Migrations in Late Mesoamerica
Migrations in Late Mesoamerica
Bringing the often-neglected topic of migration to the forefront of ancient Mesoamerican studies, this volume uses an illuminating multidisciplinary approach to address the role of population movements in Mexico and Central America from AD 500 to 1500, the tumultuous centuries before European contact. Clarifying what has to date been chiefly speculation, researchers from the fields of archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics, ethnohistory, and art history delve deeply into the causes and impacts of prehistoric migration in the region. They draw on evidence including records of the Nahuatl language, murals painted at the Cacaxtla polity, ceramics in the style known as Coyotlatelco, skeletal samples from multiple sites, and conquest-era accounts of the origins of the Chichén Itzá Maya from both Native and Spanish scribes. The diverse datasets in this volume help reveal the choices and priorities of migrants during times of political, economic, and social changes that unmoored populations from ancestral lands. Migrations in Late Mesoamerica shows how migration patterns are vitally important to study due to their connection to environmental and political disruption in both ancient societies and today’s world. A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase
Sensible, refreshing, and very much needed. This book updates the state of studies of migrations in Late Mesoamerica, embedded within historical backgrounds and researched through various disciplines.’—Eugenia Ibarra Rojas, Universidad de Costa Rica ‘Compelling. Ancient populations faced many of the same challenges our society grapples with today, and ancient migrations forever altered the linguistic, cultural, and biological mix of the landscape of Mesoamerica, just as modern migrations are changing our world.’—Brett A. Houk, author of Ancient Maya Cities of the Eastern Lowlands
Christopher S. Beekman, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver, is coeditor of Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment.
Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Migrations in Late Mesoamerica Christopher S. Beekman I Northern Mesoamerica 1. How Mesoamerican are the Nahua Languages? Jane H. Hill 2. Three Migration Case Studies from the Tula Region Dan M. Healan and Robert H. Cobean 3. Migration and the Coyotlatelco Ceramic Tradition: Evidence from the Bajío Christine Hernández and Dan M. Healan 4. El Grillo - The Reestablishment of Community and Identity in Far Western Mexico Christopher S. Beekman 5. “Then They Pressed On”: Indigenous Migration in the Nahuatl Annals of Chimalpahin Susan Schroeder II Southern Mesoamerica 6. Classic Period Migration in the Maya Area: A Morphometric Analysis B. Scott Aubry 7. The Murals of Cacaxtla: Monumental Art as Evidence of Migration Andrew D. Turner 8. The Itza Maya Migration Narratives: Historic Reality, Myth, or... Weighing the Idea of Migrations in Light of New Research Erik Boot 9. The Pipil Migrations in Mesoamerica: History, Identity, and Politics William R. Fowler 10. Dialectology and the History of Nahua peoples in Guatemala Sergio Romero List of Contributors
