Bøger i Amerind Studies in Archaeology serien

Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America challenges the hypothesis that the massive depopulation of the New World was primarily caused by diseases brought by Europeans, which scholars used for decades to explain the decimation of the indigenous peoples of North America. Contributors expertly argue that blaming germs downplays the active role of Europeans in inciting wars, destroying livelihoods, and erasing identities.

Rethinking the Aztec Economy brings together leading scholars from multiple disciplines to thoroughly synthesize and examine the nature of goods and their movements across rural and urban landscapes in Mesoamerica. In so doing, they provide a new way of understanding society and economy in the Aztec empire.

"Exploring the multiple social, ecological, cultural, and ontological dimensions of food in the Andean past, this book offers a diverse set of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that reveal the richness, sophistication, and ingenuity of Andean peoples. With 44 contributors from 10 countries, the studies presented in this volume employ new analytical methods, integrating different food data and interdisciplinary research to show how food impacts socio-political relationships and ontologies that are otherwise invisible in the archaeological record"--

Including research from both highland central Mexico and the tropical lowlands of the Maya and Olmec areas, this book reexamines demography in ancient Mesoamerica. Through new technology such as LiDAR (light detecting and ranging), the book provides new understandings of ancient Mesoamerican societies and how they changed over time.