands of Guatemala. The volume presents the results of the first comprehensive study of northern highland preclassic occupation and cultural development in light of the question of highland-lowland interaction and its role in the growth of Maya civilization.

Archaeology of Southern Mesoamerica comprises the second and third volumes in the Handbook of Middle American Indians, published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979). The volume editor is Gordon R. Willey (1913–2002), Bowditch Professor of Mexican and Central American Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University. Volumes Two and Three, with more than 700 illustrations, contain archaeological syntheses, followed by special articles on settlement patterns, architecture, funerary practices, ceramics, artifacts, sculpture, painting, figurines, jades, textiles, minor arts, calendars, hieroglyphic writing, and native societies at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Guatemala highlands, the southern Maya lowlands, the Pacific coast of Guatemala, Chiapas, the upper Grijalva basin, southern Veracruz, Tabasco, and Oaxaca. The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.