Contains scholarly evaluations of books and book chapters as well as conference papers and articles published worldwide in the field of Latin American studies. Covers social sciences and the humanities in alternate years.

This pioneering and comprehensive survey is the first overview of current themes in Latin American archaeology written solely by academics native to the region, and it makes their collected expertise available to an English-speaking audience for the first time. The contributors cover the most significant issues in the archaeology of Latin America, such as the domestication of camelids, the emergence of urban society in Mesoamerica, the frontier of the Inca empire, and the relatively little known archaeology of the Amazon basin. This book draws together key areas of research in Latin American archaeological thought into a coherent whole; no other volume on this area has ever dealt with such a diverse range of subjects, and some of the countries examined have never before been the subject of a regional study.

The Archaeology of Communities develops a critical evaluation of community and shows that it represents more than a mere aggregation of households. This collection bridges the gap between studies of ancient societies and ancient households. The community is taken to represent more than a mere aggregation of households, it exists in part through shared identities, as well as frequent interaction and inter-household integration. Drawing on case studies which range in location from the Mississippi Valley to New Mexico, from the Southern Andes to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Madison County, Virginia, the book explores and discusses communities from a whole range of periods, from Pre-Columbian to the late Classic. Discussions of actual communities are reinforced by strong debate on, for example, the distinction between 'Imagined Community' and 'Natural Community.'

The crown jewel of the Inka Empire was their capital, Cusco. So celebrated was the Cusco of Inka times that we sometimes forget how little we know of earlier times in the region. This book presents Allison Davis’ pioneering excavations at the high-altitude Formative site of Yuthu. Davis presents all her data on early households and evidence for the villagers’ subsistence strategies, craft production, and mortuary practices. From her excavations we learn a great deal about daily life and public rituals, each conducted in a different sector of Yuthu. An unexpected bonus of Davis’ excavations was the discovery that some well-known Inka practices actually had their origin in the early villages of the Cusco region. Before her work at Yuthu, so few early houses and ceremonial structures had been published in detail for the Cusco area that we had much less evidence for understanding sacred versus secular space. Davis’ excavations contribute to our understanding of one of the most important transitions in Andean history: the shift from autonomous egalitarian villages to multicommunity polities with hereditary inequality. She is able to link archaeological houses, sites, and multisite clusters to socially meaningful units such as families, villages, and communities. Davis is also able to combine her excavations with settlement pattern data to develop a regional picture of the Formative period in Cusco. This volume is not only the first excavation report on a Formative village in the Cusco area, but is also a study that contributes new data on many traditional Andean themes, including zonal complementarity, sacred landscapes, community composition, mummies and ancestor veneration, ritual canals and religious rites, and intra-village subdivisions.

From Tribute to Communal Sovereignty examines both continuity and change over the last five centuries for the indigenous peoples of central western Mexico, providing the first sweeping and comprehensive history of this important region in Mesoamerica. The continuities elucidated concern ancestral territorial claims that date back centuries and reflect the stable geographic locations occupied by core populations of indigenous language–speakers in or near their pre-Columbian territories since the Postclassical period, from the thirteenth to late fifteenth centuries. A common theme of this volume is the strong cohesive forces present, not only in the colonial construction of Christian village communities in Purhépecha and Nahuatl groups in Michoacán but also in the demographically less inclusive Huichol (Wixarika), Cora, and Tepehuan groups, whose territories were more extensive. The authors review a cluster of related themes: settlement patterns of the last five centuries in central western Mexico, language distribution, ritual representation of territoriality, processes of collective identity, and the forms of participation and resistance during different phases of Mexican state formation. From such research, the question arises: does the village community constitute a unique level of organization of the experience of the original peoples of central western Mexico? The chapters address this question in rich and complex ways by first focusing on the past configurations and changes in lifeways during the transition from pre-Columbian to Spanish rule in tributary empires, then examining the long-term postcolonial process of Mexican independence that introduced the emerging theme of the communal sovereignty.

Decolonizing Indigenous Histories makes a vital contribution to the decolonization of archaeology by recasting colonialism within long-term indigenous histories. Showcasing case studies from Africa, Australia, Mesoamerica, and North and South America, this edited volume highlights the work of archaeologists who study indigenous peoples and histories at multiple scales. The contributors explore how the inclusion of indigenous histories, and collaboration with contemporary communities and scholars across the subfields of anthropology, can reframe archaeologies of colonialism. The cross-cultural case studies employ a broad range of methodological strategies—archaeology, ethnohistory, archival research, oral histories, and descendant perspectives—to better appreciate processes of colonialism. The authors argue that these more complicated histories of colonialism contribute not only to understandings of past contexts but also to contemporary social justice projects. In each chapter, authors move beyond an academic artifice of “prehistoric” and “colonial” and instead focus on longer sequences of indigenous histories to better understand colonial contexts. Throughout, each author explores and clarifies the complexities of indigenous daily practices that shape, and are shaped by, long-term indigenous and local histories by employing an array of theoretical tools, including theories of practice, agency, materiality, and temporality. Included are larger integrative chapters by Kent Lightfoot and Patricia Rubertone, foremost North American colonialism scholars who argue that an expanded global perspective is essential to understanding processes of indigenous-colonial interactions and transitions.

"The first consolidated analysis of the only large-scale archaeological research project ever undertaken in the Marismas Nacionales on the northwest coast of Mexico. Between 1967 and 1975 archaeologists from SUNY-Buffalo led a multidisciplinary project in the Marismas Nacionales, a vast, resource-rich estuary and mangrove forest of coastal Sinaloa and Nayarit, west Mexico. Michael Foster and fellow archaeologists provide a much-needed synthesis of these investigations, drawing from previously unpublished data and published reports to provide a comprehensive look at the region. While in the field, the SUNY team recovered a variety of material artifacts and the remains of 248 humans. Their findings, along with the project's background, history, and analyses, are detailed in this volume's thirteen chapters and eleven appendices. Also included are supporting geomorphic, environmental, and ethnohistoric studies that establish the context for local human settlement and change. Among the discoveries, evidence indicates that as the coastal plain grew, ceramic-bearing agriculturalists moved into the area and participated in far-reaching exchanges of goods and resources. This book makes a significant and lasting contribution to our knowledge of what today remains an understudied region of greater Mesoamerica"--Provided by publisher.

In this volume, Elsa M. Redmond reconstructs the history of the Cuicatec region in Oaxaca, Mexico, from the Middle Formative period through the Lomas phase, when the Zapotec state based at Monte Albán took control, into the Trujano phase and the Spanish conquest. Redmond integrates archaeological data and sixteenth-century ethnohistoric records to inform her study of the political and social strategies of the Cuicatec region during these time periods. From 1977 to 1978, Redmond conducted an archaeological survey in this region, and she presents the results of that fieldwork here.

When Spaniards invaded their realm in 1532, the Incas ruled the largest empire of the pre-Columbian Americas. Just over a century earlier, military campaigns began to extend power across a broad swath of the Andean region, bringing local societies into new relationships with colonists and officials who represented the Inca state. With Cuzco as its capital, the Inca empire encompassed a multitude of peoples of diverse geographic origins and cultural traditions dwelling in the outlying provinces and frontier regions. Bringing together an international group of well-established scholars and emerging researchers, this handbook is dedicated to revealing the origins of this empire, as well as its evolution and aftermath. Chapters break new ground using innovative multidisciplinary research from the areas of archaeology, ethnohistory and art history. The scope of this handbook is comprehensive. It places the century of Inca imperial expansion within a broader historical and archaeological context, and then turns from Inca origins to the imperial political economy and institutions that facilitated expansion. Provincial and frontier case studies explore the negotiation and implementation of state policies and institutions, and their effects on the communities and individuals that made up the bulk of the population. Several chapters describe religious power in the Andes, as well as the special statuses that staffed the state religion, maintained records, served royal households, and produced fine craft goods to support state activities. The Incas did not disappear in 1532, and the volume continues into the Colonial and later periods, exploring not only the effects of the Spanish conquest on the lives of the indigenous populations, but also the cultural continuities and discontinuities. Moving into the present, the volume ends will an overview of the ways in which the image of the Inca and the pre-Columbian past is memorialized and reinterpreted by contemporary Andeans.