ABSTRACT
This book explores routes of interaction and exchange in the Southern Maya Area, a zone that had both short- and long-distance trade and whose natural resources were exploited by merchants and rulers, colonists and entrepreneurs during Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Aztec, colonial and modern times.
The book presents the research of both archaeologists and art historians to identify routes of interconnection, to demonstrate the strategic importance of settlements and ritual locations, and to assess the significance of modes and mediums of exchange. The contributors employ innovative approaches, making use of state-of-the art technologies to reproduce and analyze the archaeological landscape (e.g. LiDAR, GIS, and least-cost path analysis) and to source and characterize archaeological materials (e.g. neutron activation analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence analysis [XRF] and strontium analysis). The book combines these innovative approaches with earlier data sources and past analyses to develop a new, synthetic analysis of interaction.
Routes, Interaction and Exchange in the Southern Maya Area will appeal to professional academics, students, and interested lay readers from a broad range of social science fields including anthropology, archaeology, geography, economics, history, and art history and is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate courses in Mesoamerican archaeology.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|58 pages
Hubs, Networks and Economies of the Preclassic Period
chapter 262|19 pages
Chiapa de Corzo
part II|226 pages
Routes, Interaction and Exchange during the Classic Period
chapter 6|29 pages
Interaction and Ideology
chapter 8|37 pages
“The Mountain Trails are Well Traveled” 1
chapter 9|29 pages
Least-Cost Routes and the Kaqchikel Maya Region
chapter 10|30 pages
American Pompeii
part III|88 pages
Production, Trade and Migration in the Postclassic Period