Ceramic petrography, the microscopic examination of the mineral content and structure within ceramic thin sections, reveals the origin and movement of pottery and sheds light on the technology of the artifact. Although used by archaeologists since the 1930s, ceramic petrography has been uncommon until recently. Integrative Approaches in Ceramic ......
The Rise and Fall of Commercial Abalone Fishing in California
In the 1800s, when California was captivated by gold fever, a small group of Chinese immigrants recognized the fortune to be made from the untapped resources along the Pacific coast, particularly from harvesting the black abalone of southern and Baja California. These immigrants, with skills from humble beginnings in a traditional Chinese fishing ......
Archaeology, History, and the Making of Modern Mexico
Famous for its majestic ruins, Mexico has gone to great lengths to preserve and display the remains of its pre-Hispanic past. The Pursuit of Ruins argues that the government effort to take control of the ancient remains took off in the late nineteenth century during the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Under Diaz Mexico acquired an official history ......
The Pacific coast and southern highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala is a region significant to debates about the origins of social complexity, interaction, and colonialism. The area, however, has received uneven attention and much of what we know is largely restricted to the Preclassic period. This theoretically eclectic volume presents greater ......
This book is a study of the ways places are created and how they attain meaning. Smith presents archaeological data from Khonkho Wankane in the southern Lake Titicaca basin of Bolivia to explore how landscapes were imagined and constructed during processes of political centralization in this region. In particular he examines landscapes of movement ......
Archaeology and Ancient Communities in the Mesa Verde Region
The continuing work of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center has focused on community life in the northern Southwest during the Great Pueblo period (AD 1150- 1300).Researchers have been able to demonstrate that during the last Puebloan occupation of the area the majority of the population lived in dispersed communities and large villages of the ......
A Reassessment of Early Urbanism and Its Consequences
The concept of civilization has long been the basis for theories about how societies evolve. This provocative book challenges that concept. The author argues that a "civilization bias" shapes academic explanations of urbanization, colonization, state formation, and cultural horizons. Earlier theorists have criticized the concept, but according to ......
Chaco Canyon has one of the most significant concentrations of archaeological remains in North America. Pueblo Bonito, the largest and best known of Chaco's great houses, was largely excavated in the late 1890s and early 1920s, but then no extensive excavations were conducted at the site until a team of archaeologists from the University of New ......
This data-rich monograph provides new and stimulating perspectives on the Hohokam people and their mortuary practices. It breaks new ground by using the knowledge of descendent peoples to generate archaeologically testable hypotheses; demonstrating the need for mortuary analyses conducted at a regional scale; and synthesizing the interaction of ......
