Philippe Nondédéo - Böcker

Examining changes to the institution of divine kingship from 750 to 950 CE in the Maya lowland cities, Maya Kingship presents a new way of studying the collapse of that civilization and the transformation of political systems between the Terminal Classic and Postclassic Periods.Leading experts in Maya studies offer insights into the breakdown of kingship regimes, as well as the gradual urban collapse and settlement relocations that followed. The volume illuminates historical factors and actions that led to the end of the institution across kingdoms and the mechanisms that enabled societies to eventually recover with new political structures. Contributors provide archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, and ethnohistorical perspectives, exploring datasets in the spheres of warfare, social dynamics, economics, and architecture.Unfolding with precision the chains of processes and events that occurred during the ninth and tenth centuries in the southern lowlands, and slightly later in the north, this volume displays an original and ambitious historical approach central to understanding one of the most radical political shifts to occur in the pre-Columbian Americas.

Different Times? Archaeological and environmental data from intra-site and off-site sequences brings together seven papers from Session II-8 of the XVIII UISPP Congress (Paris, 4-9 June 2018). The session questioned temporal correlations between intra-site and off-site data in archaeology-related contexts. The word ‘site’ describes here archaeological sites or groups of sites – usually settlements – that have undergone research in recent years and produced information on the duration and timing of human presence. Comparison with evidence from geomorphological and paleoenvironmental research conducted at various distances from settlements gives some interesting results, such as ‘missing’ occupation periods, distortions in human presence intensity through space as well as time, variability in explanations concerning the abandonment of settlements, etc. Examples presented here highlight: first, discrepancies between time records within built areas used for living and the surrounding lands used for other activities (cultivation, herding, travelling, etc); second, discrepancies produced by the use of different ‘time markers’ (ie. chronostratigraphy of archaeological layers or pottery evolution on the one hand, sedimentary or pollen sequences on the other hand). Although improving the resolution of individual data is essential, the authors argue that the joint and detailed examination of evidence produced together by human and natural scientists is more important for reaching a reliable reconstruction of past people’s activities. Both the session and the volume stem from the Working Group ‘Environmental and Social Changes in the Past’ (Changements environnementaux et sociétés dans le passé) in the research framework of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Dynamite’ (Territorial and Spatial Dynamics) of the University Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne (ANR-11-LABX-0046, Investissements d’Avenir).