Full Description
This volume reprints 20 chapters from the editors' comprehensive Histories of Maize (2006) that are relevant to Mesoamerican specialists and students. New findings and interpretations from the past three years have been included. Histories of Maize is the most comprehensive reference source on the botanical, genetic, archaeological, and anthropological aspects of ancient maize published. Included in this abridged volume are new introductory and concluding chapters and updated material on isotopic research. State of the art research on maize chronology, molecular biology, and stable carbon isotope research on ancient human diets have provided additional lines of evidence on the changing role of maize through time and space and its spread throughout the Americas. The multidisciplinary evidence from the social and biological sciences presented in this volume have generated a much more complex picture of the economic, political, and religious significance of maize.
Contents
Introduction to the Histories of Maize in Mesoamerica, John E. Staller; Part 1 Histories of Maize:; Chapter 1 Differing Approaches and Perceptions in the Study of New and Old World Crops, Terence A. Brown; Chapter 2 Maize in the Americas, Bruce F. Benz; Chapter 3 Ancient DNA and the Integration of Archaeological and Genetic Approaches to the Study of Maize Domestication, Viviane R. Jaenicke-Després, Bruce D. Smith; Chapter 4 Dating the Initial Spread of Zea mays, Michael Blake; Chapter 5 Toward a Biologically Based Method of Phytolith Classification, Greg Laden; Part II Histories of Maize:; Chapter 6 Early Agriculture in Chihuahua, Mexico, Robert J. Hard, A. C. Macwilliams, John R. Roney, Karen R. Adams, William L. Merrill; Chapter 7 El Riego and Early Maize Agricultural Evolution, Bruce F. Benz, Li Cheng, Steven W. Leavitt, Chris Eastoe; Chapter 8 The Maize Revolution, Robert A. Dull; Chapter 9 Pre-Columbian Maize Agriculture in Costa Rica, Sally P. Horn; Chapter 10 Caribbean Maize, Lee A. Newsom; Part III Histories of Maize:; Chapter 11 Isotope Analysis and the Histories of Maize; Chapter 12 Social Directions in the Isotopic Anthropology of Maize in the Maya Region, Christine D. White, Fred J. Longstaffe, Henry P. Schwarcz; Chapter 13 Early to Terminal Classic Maya Diet in the Northern Lowlands of the Yucatán (Mexico), Eugenia Brown Mansell, Robert H. Tykot, David A. Freidel, Bruce H. Dahlin, Traci Ardren; Chapter 14 Diet in Prehistoric Soconusco, Brian Chisholm, Blake Michael; Chapter 15 Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis and Human Diet in Mesoamerica: A Synthesis, Henry P. Schwachz; Part IV Histories of Maize; Chapter 16 Thipaak and the Origins of Maize in Northern Mesoamerica, Janis B. Alcorn, Barbara Edmonson, HernÁndez Vidales CÁndido; Chapter 17 Maize in Word and Image in Southeastern Mesoamerica, Stross Brian; Chapter 18 The Place of Maize in Indigenous Mesoamerican Folk Taxonomies, Nicholas A. Hopkins; Chapter 19 The Historical Linguistics of Maize Cultivation in Mesoamerica and North America, Jane H. Hill; Chapter 20 Glottochronology and the Chronology of Maize in the Americas, Cecil H. Brown; Chapter 21 The Antiquity, Biogeography and Culture History of Maize in Mesoamerica, F. Benz Bruce, John E. Staller;
