Aztec, Inca, Maya

Catalog description

ANTH 8 is a comparative survey of the development of the pre-Columbian Latin American civilizations. It is a general survey of three of the great complex societies of the New World - the Aztec and the Maya of Mesoamerica (Southern Mexico and Northern Central America), and the Inca of the Central Andes of South America. Both the Aztec and the Inca empires were thriving in the 16th century when Europeans arrived, and are known almost completely from ethnographic information such as oral and written records. The Classic Maya were much earlier (AD 250-900), and are known primarily through archaeological research, but also through the lens of the New World's only sophisticated writing system. The course informs students about the methods of archaeology and places these cultures in a broader comparative perspective. By studying archaeological evidence from several sites we will address a few important theoretical issues in archaeology. These issues include: 1) the relationship between people, the environment, and social organization 2) the study of elites and commoners in archaeological cultures, and 3) the use of historical and archaeological data in reconstructing the past. Throughout the semester we will also examine varied lines of evidence, including archaeological artifacts, human remains, architecture, murals, sculpture, and historical texts (esp. codices and colonial accounts) to assess the role of evidence and theory in how we conceptualize the past. The information presented emphasizes the nature of these societies, analysis and interpretation of their basic institutions, religions, world views, as well as their culture histories. Central to the presentation is the degree to which modern Latin American cultures and populations have deep cultural and biological roots in the Pre-Columbian past, and many ethnographic models are discussed. Within the context of each segment, sociological concepts such as institutions, households, stratification, political economy, urbanization, and a host of others are used as organizing features. Issues of gender, ethnicity, and class structure are also discussed. Issues such as the peopling of the Americas, the origins of agriculture, and other Mesoamerican cultures are also reviewed.