Origins of the Nuu : archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico / Stephen A. Kowalewski ... [et al.].

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kowalewski, Stephen A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mixtec Indians--Origin.

Mixtec Indians.

Mixtec Indians--History.

Mixtec Indians--Antiquities.

Oaxaca (Mexico : State)--Antiquities.

Oaxaca (Mexico : State).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (545 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Boulder, Colo. : University Press of Colorado, c2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Combining older findings with new data on 1, 000 previously undescribed archaeological sites, Origins of the Ñuu presents the cultural evolution of the Mixteca Alta in an up-to-date chronological framework. The ñuu - the kingdoms of the famous Mixtec codices - are traced back through the Postclassic and Classic periods to their beginnings in the first states of the Terminal Formative, revealing their origin, evolution, and persistence through two cycles of growth and collapse. Challenging assumptions that the Mixtec were peripheral to better-known peoples such as the Aztecs or Maya, the book asserts that the ñuu were a major demographic and economic power in their own right. Older explanations of multiregional or macroregional systems often portrayed civilizations as rising in a cradle or hearth and spreading outward. New macroregional studies show that civilizations are products of more complex interactions between regions, in which peripheries are not simply shaped by cores but by their interactions with multiple societies at varying distances from major centers. Origins of the Ñuu is a significant contribution to this emerging area of archaeological research.

Contents:

Regional study of ancient societies in the Mixteca Alto

The Western Nochixtlan Valley

Greater Teposcolula

Greater Huamelulpan

The inner basin

Greater Tlaxiaco

The polities of the early and middle formative

The emergence of urbanism and the state

The classic Nuu

The postclassic Nuu

The Nuu in the anthropological perspective

Resumen en Espanol.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 395-406) and index.

ISBN:

9780870819902

0870819909

OCLC:

503441766