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Early Mesoamerican Cities

Early Mesoamerican Cities

Early Mesoamerican Cities

Urbanism and Urbanization in the Formative Period
Michael Love, California State University, Northridge
Julia Guernsey, University of Texas, Austin
January 2022
Available
Hardback
9781108838511
CAD$121.95
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eBook

    Urbanization is a phenomenon that brings into focus a range of topics of broad interest to scholars. It is one of the central, enduring interests of anthropological archaeology. Because urbanization is a transformational process, it changes the relationships between social and cultural variables such as demography, economy, politics, and ideology. As one of a handful of cases in the ancient world where cities developed independently, Mesoamerica should play a major role in the global, comparative analysis of first-generation cities and urbanism in general. Yet most research focuses on later manifestations of urbanism in Mesoamerica, thereby perpetuating the fallacy that Mesoamerican cities developed relatively late in comparison to urban centers in the rest of the world. This volume presents new data, case studies, and models for approaching the subject of early Mesoamerican cities. It demonstrates how the study of urbanism in Mesoamerica, and all ancient civilizations, is entering a new and dynamic phase of scholarship.

    • The volume situates Mesoamerican cities in the Formative period on the world stage of early urbanism
    • The volume lays out the key features of the earliest evidence of urbanism in Mesoamerica and participants discuss, in detail, the unique processes of urbanism in a variety of regions
    • Contributors present case studies of early cities and explore pan-Mesoamerican trends in economy, social organization, and cultural practices.

    Product details

    December 2021
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9781108983730
    0 pages
    This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.

    Table of Contents

    • 1. Introduction: Early Mesoamerican Cities, Urbanism, and Urbanization in the Formative Period Michael Love
    • 2. Oaxaca's Formative Period Cities and their Implications for Early Urbanism in Mesoamerica Arthur A. Joyce
    • 3. Early Urbanization in the Formative Gulf Lowlands, Mexico Christopher A. Pool and Michael L. Loughlin
    • 4. Patterns of Early Urbanism in the Southern Maya Lowlands Marcello A. Canuto and Francisco Estrada-Belli
    • 5. The Role of Middle Preclassic Placemaking in the Creation of Late Preclassic Yucatecan Cities: The Foundations of Yaxuná Travis W. Stanton and Ryan H. Collins
    • 6. The City over the City: Kaminaljuyu and Urbanism Bárbara Arroyo
    • 7. The New Normal: Formative Period Cities on the Pacific Coast of Southern Mesoamerica Michael Love and Robert M. Rosenswig
    • 8. The Nature of Early Urbanism at Teotihuacan Saburo Sugiyama
    • 9. Art and Urbanity in Late Formative Mesoamerica Julia Guernsey and Stephanie M. Strauss
    • 10. Landscape and Leadership in Mesoamerican Cities: A Comparative View Monica L. Smith
    • 11. Experimental Cities? Norman Yoffee.
      Contributors
    • Michael Love, Arthur A. Joyce, Christopher A. Pool, Michael L. Loughlin, Marcello A. Canuto, Francisco Estrada-Belli, Travis W. Stanton, Ryan H. Collins, Bárbara Arroyo, Robert M. Rosenswig, Saburo Sugiyama, Julia Guernsey, Stephanie M. Strauss, Monica L. Smith, Norman Yoffee

    • Editors
    • Michael Love , California State University, Northridge

      Michael Love is Professor of Anthropology at California State University, Northridge. He is the author of Early Complex Society in Pacific Guatemala and editor of The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic.

    • Julia Guernsey , University of Texas, Austin

      Julia Guernsey is the D.J. Sibley Family Centennial Faculty Fellow in Prehistoric Art at the University of Texas, Austin. She is the author of Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica and Human Figuration and Fragmentation in Preclassic Mesoamerica.