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Since the 5th century b. c., archaistic figures were used as a pillar for the statues of Aphrodite and later sometimes also for other gods. The question of design and interpretation is topic of this work. The characteristics of gods were always shown in their body image and posture. To that effect Aphrodite was pictured in a casual and sensual way with a very feminine body shape. The archaistic pillar could be a way to show that nevertheless Aphrodite was a venerable goddess.
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"It is my sincere hope that this volume will be much read and reflected upon by new generations of American students of prehistoric archaeologists. Freeman's career is a model for long-term international collaboration, theoretical eclecticism, the centrality of field research, and the ability to 'dream big,' but with a commonsense approach to the record and its limitations." Lawrence Guy Straus, Journal of Anthropological Research
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This book delves into the politics of contemporary archaeology in an increasingly complex international environment. Describing various forms of cosmopolitan engagement, the contributors explore the implications of applying the cosmopolitan ideals of obligation to others and respect for cultural difference to archaeological practice, showing that those ethics increasingly demand the rethinking of research agendas. While cosmopolitan archaeologies must be practiced in contextually specific ways, what unites and defines them is archaeologists’ acceptance of responsibility for the repercussions of their projects, as well as their undertaking of heritage practices attentive to the concerns of the living communities with whom they work. These concerns may require archaeologists to address the impact of war, the political and economic depredations of past regimes, the livelihoods of those living near archaeological sites, or the incursions of transnational companies and institutions.
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Networks of Power reconstructs the course of political history in the poorly documented Naco Valley from the fourteenth through early sixteenth centuries. Describing the material and behavioral patterns pertaining to the Late Postclassic period using components of three settlements in the Naco Valley of northwestern Honduras, the book focuses on how contests for power shaped political structures. Power-seeking individuals, including but not restricted to ruling elites, depended on networks of allies to support their political objectives. Ongoing and partially successful competitions waged within networks led to the incorporation of exotic ideas and imported items into the daily practices of all Naco Valley occupants. The result was a fragile hierarchical structure forever vulnerable to the initiatives of agents operating on local and distant stages.
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In The Only True People, a multidisciplinary group of archaeologists, linguists, ethnographers, ethnohistorians, and epigraphers evaluate views of Maya history and prehistory in order to more accurately characterize the unique nature of the people known as the Maya by exploring the construction of their identities in the past and the present. Each author evaluates what makes identifiable sociocultural units, or “ethnicities,” distinctive, investigating ethnicity at a number of Maya sites across different time periods: from the northern reaches of the Yucatan to the Southern Periphery, and from the Classic period to the modern day. The volume challenges the notion of an ethnically homogenous “Maya people” within their region and chronology, and the authors explain how their work contributes to the definition of “ethnicity” for ancient Maya society.
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"The definitive volume of this Late Classic site. . . . an important contribution to Oaxaca archaeology and to understanding Monte Alb at its peak and during its demise." Veronica Perez Rodriguez, American Anthropologist
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Colonialism and the process of state expansion into new territories far from the capitol and mother country have occurred for thousands of years across the globe. Within the American Southwest, colonial encounters and the processes of colonialism played out in notably divergent manners through time and space. The chapters in New Mexico and the Pimería Alta: The Colonial Period in the American Southwest, focus on the two major areas of the Southwest that witnessed the most intensive and sustained colonial encounters: the New Mexico Colony and the Pimería Alta. Although these broad areas share a similar early colonial history, the particular mix of players, socio-historical trajectories, and social relations within each area both led to, and were transformed by, markedly diverse colonial encounters. Understanding these different mixes of players, history, and social relations provides the foundation for conceptualizing the enormous changes wrought by colonialism throughout the region.
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Nearly two decades of research at Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico documented a thriving city of 40,000 people without the powerful kings and massive temples seen at other Maya centers. What brought people to this area, the driest in the Maya world, and how did they survive? Ancient Maya Commerce provides a pioneering study in economic anthropology, making the strongest case yet that ancient Maya economies were quite complex, containing markets in addition to other forms of exchange. Multiple lines of evidence including household archaeology, regional survey, paleo-ecology and soil chemistry show that Chunchucmil was a major center for both short and long distance trade, integrating the Guatemalan highlands, the Gulf of Mexico and the interior of the northern Maya lowlands. By placing Chunchucmil into the broader context of emerging research at other Maya cities, this book helps reorient our understanding of ancient Maya economies, foregrounding the increasingly important role of commerce.
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Through the study of archaeological, ethnographic, linguistic, and historical evidence from northern Peru to northern Chile, Bolivia, and northwest Argentina, the authors in this volume show the significance of ritual from pre-contact to present day in the Andes. These volume essays deal with theoretical and methodological concerns in anthropology and archaeology including non-human and human agency, the development and maintenance of political and religious authority, ideology, cosmologies, and social memory, and their relationships with ritual action. By providing a diachronic and widely regional perspective on ritual in the Andes, this volume shows how ritual is both persistent and dynamic and is key in understanding many aspects of the formation, reproduction, and change of life in past Andean societies.
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Archaeologists have long encountered evidence of natural disasters through excavation and stratigraphy. In Surviving Sudden Environmental Change, case studies examine how eight different past human communities—ranging from Arctic to equatorial regions, from tropical rainforests to desert interiors, and from deep prehistory to living memory—faced and coped with such dangers.
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