Ancient Mesoamerican Population History
Ancient Mesoamerican Population History
Urbanism, Social Complexity, and Change
Establishing ancient population numbers and determining how they were distributed across a landscape over time constitute two of the most pressing problems in archaeology. Accurate population data is crucial for modeling, interpreting, and understanding the past. Now, advances in both archaeology and technology have changed the way that such approximations can be achieved.
Including research from both highland central Mexico and the tropical lowlands of the Maya and Olmec areas, this book reexamines the demography in ancient Mesoamerica. Contributors present methods for determining population estimates, field methods for settlement pattern studies to obtain demographic data, and new technologies such as LiDAR (light detecting and ranging) that have expanded views of the ground in forested areas. Contributions to this book provide a view of ancient landscape use and modification that was not possible in the twentieth century. This important new work provides new understandings of Mesoamerican urbanism, development, and changes over time.
Contributors
Traci Ardren
M. Charlotte Arnauld
Bárbara Arroyo
Luke Auld-Thomas
Marcello A. Canuto
Adrian S. Z. Chase
Arlen F. Chase
Diane Z. Chase
Elyse D. Z. Chase
Javier Estrada
Gary M. Feinman
L. J. Gorenflo
Julien Hiquet
Scott R. Hutson
Gerardo Jiménez Delgado
Eva Lemonnier
Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo
José Lobo
Javier López Mejía
Michael L. Loughlin
Deborah L. Nichols
Christopher A. Pool
Ian G. Robertson
Jeremy A. Sabloff
Travis W. Stanton
Chase et al. have brought together archaeologists working in the arid highlands and the rainforest lowland of Mesoamerica, where the landscape has traditionally meant radically different field methods were used for survey. The papers include insightful discussions of how population estimates are made from surface scatters of artifacts in highland Mesoamerica (and some areas of the northern Yucatán) and from transect survey and test excavations in the lowlands. The papers will challenge current and future researchers to refine chronologies by including radiocarbon dating, to refine interpretations of mounds in population estimates, and to reevaluate sampling strategies now that LiDAR allows complete coverage of sites and regions. The detailed descriptions of settlement pattern research underscore the varied approaches to common problems of identifying housemounds, houses, family size, and ultimately demographic changes over time.’—Heather McKillop, author of Maya Salt Works
Adrian S. Z. Chase is a Mesoamerican archaeologist who is currently at the University of Chicago as a Mansueto Institute postdoctoral fellow and Department of Anthropology postdoctoral scholar.
Arlen F. Chase is a Mesoamerican archaeologist who is currently a professor in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston and is a co-editor of The Materialization of Time in the Ancient Maya World.
Diane Z. Chase is a Mesoamerican archaeologist who is currently provost at the University of Houston and a co-editor (with Arlen F. Chase) of Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment.
Foreword
List of Figures
List of Tables
I. The Present
1. Arlen F. Chase, Diane Z. Chase, and Adrian S.Z. Chase – Archaeological Population Studies
in Mesoamerica
II. Urban Considerations
2. Barbara Arroyo and Javier Estrada – The Population of Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala during the Preclassic Period: New Perspectives and Considerations
3. Adrian S.Z. Chase, Elyse D.Z. Chase, Diane Z. Chase, and Arlen F. Chase – Population History for Caracol, Belize: Numbers, Complexity, and Urbanism
4. Travis W. Stanton, Scott R. Hutson, and Traci Ardren – People, Pixels, and Points per Square Meter: Using Lidar to Estimate Populations at Coba, Quintana Roo
III. Maya Regional Considerations
5. Scott R. Hutson – Population Estimates and Population Movement in Northwest Yucatan, Mexico
6. M. Charlotte Arnauld, Eva Lemonnier, and Julien Hiquet – Classic Maya Population History as Seen from Rio Bec, Campeche, Mexico
7. Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo, Javier López Mejía, and Gerardo Jiménez Delgado – Ancient Population History in the Palenque Region: The Problem of the Selection of Population Proxies
8. Marcello A. Canuto and Luke Auld-Thomas – Greater than the Sum of Its Surveyed Parts: Reconstructing the Population of Late Classic Peten with Updated Methods and New Data
IV. Central Mexican Regional Considerations
9. Larry J. Gorenflo, Ian G. Robertson, and Deborah Nichols – The Basin of Mexico: Revisiting Prehispanic Population
10. Gary M. Feinman – Prehispanic Population Estimates for the Valley of Oaxaca
11. Christopher A. Pool and Michael L. Loughlin – Reconstructing Population Histories in the Gulf Lowlands: Review and Prospect
V. The Future
12. Jeremy A. Sabloff – Some Comments on Major issues in the Study of Ancient Mesoamerican Population Estimates
13. Adrian S.Z. Chase and José Lobo – The Future of Mesoamerican Settlement Archaeology and Urban Science
Foodways of the Ancient Andes
Transforming Diet, Cuisine, and Society
Edited by Marta P Alfonso-Durruty and Deborah E Blom
