Prof. Anthony P. Andrews
Office: College Hall 212
(x 4327)
Office Hours: Wednesday, 1-3
andrews@ncf.edu
Fall 2007
Anthropology Lab
Tues & Fri: 3:30-4:50
Syllabus
online at website below
http://faculty.ncf.edu/andrews/
This course is a seminar/survey of Mesoamerican prehistory from Paleo-Indian times to the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. It will involve both lectures and discussions, and a considerable amount of audio-visual materials. Special emphasis will be placed on the processes that led to the origins of food production, the development of Formative cultures, the rise and fall of Classic period states, and the emergence of Postclassic empires.
The primary purpose of an archaeological area course is to investigate the development of culture in a particular geographical area. This specific development, interesting as it may be in its own right, becomes of interest to general anthropology only as an example that may be compared and contrasted with examples from other times and places. For these comparative purposes, Mesoamerica is a critical area. It is the locus of one of the most thoroughly researched regions for both the development of food production and the origin of early civilization. No anthropologist can claim familiarity with the development of human culture without some knowledge of what happened in ancient Mesoamerica.
2004 Ancient Maya. The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
2004 Ancient Mexico and Central America. Thames and Hudson, New York and London.
The above texts, and the National Geographic and National Geographic's Research & Exploration articles will be on shelf reserve at the Circulation Desk. All other articles will be on electronic reserve [ER]. Science articles are available online at http://www.sciencemag.org/; Nature is available online at http://sfx.fcla.edu/usf?sidsfx:e collection&issn=0028-0836 National Geographic, Scientific American, Science, and Nature are also available in the journal stacks.
Demarest: Chaps. 1-3.
Evans: Chap. 2: 62-70.
1993 Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas. Evolutionary Anthropology, 1 (5): 157-69. [ER]
2003 The Current Debate About the Origins of the Paleoindians of America. Journal of Social History, 37 (2): 483-92. [ER; also available online through the library subscription at http://muse.jhu.edu.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/journals/journal_of_social_history/v037/37.2klein.html
1995 The Origins of Agriculture in the Americas. Evolutionary Anthropology, 3 (5): 174-84. [ER]
2007 Earliest evidence of maize farming in Mexico. Mexicon, 29 (2): 38. [ER]
2001 Origin and Environmental Setting of Ancient Agriculture in the Lowlands of Mesoamerica. Science, 292 (5520; May 18): 1370-73. (ER; also available online)
Demarest: Chap. 4: 53-62.
1976 The Early Mesoamerican Village. Chap. 2: 13-47 (all sections); Chap 3: 79-90 (section by Marcus; skim). [ER]
1999 Ritual and Economy of the Preclassic Maya: Recent Evidence from Cuello, Belize. In The Archaeology of Mesoamerica (W. Bray and L. Manzanilla, eds.): 83-96. [ER]
Video: Excavations at La Venta
Demarest: Chap. 4: 62-72.
1992 The Olmec Legacy. Research & Exploration, 8 (2): 148-65. [ER]
1993 New Light on the Olmec. National Geographic, 184 (5; Nov.): 88-115.
Demarest: Chap. 4: 72-88
1983 The Origins of the State in Oaxaca: Editor's Introduction. In The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations (K.V. Flannery and J. Marcus, eds.): 79-83. [ER]
1987 An Early Metropolis Uncovered: El Mirador. National Geographic, 172 (3; : 316-39.
2001 The First Cities -- The Beginnings of Urbanization and State Formation in the Maya Lowlands. In Maya. Divine Kings of the Rainforest (Nikolai Grube, ed.): 50-65. [ER]
Video: El Mirador: A Preclassic Maya City.
Evans: Chap. 10
1995 The Timeless Vision of Teotihuacán. National Geographic, 188 (6; Dec.): 2-35.
1997 State and Society at Teotihuacán, Mexico. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26: 129-61. [ER]
Evans: Chap. 13
1980 Zapotec Writing. Scientific American, 242 (2): 50-64. [ER]
1989 Obsidian Working, Long-Distance Exchange and the Teotihuacan Presence on the South Gulf Coast. In Mesoamerica after the Decline of Teotihuacán, A.D. 700-900 (R.A. Diehl and J.C. Berlo, eds.): 131-52. [ER]
1989 Maya Writing. Scientific American, 261 (2; Aug): 82-89. [ER]
1990 Scribes, Warriors and Kings. The Lives of the Copán Maya. Archaeology, 43 (3): 26-35. [ER]
1995 Maya Superstates. Archaeology, 48 (3): 41-46. [ER]
Demarest: Chap. 10.
1995 Possible role of climate in the collapse of Classic Maya civilization. Nature, 375 (6530; June 1): 391-94. [ER]
2002 The Collapse of the Classic Maya: a Case for the Control of Water Control. American Anthropologist, 104 (3): 814-26. [ER; also available online at http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/hww/shared/shared_main.jhtml?_requestid=13654 ]
1988 Isla Cerritos: An Itzá Trading Port on the North Coast of Yucatán Mexico. Research & Exploration, 4 (2): 196-207. [ER]
1989 The Fall of Chichén Itzá: A Preliminary Hypothesis. Latin American Antiquity, 1 (3): 257-67. [ER]
2003 The Northern Maya Collapse and its Aftermath. Ancient Mesoamerica, 14 (1): 1-6. [ER]
Evans: Chap. 15.
1983 The Postclassic Balkanization of Oaxaca: An Introduction to the Late Postclassic. In The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations (K.V. Flannery and J. Marcus, eds.): 217-26. [ER]
Evans: Chaps. 17-19, to page 512.
1990 Long-Distance Trade Under the Aztec Empire. Ancient Mesoamerica, 1 (2): 153-69. [ER]
1984 The Great Temple of Tenochtitlán. Scientific American, 251 (2): 80-89. [ER]
1956 The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico [Orig. 1632]. Read Chapter V ("The Stay in Mexico"): 202-25. [ER]
Evans: Chap. 19: 512-22.