Brigitte Kovacevich is assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University. Her research focuses on the complex interplay between technology, power, social action, and culture change in the past and present, and she is interested in Mesoamerican archaeology, lithic analysis, household archaeology, gender, identity, and preindustrial economic systems. She is currently codirector of the Holt´un Archaeological Project, Guatemala, and has conducted research in Mexico, Arizona, Tennessee, Kentucky, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.Michael G. Callaghan is visiting assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University. He specializes in complex societies of Mesoamerica, with a specific emphasis on prehistoric economy and its articulation with politics and ritual. His research interests include Mesoamerican archaeology, the origins of social complexity, prehistoric economies, the archaeology of ritual, gender in archaeology, and ceramic analysis. He is currently codirector of the Holt´un Archaeological Project, Guatemala.

• Table of Contents iii  Chapter 1. Introduction: Inalienability, Value, and the Construction of Social Difference  1Brigitte Kovacevich and Michael G. Callaghan   Chapter 2. Olmec Things and Identity: A Reassessment of Offerings and Burials at La Venta, Tabasco  14John E. Clark and Arlene Colman   Chapter 3. Situational Inalienability and Social Change in Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca  38Sarah B. Barber, Andrew Workinger, and Arthur A. Joyce   Chapter 4. The Bones of the Ancestors as Inalienable Possessions: A Bioarchaeological Perspective  54Anna C. Novotny   Chapter 5. Cultivated Landscapes as Inalienable Wealth in Southeastern Mesoamerica  66E. Christian Wells   Chapter 6. Alienating Ancient Maya Commoners  81Jon C. Lohse   Chapter 7. The Inalienability of Jades in Mesoamerica  95Brigitte Kovacevich   Chapter 8. Maya Polychrome Vessels as Inalienable Possessions  112Michael G. Callaghan   Chapter 9. Negotiation of Inalienability and Meanings at the Classic Maya Center of Aguateca, Guatemala  128Takeshi Inomata   Chapter 10. Land, Labor, Bodies, and Objects: Comments on Inalienability and Mesoamerican Social Life  142Barbara J. Mills   List of Contributors 150  Erratum  152