Exploring the multiple social, ecological, cultural, and ontological dimensions of food in the Andean past, this book offers a diverse set of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that reveal the richness, sophistication, and ingenuity of Andean peoples. With forty-six contributors from ten countries, the studies presented in this volume employ new analytical methods, integrating different food data and interdisciplinary research to show how food impacts sociopolitical relationships and ontologies that are otherwise invisible in the archaeological record.

The multiple vivid colors of scarlet macaws and their ability to mimic human speech are key reasons they were and are significant to the Native peoples of the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Although the birds’ natural habitat is the tropical forests of Mexico and Central and South America, they were present at multiple archaeological sites in the region yet absent at the vast majority. Leading experts in southwestern archaeology explore the reasons why.

Including research from both highland central Mexico and the tropical lowlands of the Maya and Olmec areas, this book reexamines demography in ancient Mesoamerica. Through new technology such as LiDAR (light detecting and ranging), the book provides new understandings of ancient Mesoamerican societies and how they changed over time.