This book presents the current state of Maya archaeology by focusing on the history of the field for the last 100 years, present day research, and forward looking prescription for the direction of the field.

The significance of food and feasting to Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures has been extensively studied by archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians. Foodways studies have been critical to our understanding of early agriculture, political economies, and the domestication and management of plants and animals. Scholars from diverse fields have explored the symbolic complexity of food and its preparation, as well as the social importance of feasting in contemporary and historical societies. This book unites these disciplinary perspectives — from the social and biological sciences to art history and epigraphy — creating a work comprehensive in scope, which reveals our increasing understanding of the various roles of foods and cuisines in Mesoamerican cultures. The volume is organized thematically into three sections. Part 1 gives an overview of food and feasting practices as well as ancient economies in Mesoamerica. Part 2 details ethnographic, epigraphic and isotopic evidence of these practices. Finally, Part 3 presents the metaphoric value of food in Mesoamerican symbolism, ritual, and mythology. The resulting volume provides a thorough, interdisciplinary resource for understanding, food, feasting, and cultural practices in Mesoamerica.

Of archaeological evidence from the Valsequillo region, Puebla, Mexico / Cynthia Irwin-Williams -- The origin of Zea mays / George W. Beadle -- Obsidian exchange networks: inferences and speculation on the development of social organization in formative Mesoamerica / Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira -- Shell exchange networks in formative Mesoamerica / Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira -- Mossbauer spectral analysis of Olmec iron ore mirrors: new evidence of formative period exchange networks in Mesoamerica / Jane Wheeler Pires-Ferreira and Billy Joe Evans -- The significance of the 'epiclassic' period in Mesoamerican prehistory / Malcolm C. Webb -- Ports of trade in Mesoamerica: a reappraisal / Frances Frei Berdan -- The ancient Maya in light of their ethnographic present / James C. Gifford -- Ideas concerning Maya concepts of the future / James C. Gifford -- Ethnographic realities of Mayan prehistory / Jeffrey C. Howry -- Mesoamericans as cultural brokers in northern New Spain / John Hobgood and Carroll L. Riley -- Toward the reconstruction of the Olmec mythological system / R.V. Kinzhalov -- Maya and Teotihuacan traits in classic Maya vase painting of the Peten / Jacinto Quirarte -- The Aztec system of writing: problems of research / Joaquin Galarza -- The deciphering of glyphs representing Mexica governmental titles / Horacio Corona Olea -- The Aztec day names / Herbert Landar -- The relationship between painting and scripts / Jorge Elliott -- Petroglyphs of the Antilles / Ripley P. Bullen -- Contribution to the study of cultural sequences in the central area of Costa Rica / Carlos H. Aguilar.

In this book, a diverse collection of case studies reveal how archaeology can contribute to a better understanding of humans' relation to the environment. The Archaeology of Environmental Change shows that the environmental challenges facing humanity today can be better approached through an attempt to understand how past societies dealt with similar circumstances.

Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands explores what has been required of the Maya to survive both internal and external threats and other destabilizing forces. These include shifting power dynamics and sociocultural transformations, tumultuous political regimes, the precarity of newly formed nation states, migration in search of refuge, and newly globalizing economies in the Yucatecan lowlands in the Late Colonial to Early National periods—the times when formal Spanish colonial rule was giving way to Yucatecan and Mexican neocolonial settler systems. The work takes a hemispheric approach to the historical and material analysis of colonialism, bridging the often disparate literatures on coloniality and settler colonialism. Archaeologists and anthropologists working in what are today southeastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras grapple with the material realities of coloniality at a regional level. They provide sustained discussions of Maya experiences with wide-ranging colonial endurances: violence, resource insecurity, land rights, refugees, the control of borders, the movement of contraband, surveillance, individual and collective agency, consumption, and use of historic resources. Considering a future for historical archaeologies of the Maya region that bridges anthropology, ethnohistory, Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and Latin American studies, Coloniality in the Maya Lowlands presents a new understanding of how ways of being in the Maya world have formed and changed over time, as well as the shared investments of historical archaeologists and sociocultural anthropologists working in the Maya region. Contributors: Fernando Armstrong-Fumero, Alejandra Badillo Sánchez, Adolfo Iván Batún Alpuche, A. Brooke Bonorden, Maia C. Dedrick, Scott L. Fedick, Fior García Lara, John Gust, Brett A. Houk, Rosemary A. Joyce, Gertrude B. Kilgore, Jennifer P. Mathews, Patricia A. McAnany, James W. Meierhoff, Fabián A. Olán de la Cruz, Julie K. Wesp

The Maya World brings together over 60 authors, representing the fields of archaeology, art history, epigraphy, geography, and ethnography, who explore cutting-edge research on every major facet of the ancient Maya and all sub-regions within the Maya world. The Maya world, which covers Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador, contains over a hundred ancient sites that are open to tourism, eight of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and many thousands more that have been dug or await investigation. In addition to captivating the lay public, the ancient Maya have attracted scores of major interdisciplinary research expeditions and hundreds of smaller projects going back to the 19th century, making them one of the best-known ancient cultures. The Maya World explores their renowned writing system, towering stone pyramids, exquisitely painted murals, and elaborate funerary tombs as well as their creative agricultural strategies, complex social, economic, and political relationships, widespread interactions with other societies, and remarkable cultural resilience in the face of historical ruptures. This is an invaluable reference volume for scholars of the ancient Maya, including archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists.