Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Symposia and Colloquia

This volume is devoted to the archaeology of Formative Ecuador in order to bring new information on this important period of the region’s past to the attention of New World scholars.

As in the Old World, kings and nobles of ancient Mexico and Peru had luxurious administrative quarters in cities, and exquisite pleasure palaces in the countryside. This volume explores the great houses of the ancient New World, from palaces of the Aztecs and Incas, looted by the Spanish conquistadors, to those lost high in the Andes and deep in the jungle.

This volume contains: David A. Freidel, “Polychrome Facades of the Lowland Maya Preclassic”; Linda Schele, “Color on Classic Architecture and Monumental Sculpture of the Southern Maya Lowlands”; Jeff Karl Kowalski, “Painted Architecture in the Northern Maya Area”; John Paddock, “Painted Architecture and Sculpture in Ancient Oaxaca”; Ellen Taylor Baird, “Naturalistic and Symbolic Color at Tula, Hidalgo”; H. B. Nicholson, “Polychrome on Aztec Sculpture”; and Elizabeth H. Boone, “The Color of Mesoamerican Architecture and Sculpture.”

This volume brings together essays on the nature of political organization of the Moche, a complex pre-Inca society that existed on the north coast of Peru from c. 100 to 800 CE. Since the discovery of the royal tombs of Sipán in 1987, the Moche have become one of the best-known pre-Hispanic cultures of the Americas and the focus of a number of archaeological projects. But the nature of Moche political organization is still debated. Based on a set of papers presented by 16 international scholars at the 2004 Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian Studies symposium, this volume marks an important point in the development of Moche archaeology.

This volume is a “must read” for all Mesoamericanists. Originally published in 2007, it revisits long-standing questions regarding the relationship between Chichén Itzá and Tula and considers their roles in the social, political, and economic relationships that emerged during the transition from the Epiclassic to the Early Postclassic period.

Their Way of Writing considers substantive and theoretical issues concerning writing and signing systems in the ancient Americas. The contributions here not only present the latest thinking about graphic and tactile systems of communication but constitute a major contribution to our comparative and global understanding of writing and literacy.

Tombs for the Living examines how mortuary practices functioned in different cultures across the Andes. By examining rich sets of archaeological, ethnographic, and ethnohistoric data, this collection enriches our understanding of the context and meaning of mortuary traditions in the region.

This volume explores how ancient Mesoamerican cities defined themselves through their built environments. Themes include the ways in which a kingdom’s monuments reflected geographic space, patron gods, and mythology, and how the Olmec, Maya, Mexica, Zapotecs, and others sought to center their world through architectural monuments and public art.

Archaeological illustrations are often treated as neutral representations. This volume considers them instead as products of time and place that actively shape the construction of knowledge. Taking the visual presentation of the Pre-Columbian past from the fifteenth century to today, these essays explore the culture of archaeological illustration.

Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World investigates the complex structure of economic systems in the pre-Hispanic Americas, with a focus on the central highlands of Mexico, the Maya Lowlands, and the central Andes. Essays examine the use of marketplaces, the role of merchants and artisans, and the operation of trade networks.