"This volume describes and illustrates the ceramic figurines excavated at the Maya site of Tikal, Guatemala, from 1956 through 1970. These figurines are the largest excavated collection of ceramic figurines from a Maya site, and one of the major artifact categories from the site of Tikal. The collection includes both hand modeled and mold-made figures, human and animal, as well as related ceramic objects including figurine molds, flutes, and panpipes. The figurines are classified by subject matter, and their relation to distribution and dating within the site is discussed. Most of the classifiable pieces are illustrated at a scale that allows comparison with similar objects from other Maya sites. The purpose of this volume is the presentation of the material from the site of Tikal; comparative material is limited"--

This volume describes and illustrates the ceramic figurines excavated at the Maya site of Tikal, Guatemala, from 1956 through 1969. The collection includes both hand modeled and mold-made figures, human and animal, as well as related ceramic objects including figurine molds, flutes, and panpipes. The figurines are classified by subject matter, and the site distribution and dating discussed. These figurines are the largest excavated collection of ceramic figurines from a Maya site, and one of the major artifact categories from the site of Tikal. Most of the classifiable pieces are illustrated at a scale that allows comparison with similar objects from other Maya sites. The purpose of this volume is the presentation of the material from the site of Tikal; comparative material is limited.

Tikal Report 27 presents artifacts and associated unworked materials recovered by the University of Pennsylvania Museum's Tikal Project of 1956-1969.

Pre-Mamom Pottery Variation and the Preclassic Origins of the Lowland Maya summarizes archaeological researchers’ current views on the adoption and first use of pottery across the Maya lowlands. Covering the early Middle Preclassic period, when communities began using and producing pottery for the first time (roughly 1000–600 BC), through to the establishment of a recognizably Maya tradition, termed the Mamom ceramic sphere (about 600–300 BC), the book demonstrates that the adoption was broadly contemporary, with variation in how the new technology was adapted locally. Analyzing ceramics found at sites in Belize, Petén (Guatemala), and Mexico, the contributors provide evidence that the pre-Mamom expansion of pottery resulted from increased dependence on maize agriculture, exploitation of limestone caprock, and greater reliance on a preexisting system of long-distance exchange. The chapters describe the individual experiences of new potting communities at various sites across the region. They are supplemented by appendixes presenting key chronological data as well as the principal types and varieties of pre-Mamom ceramic complexes across the various spheres: Xe, Eb, Swasey, Cunil, and Ek. A significant amount of new material has been excavated in the last decade, changing what is known about the early Middle Preclassic period and making Pre-Mamom Pottery Variation and the Preclassic Origins of the Lowland Maya a first read of the early ceramic prehistory of the Maya lowlands. It will be a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in the archaeology of the Maya lowlands, Mesoamerican social complexity, and ceramic technology. Contributors: E. Wyllys Andrews V, Jaime Awe, George J. Bey III, Ronald L. Bishop, Michael G. Callaghan, Ryan H. Collins, Kaitlin Crow, Sara Dzul Góngora, Jerald Ek, Tomás Gallareta Negrón, Bernard Hermes, Takeshi Inomata, Betsy M. Kohut, Laura J. Kosakowsky, Wieslaw Koszkul, Jon Lohse, Michael Love, Nina Neivens, Terry Powis, Duncan C. Pring, Kathryn Reese-Taylor, Prudence M. Rice, Robert M. Rosenswig, Kerry L. Sagebiel, Donald A. Slater, Katherine E. South, Lauren A. Sullivan, Travis Stanton, Juan Luis Velásquez Muñoz, Debra S. Walker, Michal Wasilewski, Jaroslaw Źrałka

The sixteen-volume Handbook of Middle American Indians, completed in 1976, has been acclaimed the world over as the most valuable resource ever produced for those involved in the study of Mesoamerica. When it was determined in 1978 that the Handbook should be updated periodically, Victoria Reifler Bricker, well-known cultural anthropologist, was selected to be series editor. This first volume of the Supplement is devoted to the dramatic changes that have taken place in the field of archaeology. The volume editor, Jeremy A. Sabloff, has gathered together detailed reports from the directors of many of the most significant archaeological projects of the mid-twentieth century in Mesoamerica, along with discussions of three topics of general interest (the rise of sedentary life, the evolution of complex culture, and the rise of cities).

This book explores material culture and human adaptations to nature over time, with a focus on ceramics. The author also explores the role of ethnoarchaeology and ethnohistory as key elements of a broad research strategy that seeks to understand human interaction with nature over time.

Yokes, hachas, and palmas are three pre-Columbian art forms that occur in a specific region of Mexico and Central America and apparently have no exact counterparts anywhere else. This volume focuses on these carved stone objects which have puzzled art historians and archaeologists since the mid-19th century. The corpus of data presented here, consisting of photo documentation, identification, and interpretation of 661 sculptures, was assembled by the two authors over many years, beginning in the early 1940s. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book offers a new account of human interaction and culture change for Mesoamerica that connects the present to the past. Social histories that assess the cultural upheavals between the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica and the ethnographic present overlook the archaeological record, with its unique capacity to link local practices to global processes. To fill this gap, the authors weigh the material manifestations of the colonial and postcolonial trajectory in light of local, regional, and global historical processes that have unfolded over the last five hundred years. Research on a suite of issues—economic history, production of commodities, agrarian change, resistance, religious shifts, and sociocultural identity—demonstrates that the often shocking patterns observed today are historically contingent and culturally mediated, and therefore explainable. This book belongs to a new wave of scholarship that renders the past immediately relevant to the present, which Alexander and Kepecs see as one of archaeology’s most crucial goals.

This report is integral and pivotal to the entire Tikal publications series. Produced in six separate casebound volumes (3 of text, 2 of illustrations, a map box for oversize plans and sections), this monumental study looks at the very hub of Tikal. Tikal Report 14 is a tribute to its author, William R. Coe, who not only was able to salvage Tikal from the jungle but meticulously recorded all the resulting data in detailed plans, sections, drawings, and photographs, as well as the written word. This is an integrated site report of unprecedented size and scope. Tikal Report 14 will be of vital interest to field archaeologists and historians studying aspects of Mesoamerican culture.

Rather than view the contours of Late Classic Maya social life solely from towering temple pyramids or elite sculptural forms, this book considers a suite of small anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and supernatural figurative remains excavated from household refuse deposits. Maya Figurines examines these often neglected objects and uses them to draw out relationships between the Maya state and its subjects. These figurines provide a unique perspective for understanding Maya social and political relations; Christina T. Halperin argues that state politics work on the microscale of everyday routines, localized rituals, and small-scale representations. Her comprehensive study brings together archeology, anthropology, and art history with theories of material culture, performance, political economy, ritual humor, and mimesis to make a fascinating case for the role politics plays in daily life. What she finds is that, by comparing small-scale figurines with state-sponsored, often large-scale iconography and elite material culture, one can understand how different social realms relate to and represent one another. In Maya Figurines, Halperin compares objects from diverse households, archeological sites, and regions, focusing especially on figurines from Petén, Guatemala, and comparing them to material culture from Belize, the northern highlands of Guatemala, the Usumacinta River, the Campeche coastal area, and Mesoamerican sites outside the Maya zone. Ultimately, she argues, ordinary objects are not simply passive backdrops for important social and political phenomena. Instead, they function as significant mechanisms through which power and social life are intertwined.