Mexico's Indigenous Past

by Austin, Alfredo Lopez; Lujan, Leonardo Lopez; De Montellano, Bernard R. Ortiz

• ISBN13: 9780806137230
• ISBN10: 0806137231
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-30
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr

Summary

This handsomely illustrated book offers a panoramic view of ancient Mexico, beginning more than thirty thousand years ago and ending with European occupation in the sixteenth century. Drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources, the book is one of the first to offer a unified vision of Mexico's precolonial past. Typical histories of Mexico focus on the prosperity and accomplishments of Mesoamerica, located in the southern half of Mexico, due to the wealth of records about the glorious past of this region. Mesoamerica was only one of three cultural superareas of ancient Mexico, however, all interlinked by complex economic and social relationships. Tracing the large social transformations that took place from the earliest hunter-gatherer times to the Postclassic states, the authors describe the ties between the three superareas of ancient Mexico, which stretched from present-day Costa Rica to what is now the southwestern United States. According to the authors, these superareas-Mesoamerica, Aridamerica, and Oasisamerica-cannot be viewed as independent entities. Instead, they must be considered as a whole to understand the complex reality of Mexico's past and possible visions of Mexico's future.

Author Biography

Alfredo Lopez Austin, Emeritus Researcher and Professor of History at Instituto de Investigaciones Antropologicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Leonardo Lopez Lujan, Senior Researcher and Professor of Archaeology at Museo de Templo Mayor, Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
Preface	xiii
Translator's Note	xvii
Introduction: Ancient Mexico	3	(4)
1. The Great Divisions: Aridamerica, Oasisamerica, and Mesoamerica	7	(67)
2. The Mesoamerican Preclassic Period	74	(27)
3. The Mesoamerican Classic Period	101	(67)
4. The Mesoamerican Epiclassic Period	168	(20)
5. The Mesoamerican Postclassic Period	188	(110)
Conclusion: The Three Histories	298	(9)
Bibliography	307	(20)
Index	327