Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T02:14:44.286Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

20 - The Americas

from Part II - Trans-regional and regional perspectives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

Craig Benjamin
Affiliation:
Grand Valley State University, Michigan
Get access

Summary

The 'best' theoretical approaches for understanding emergent complex systems remains an area of continuing attention and discussion in the archaeology of the Americas as well as other parts of the world. In 1200 BCE, most people in North America were living an 'archaic' lifestyle, with some groups engaging in experiments with horticulture. Early constructions such as LAnse Amour in Labrador appear associated primarily with mortuary activity and were likely monuments associated with egalitarian mobile foragers. The North American Southwest, like other regions of the continent, was characterized by relatively small-scale 'archaic' societies. This chapter overviews the major developments of the Mesoamerican peoples during the time periods ranging from the emergence of complexity in the Preclassic/Formative through the collapse of the subsequent Classic period civilizations. In the Valley of Oaxaca, one can see clear evidence for increasing cultural complexity during the Preclassic/Formative period. Like North America during Pre-contact times, South America was home to a wide variety of cultures and peoples.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Adams, Richard E. W., Prehistoric Mesoamerica, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Aveni, Anthony, “The Nazca Lines: Patterns in the Desert,” Archaeology 39 (1986): 3239.Google Scholar
Barker, Alex W., Skinner, Craig E., Shackley, M. Steven, Glascock, Michael D., and Rogers, J. Daniel, “Mesoamerican Origin for an Obsidian Scraper from the Precolumbian Southeastern United States,” American Antiquity 67 (2002): 103108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolnick, Deborah A., “The Genetic Prehistory of Eastern North America: Evidence From Ancient and Modern DNA,” Ph.D dissertation, University of California-Davis, 2005.Google Scholar
Burger, Richard, Chavín and the Origin of Andean Culture, London: Thames and Hudson, 1995.Google Scholar
Carr, Christopher, and Case, D. Troy, Gathering Hopewell: Society, Ritual and Ritual Interaction, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles, Douglas K., “Origins of the Hopewell Phenomenon,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 471–82.Google Scholar
Charles, Douglas K., Van Nest, Julieann, and Buikstra, Jane E., “From the Earth: Minerals and Meaning in the Hopewellian World,” in Boivin, Nicole and Owoc, Mary Ann (eds.), Soils, Stones, and Symbols: Cultural Perceptions of the Mineral World, London: UCL Press, 2004, pp. 4370.Google Scholar
Childe, Vere Gordon, Man Makes Himself, London: Watts, 1936.Google Scholar
Childe, Vere Gordon, What Happened in History, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1942.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D., The Maya, New York: Thames and Hudson, 2005.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D., and Koontz, Rex, Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs, New York: Thames and Hudson, 2008.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D., and Diehl, Richard A, “Olmec Archaeology,” in Coe, Michael D., The Olmec World: Ritual and Rulership, Princeton University, 1995, pp. 1125.Google Scholar
Coe, Michael D., and Diehl, Richard A, “The Olmec Style and Its Distribution,” in Wauchope, Robert (ed.), Handbook of the Middle American Indians, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965, pp. 739–75.Google Scholar
Coggins, Clemency, “The Age of Teotihuacan and Its Mission Abroad,” in Berrin, Kathleen and Pasztory, Ester (eds.), Teotihuacan: City of the Gods, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995, pp. 140–55.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George, “A Speculative History of Teotihuacan,” paper presented at the Fifth Round Table on Teotihuacan at the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History, October 23–28, 2011.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George, “State and Society at Teotihuacan, Mexico,” Annual Review of Anthropology 26 (1997): 129–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Creamer, Winifred, and Haas, Jonathan, “The Late Archaic in Andean Prehistory: 3000–1800 bc,” in Silverman, Helaine (ed.), Andean Archaeology, Malden, ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2004, pp. 3550.Google Scholar
Demarest, Arthur A., “The Olmec and the Rise of Civilization in Eastern Mesoamerica,” in Sharer, Robert J. and Grove, David C. (eds.), Regional Perspectives on the Olmec, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 303–44.Google Scholar
Dillehay, Tom, Bonavia, Duccio, and Kaulicke, Peter, “The First Settlers,” in Silverman, Helaine (ed.), Andean Archaeology, Malden, ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2004, pp. 1634.Google Scholar
Emerson, Thomas E., “Cahokia Interaction and Ethnogenesis in the Northern Midcontinent,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 398409.Google Scholar
Evans, Susan Toby, Ancient Mexico and Central America, London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.Google Scholar
Fish, Suzanna K., and Fish, Paul R., “Hohokam Society and Water Management,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 571–84.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V., and Marcus, Joyce, Early Formative Pottery of the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flannery, Kent V., and Marcus, Joyce, Zapotec Civilization, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996.Google Scholar
Grove, David, “Olmec Archaeology: A Half Century of Research and Its Accomplishments,” Journal of World Prehistory 11 (1997): 51101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grove, David, “Olmec: What’s in a Name?” in Grove, David C. and Sharer, Robert J. (eds.), Regional Perspectives on the Olmec, Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 814.Google Scholar
Haas, Jonathan, and Creamer, Winifred, “Crucible of Andean Civilization: The Peruvian Coast from 3000 to 1800 bc,” Current Anthropology 47 (2006): 745–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Robert L., An Archaeology of the Soul, Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Hammond, Norman, “Cultura Hermana: Reappraising the Olmec,” Quarterly Review of Archaeology 9 (1989): 14.Google Scholar
Hively, Ray, and Horn, Robert, “Geometry and Astronomy in Prehistoric Ohio,” Archaeoastronomy 4 (1982): S1S20.Google Scholar
Kidder, Tristram, “Poverty Point,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 460–70.Google Scholar
Lavallée, Danièle, The First South Americans, trans. Bahn, Paul, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Lepper, Bradley T., “The Newark Earthworks: Monumental Geometry and Astronomy at a Hopewellian Pilgrimage Center,” in Townsend, Richard F. (ed.), Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: Ancient Indian Art of the Woodlands, New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 2004, pp. 7281.Google Scholar
Lindauer, Owen, and Blitz, John H., “Higher Ground: The Archaeology of North American Platform Mounds,” Journal of Archaeological Research 5 (1997): 169207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainfort, Robert C.Middle Woodland Ceremonialism at Pinson Mounds, Tennessee,” American Antiquity 53 (1998): 158–73.Google Scholar
McClung de Tapia, Emily, and Pingarrón, Luis Barba, “Ciencias aplicadas al studio de estructuras monumentales en Teotihuacan, Mexico,” Accessed February 25, 2014, www.saa.org/Portals/0/SAA/Publications/amantiq/articleMcLung.pdf (2011).Google Scholar
Millon, René, “Teotihuacan Studies: From 1950 to 1990 and Beyond,” in Berlo, Janet C. (ed.), Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan, Washington, dc: Dumbarton Oaks, 1992, pp. 339419.Google Scholar
Millon, René, Urbanization at Teotihuacan, Mexico, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973, vol. i, part 1.Google Scholar
Mills, Barbara J., “The Archaeology of the Greater Southwest: Migration, Inequality and Religious Transformations,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 547–60.Google Scholar
Mills, Lisa, “Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of the Ohio Hopewell of the Hopewell Mound Group,” Ph.D dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Ohio State University, Columbus, 2003.Google Scholar
Milner, George R., The Moundbuilders: Ancient Peoples of Eastern North America, London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.Google Scholar
Milner, George R., “Mound-Building Societies of the Southern Midwest and Southeast,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 437–47.Google Scholar
Moseley, Michael, The Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilizations, Menlo Park, ca: Cummings, 1975.Google Scholar
Neusius, Sarah W., and Gross, G. Timothy, Seeking Our Past: An Introduction To North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2014.Google Scholar
Pasztory, Ester, Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Pearsall, Deborah, and Piperno, Dolores, “Antiquity of Maize Cultivation in Ecuador: Summary, and Re-evaluation of the Evidence,” American Antiquity 55 (1990): 324–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plog, Stephen, Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1997.Google Scholar
Preucel, Robert W., and Mrozowski, Stephen A., Contemporary Archaeology in Theory: The New Pragmatism, Hoboken, nj: John Wiley and Sons, 2010.Google Scholar
Price, Douglas, and Feinman, Gary, Images of the Past, 6th edn., New York: McGraw Hill, 2010.Google Scholar
Price, Douglas, and Feinman, Gary, Images of the Past, 7th edn., New York: McGraw Hill, 2012.Google Scholar
Proskouriakoff, Titiana, Maya History, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Quilter, Jeffery, “Architecture and Chronology at El Paraíso, Peru,” Journal of Field Archaeology 12 (1985): 279–97.Google Scholar
Quilter, Jeffery, and Stocker, Terry, “Subsistence Economics and the Origins of Andean Complex Societies,” American Anthropologist 85 (1983), 545–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rees, Mark A., “Monumental Landscape and Community in the Southern Lower Mississippi Valley during the Late Woodland and Mississippi Periods,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 483–96.Google Scholar
Renfrew, A. C., The Emergence of Civilisation: The Cyclades and the Aegean in The Third Millennium bc, London: Methuen and Co., 1972.Google Scholar
Richardson, James B. III, People of the Andes, Washington, dc: Smithsonian Books, 1994.Google Scholar
Ruby, Brett, Carr, Christopher, and Charles, Douglas K., “Community Organizations in the Scioto, Mann and Havana Hopewellian Regions: A Comparative Perspective,” in Carr, Christopher and Case, D. Troy (eds.), Gathering Hopewell: Society Ritual and Ritual Interaction, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2005, pp. 119–76.Google Scholar
Russo, Michael, Archaic Shell Rings of the Southeast U.S. National Historic Landmarks Historic Context, Tallahassee, fl: Southeast Archeological Center, National Park Service, 2006.Google Scholar
Roosevelt, Anna, “The Rise and Fall of the Amazon Chiefdoms,” L’Homme 33 (1993): 255–83.Google Scholar
Sabloff, Jerry, “Universal Patterns in the Emergence of Complex Societies. Santa Fe Institute,” Accessed February 24, 2014, www.santafe.edu/templeton/complex-societies/detail/ (2013).Google Scholar
Saunders, Joe W., Mandel, Rolfe D., Sampson, C. Garth, Allen, Charles M., Allen, E. Thurman, Bush, Daniel A., et al., “Watson Brake, a Middle Archaic Mound Complex in Northeast Louisiana,” American Antiquity 70 (2005): 631–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solis, Ruth Shady, Haas, Jonathan, and Creamer, Winifred, “Dating Caral, a Preceramic Site in the Supe Valley on the Central Coast of Peru,” Science 292 (2001): 723–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spence, Michael, “Obsidian Production and the State in Teotihuacan,” American Antiquity 46 (1981): 769–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Victor D., and Andrus, C. Fred T., “Evaluating Mobility, Monumentality, and Feasting at the Sapelo Island Shell Ring Complex,” American Antiquity 76 (2011): 315–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wenke, Robert J., and Olszewski, Deborah I., The Past in Perspective, Oxford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Williams, Leon C., “Complejos pirámides con plaza en U, patrón arquitectónica de la costa central,” Revista del Museo Nacional 41 (1980): 95110.Google Scholar
Young, Lisa, “Diversity in First-Millennium ad Southwestern Farming Communities,” in Pauketat, Timothy R. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 561–70.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×