Scott R. Hutson - Böcker

Dwelling, Identity, and the Maya offers a new perspective on the ancient Maya that emphasizes the importance of dwelling as a social practice. Contrary to contemporary notions of the self as individual and independent, the identities of the ancient Maya grew from their everyday relations and interactions with other people, the houses and temples they built, and the objects they created, exchanged, cherished, and left behind. Using excavations of ancient Chunchucmil as a case study, it investigates how Maya personhood was structured and transformed in and beyond the domestic sphere and examines the role of the past in the production of contemporary Maya identity.

Ancient cities were complex social, political, and economic entities, but they also suffered from inequality, poor sanitation, and disease—often more than rural areas. In The Ancient Urban Maya, Scott Hutson examines ancient Maya cities and argues that, despite the hazards of urban life, these places continued to lure people for many centuries.With built forms that welcomed crowds, neighborhoods that offered domestic comforts, marketplaces that facilitated the exchange of goods and ideas, and the opportunities to expand social networks and capital, the Maya used their cities in familiar ways.

Ancient cities were complex social, political, and economic entities, but they also suffered from inequality, poor sanitation, and disease—often more than rural areas. In The Ancient Urban Maya, Scott Hutson examines ancient Maya cities and argues that, despite the hazards of urban life, these places continued to lure people for many centuries. With built forms that welcomed crowds, neighborhoods that offered domestic comforts, marketplaces that facilitated the exchange of goods and ideas, and the opportunities to expand social networks and capital, the Maya used their cities in familiar ways.

The first book to focus on children in ancient Mesoamerica, this vital reference offers a key methodological guide for archaeologists studying children and their roles not only in Mesoamerica, but also in ancient societies worldwide. Contributors examine material evidence, historical records, and iconography, productively criticising the claim that children are invisible in the archaeological record and elucidating an ancient childhood comprising multiple and complex identities. They explore the methodological and theoretical difficulties created when investigating childhood -- a category defined by each culture -- in the archaeological record. Sure to appeal widely to New World and Old World archaeologists and anthropologists, The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica will open up new avenues of research into the lives of this previously overlooked yet remarkably large population.

Ancient Maya Economies synthesizes the state of the art across seven components: geographical and historical background, ritual economy, households, specialization, exchange, political economies, and future directions. Other Elements case studies use many of the same components, making it easy to compare and contrast ancient Maya economies with systems of production and consumption in other parts of the world. The time is right for this Elements case because knowledge of ancient Maya economies has undergone a revolution in the last few decades, resulting in a complex panorama of new economic information. Aerial laser scanning has revealed higher amounts of intensive agriculture and research on the ground has turned up better evidence for marketplaces. Maya economies feature specialized production, trade of both bulk goods and luxury goods, close integration with ritual and religion, and a carnival parade of political economies.

Ancient Maya Economies synthesizes the state of the art across seven components: geographical and historical background, ritual economy, households, specialization, exchange, political economies, and future directions. Other Elements case studies use many of the same components, making it easy to compare and contrast ancient Maya economies with systems of production and consumption in other parts of the world. The time is right for this Elements case because knowledge of ancient Maya economies has undergone a revolution in the last few decades, resulting in a complex panorama of new economic information. Aerial laser scanning has revealed higher amounts of intensive agriculture and research on the ground has turned up better evidence for marketplaces. Maya economies feature specialized production, trade of both bulk goods and luxury goods, close integration with ritual and religion, and a carnival parade of political economies.

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.

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.

The first book to focus on children in ancient Mesoamerica, this vital reference offers a key methodological guide for archaeologists studying children and their roles not only in Mesoamerica, but also in ancient societies worldwide. Contributors examine material evidence, historical records, and iconography, productively criticizing the claim that children are invisible in the archaeological record and elucidating an ancient childhood comprising multiple and complex identities. They explore the methodological and theoretical difficulties created when investigating childhood - a category defined by each culture - in the archaeological record. Sure to appeal widely to New World and Old World archaeologists and anthropologists, The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica will open up new avenues of research into the lives of this previously overlooked yet remarkably large population. Contributors include Traci Ardren, Ximena Chavez Balderas, Billie Follensbee, Byron Hamann, Scott R. Hutson, Rosemary A. Joyce, Stacie M. King, Jeanne Lopiparo, Patricia McAnany, Geoffrey G. McCafferty, Sharisse D. McCafferty, Juan Alberto Roman Berrelleza, Rebecca Storey, Rissa M.Trachman, Fred Valdez Jr.

Ancient Maya Commerce presents nearly two decades of multidisciplinary research at Chunchucmil, Yucatan, Mexico—a thriving Classic period Maya center organized around commercial exchange rather than agriculture. An urban center without a king and unable to sustain agrarian independence, Chunchucmil is a rare example of a Maya city in which economics, not political rituals, served as the engine of growth. Trade was the raison d’être of the city itself.Using a variety of evidence—archaeological, botanical, geomorphological, and soil-based—contributors show how the city 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, the book reorients the understanding of ancient Maya economies. The book is accompanied by a highly detailed digital map that reveals the dense population of the city and the hundreds of streets its inhabitants constructed to make the city navigable, shifting the knowledge of urbanism among the ancient Maya.Ancient Maya Commerce is a pioneering, thoroughly documented case study of a premodern market center and makes a strong case for the importance of early market economies in the Maya region. It will be a valuable addition to the literature for Mayanists, Mesoamericanists, economic anthropologists, and environmental archaeologists.Contributors: Anthony P. Andrews, Traci Ardren, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, Timothy Beach, Chelsea Blackmore, Tara Bond-Freeman, Bruce H. Dahlin, Patrice Farrell, David Hixson, Socorro Jimenez, Justin Lowry, Aline Magnoni, Eugenia Mansell, Daniel E. Mazeau, Travis Stanton, Ryan V. Sweetwood, Richard E. Terry

This edited collection addresses concepts of value and its impact on economies and economic decision-making in Mesoamerica. It brings together various theoretical and methodological approaches to illuminate the little-studied topic of value in ancient economies.While scholars increasingly note that tangible objects found in the archaeological record could assume different values, depending on how they were used and circulated, less attention has been paid to how we might infer consensus (or lack of consensus) on how value was determined in past cultures so different from contemporary ones. These contributions show how multiple and conflicting understandings of what is important and meaningful coexist within any society even as moments of exchange create the impression of shared formulations of value. They consider divergences between shared understandings based on systems of beliefs and patterns of practice and the individual decisions of social actors. They also discuss howinequalities in social structures might inform our understanding of value, and how a multiplicity of values might encourage closer inspection of inequality in turn.The book brings together fifteen chapters focused on many parts of Mesoamerica, including Western Mexico, the Basin of Mexico, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and various parts of the Maya Lowlands, and range chronologically from the Classic period (250-900 CE) to the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th Century. It appeals to those working in archaeology, economic anthropology, economic history, and all those interested in how value can be understood in terms of contemporary cultural and political differences.