In this volume, the authors present an original ethnographic study of five llama herding communities in Ayacucho, Peru. Data on herd dynamics are subjected to computer modeling in an effort to evaluate the roles of biology, symbolic and ritual behavior, ecological adaptation, and practical reason. The book contains the most detailed study of the waytakuy llama marking ceremony yet available. The role of this ceremony in preventing herds from going to extinction is evaluated against anthropological and sociobiological theory. This is an interdisciplinary book will appeal to professional archaeologists, prehistorians, cultural anthropologists, Andeanists, theoretical biologists, evolutionary biologists, and zoologists interested in animal domestication.

Product Description: ¿Quiénes fueron los zapotecos, fundadores de Monte Albán? ¿Por qué fundar la ciudad en una montaña? ¿Qué nos dicen los jeroglíficos de sus monumentos de piedra? ¿Qué tan extenso fue el dominio de sus gobernantes y quiénes sus rivales? ¿Qué sabemos del ocaso de esta ciudad ahora en ruinas? ¿A dónde fueron sus habitantes? Estas y otras interrogantes son despejadas en este libro, en relación a una de las civilizaciones más fascinantes...read more

Recipient of the Jo Anne Stolaroff Cotsen PrizeDuring the Late Intermediate period (AD 1100-1470), the lower Cañete Valley of Peru was controlled by the walled Kingdom of Huarco. While inland sites produced irrigated crops, the seaside community of Cerro Azul, 130 km south of Lima, produced fish for the rest of the kingdom. Cerro Azul's noble families lived in large, multipurpose compounds with tapia walls. Their pottery had its strongest ties with valleys to the south, such as Chincha and Ica. During the course of excavation, the University of Michigan Project excavated two tapia buildings in their entirety, saving every sherd from every room, walled work area, feature, and midden. This remarkable volume is the final site report on the architecture and pottery of Late Intermediate Cerro Azul.

This volume brings together exciting new field data by more than two dozen Andean scholars who came together to honor their friend, colleague, and mentor. These new studies cover the enormous temporal span of Moseley's own work from the Preceramic era to the Tiwanaku and Moche states to the Inka empire. And, like Moseley's own studies -- from Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization to Chan Chan: The Desert City to Cerro Bául's brewery -- these new studies involve settlements from all over the Andes -- from the far northern highlands to the far southern coast. An invaluable addition to any Andeanist's library, the papers in this book demonstrate the enormous breadth and influence of Moseley's work and the vibrant range of exciting new work by his former students and collaborators in fieldwork.

Product Description: Distant Madagascar, the island at the end of the world, has many lessons to teach. The ancestors of the Malagasy people established themselves at least 1500 years ago. Again and again since their arrival, the Malagasy have created new kinds of political communities...read more

Product Description: This volume, the fourteenth in the monograph series on the prehistory and human ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, focuses on Cerro Tilcajete, a secondary administrative center below Monte Albán, the capital of the prehispanic Zapotec state...read more

Product Description: Vijayanagara, the City of Victory, was the capital of South India's largest and most successful pre-colonial empire from c. AD 1330-1565. This richly-illustrated volume reports on the results of a ten-year systematic regional archaeological survey in the hinterland or metropolitan region of this vast and well-preserved urban site...read more

Product Description: This volume brings together a diverse set of new studies--archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic--that focus on agricultural intensification and hydraulic systems around the world. Fifteen chapters--written by many of the world's leading experts--combine extensive regional overviews of agricultural histories with in-depth case studies...read more

Product Description: Marcus y Flannery se remontan a los principios de la civilización asentada en el valle de Oaxaca, hace diez mil años, para darnos respuestas sobre el origen, florecimiento y decadencia de la cultura zapoteca. Se propusieron averiguar si las afirmaciones de los antropólogos evolucionistas se confirmaban por las pruebas que brotaron de las excavaciones, y, en particular, equilibraron los paradigmas del determinismo ecológico con la teoría de que las acciones individuales humanas pueden impulsar el cambio...read more

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'Important new synthesis of the Paleoindian through classic periods. Develops an action theory framework to explain formation of the first Zapotec State and the founding and growth of Monte Albâan. Written in an accessible style and exceptionally well illustrated with drawings and photographs (some color) on glossy paper'--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/

'Articles review Spores' contributions to Mixtec archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnology. Other topics include archaeological theory, the colonial period, Xaltocâan, Cholula, codex-style vessel from Nochixtlan, Codex Selden, irrigation in Mixtec cacicazgos and Cuicatlan, Mixtec cacicazgos organization, Spanish conquest of Oaxaca, Zapotec inauguration, and Tehuantepec barrio organization'--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/

Product Description: This monograph is Vol. 10 of the subseries Prehistory and Human Ecology of the Valley of Oaxaca.

Product Description: This is an anthropological study of the role of hieroglyphic writing in the prehispanic Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Maya states. First, Joyce Marcus compares the four systems with regard to eight major themes: calendrics, the naming of nobles, the naming of places, royal marriages, accession to the throne, divine ancestors, warfare, and the rewriting of history...read more

Product Description: Preliminary report of an interdisciplinary project carried out at Cerro Azul, a late prehistoric fishing community on the south-central coast of Peru.