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Gender and Power in Prehispanic Mesoamerica
Gender was a fluid potential, not a fixed category, before the Spaniards came to Mesoamerica. Childhood training and ritual shaped, but did not set, adult gender, which could encompass third genders and alternative sexualities as well as "male" and "female." At the height of the Classic period, Maya rulers presented themselves as embodying the entire range of gender possibilities, from male through female, by wearing blended costumes and playing male and female roles in state ceremonies. This landmark book offers the first comprehensive description and analysis of gender and power relations in prehispanic Mesoamerica from the Formative Period Olmec world (ca. 1500-500 BC) through the Postclassic Maya and Aztec societies of the sixteenth century AD. Using approaches from contemporary gender theory, Rosemary Joyce explores how Mesoamericans created human images to represent idealized notions of what it meant to be male and female and to depict proper gender roles. She then juxtaposes these images with archaeological evidence from burials, house sites, and body ornaments, which reveals that real gender roles were more fluid and variable than the stereotyped images suggest.
Ancient Bodies Ancient Lives
There has never been a single way that social life has heen organized by sex. The ancient Greeks saw men and women as expressing varying degrees of a single sexual potential; many Native American societies considered sexual identity as something that changed and developed during a lifetime, and recognized three or four categories of sexual identity. Ranging from the earliest European hunters who created the first human images known to us almost 30,000 years ago to the lives of men and women from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who seldom appear in conventional histories, Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives explores how men and women have represented sexual differences, and lived lives shaped in part by those differences. Professor Joyce shows not only how archaeologists learn about the lives of men and women in the past, but also why the stories they can tell are important to hear today. She challenges us to reconsider how we think about sex and its implications for each person. Showing the critical role of the material world in forming our experiences of and concepts about sex, this book connects archaeology firmly to contemporary studies of material culture and identity.
Contemporary Archaeology in Theory
The second edition of Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, has been thoroughly updated and revised, and features top scholars who redefine the theoretical and political agendas of the field, and challenge the usual distinctions between time, space, processes, and people. Defines the relevance of archaeology and the social sciences more generally to the modern world Challenges the traditional boundaries between prehistoric and historical archaeologies Discusses how archaeology articulates such contemporary topics and issues as landscape and natures; agency, meaning and practice; sexuality, embodiment and personhood; race, class, and ethnicity; materiality, memory, and historical silence; colonialism, nationalism, and empire; heritage, patrimony, and social justice; media, museums, and publics Examines the influence of American pragmatism on archaeology Offers 32 new chapters by leading archaeologists and cultural anthropologists
Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands
In Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands, Latin American, North American, and European researchers explore the meanings and functions of two- and three-dimensional human representations in the Precolumbian communities of the Mexican highlands. Reading these anthropomorphic representations from an ontological perspective, the contributors demonstrate the rich potential of anthropomorphic imagery to elucidate personhood, conceptions of the body, and the relationship of human beings to other entities, nature, and the cosmos. Using case studies covering a broad span of highlands prehistory—Classic Teotihuacan divine iconography, ceramic figures in Late Formative West Mexico, Ep...
Things in Motion
"The contributors to Things in Motion, collectively, demonstrate the dynamic capacity of things in motion, from the point where things emerge from source material, to their circulation in the contemporary world, including their extended circulation through reproduction in other media. The various chapters show that examining the itineraries of things multiplies the assemblages things form and multiplies the sites at which we can recognize things in motion. None of the things discussed seem to ever have died. Their itineraries are continued by their movement in and out of museums and curation facilities, where many of them have come to rest temporarily, the circulation of their images, and their adaptation in sometimes unexpected contemporary material culture. Their itineraries also include the scholarship about them, to which this volume contributes, making it another site assembled by these active things"--Provided by publisher.
Early Mesoamerican Social Transformations
"Data and interpretations generated from the Soconusco are critical but often fail to inform larger debates in Mesoamerica as frequently as they should. This book remedies that situation; it will be of interest to all Mesoamericanists who work on the Archaic and Formative periods."--Jeffrey P. Blomster, editor of After Monte Alban: Transformation and Negotiation in Oaxaca, Mexico "This volume will be crucial to our understanding of the origins of civilization in Mesoamerica. Its interpretations are innovative and present a wealth of new research on an early time period from a very important region. Its importance cannot be underestimated."--Terry G. Powis, Department of Anthropology, Kennesaw State University
Ancient Southeast Mesoamerica
Ancient Southeast Mesoamerica explores the distinctive development and political history of the region from its earliest inhabitants up to the Spanish conquest. It was composed of a matrix of social networks rather than divided by distinct cultures and domains. Making use of the area's rich archaeological data, Edward Schortman and Patricia Urban provide a social network analysis of southeast Mesoamerica. They demonstrate how inhabitants from different locales were organized within such networks, and how they mobilized the assets that they needed to define and achieve their own goals. The also provide evidence for the actions of other groups, who sought to promote their importance at local and regional scales, and often opposed those efforts. Schortman and Urban's study demonstrates the fresh insights gained from study of socio-political structures via a social network perspective. It also challenges models that privilege the influence of powerful leaders in shaping those structures.
Archaeological Theory in Practice
In this concise, friendly textbook, Patricia Urban and Edward Schortman teach the basics of archaeological theory, making explicit the crucial link between theory and the actual conduct of archaeological research. The first half of the text addresses the general nature of theory, as well as how it is used in the social sciences and in archaeology in particular. To demonstrate the usefulness of theory, the authors draw from research at Stonehenge, Mesopotamia, and their own long-term research project in the Naco Valley of Honduras. They show how theory becomes meaningful when it is used by very real individuals to interpret equally real materials. These extended narratives exemplify the creative interaction between data and theory that shape our understanding of the past. Ideal for introductory courses in archaeological theory.
Rosemary Joyce
Biography of Rosemary Joyce, currently Alice S. Davis Endowed Chair in Anthropology at UC Berkeley, previously Associate Dean of the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley and Associate Dean of the Graduate Division at UC Berkeley.
Subjects and Narrative in Archaeology
Seeking to move beyond the customary limits of archaeological prose and representation, Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology presents archaeology in a variety of nontraditional formats. The volume demonstrates that visual art, creative nonfiction, archaeological fiction, video, drama, and other artistic pursuits have much to offer archaeological interpretation and analysis. Chapters in the volume are augmented by narrative, poetry, paintings, dialogues, online databases, videos, audio files, and slideshows. The work will be available in print and as an enhanced ebook that incorporates and showcases the multimedia elements in archaeological narrative. While exploring these new and not-so-new forms, the contributors discuss the boundaries and connections between empirical data and archaeological imagination. Both a critique and an experiment, Subjects and Narratives in Archaeology addresses the goals, advantages, and difficulties of alternative forms of archaeological representation. Exploring the idea that academically sound archaeology can be fun to create and read, the book takes a step beyond the boundaries of both traditional archaeology and traditional publishing.
