Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica after the Spanish Invasion
Technology and Tradition in Mesoamerica after the Spanish Invasion
Archaeological Perspectives
This impressive collection features the work of archaeologists who systematically explore the material and social consequences of new technological systems introduced after the sixteenth-century Spanish invasion in Mesoamerica. It is the first collection to present case studies that show how both commonplace and capital-intensive technologies were intertwined with indigenous knowledge systems to reshape local, regional, and transoceanic ecologies, commodity chains, and political, social, and religious institutions across Mexico and Central America.
The volume represents an important contribution to a more sophisticated understanding of technological change in the Americas. It is of interest across the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, art history, history, Latin American studies, and technology studies.
This fascinating edited volume offers a set of nine superbly focused studies by a talented group of archeologists examining the history of technology in Mesoamerica.
A worthy accompaniment to recent collections on the postcolonial archaeology of Mesoamerica.…The works presented in Technology and Tradition are a testament to how attention to things and contexts undervalued can inform not only the questions specific to a given site, but what we understand about the materiality—and experience—of longer-term and larger-scale processes such as settler colonialism and racial capitalism.
The innovative archaeological histories of technology presented [in this volume] will position Mesoamerican historical archaeology as an emerging contributor to broader theoretical and methodological conversations in anthropology and archaeology, while speaking to themes in the archaeology of the contemporary past, industrial archaeology, archaeologies of capitalism and colonialism, and more.
Rani T. Alexander is a professor of anthropology at New Mexico State University and the coeditor, with Susan Kepecs, of The Postclassic to Spanish-Era Transition in Mesoamerica: Archaeological Perspectives (UNM Press) and Colonial and Postcolonial Change in Mesoamerica: Archaeology as Historical Anthropology (UNM Press).
List of Illustrations
Chapter One. Technology and Tradition after the Spanish Invasion: An Introduction
Rani T. Alexander
Chapter Two. Obsidian Production and Use in Central Mexico after the Spanish Invasion
Alejandro Pastrana Cruz, Patricia Fournier García, William J. Parry, and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton
Chapter Three. Postconquest Technological Innovation and Effect on Ceramic Traditions in Central Mexico
Patricia Fournier García and Cynthia L. Otis Charlton
Chapter Four. Ceramic Technology in AfromestizoNeighborhoods of the Colonial Port of Veracruz, Mexico
Krista L. Eschbach
Chapter Five. New Materials—New Technologies? Postclassic and Early Colonial Technological Transitions in the Nejapa Region of Oaxaca, Mexico
Stacie M. King and Elizabeth Konwest
Chapter Six. Technology and Forest Transitions in the Soconusco Region of Chiapas, Mexico
Mario A. Castillo and Janine Gasco
Chapter Seven. Norias, Cenotes, and Rejolladas: Changes in Yucatán’s Hydrogeologic Landscape after the Spanish Invasion
Rani T. Alexander and Nina Williams
Chapter Eight. Technological Change of Henequen Decorticating Machines during Yucatán’s Gilded Age
Héctor Hernández Álvarez
Chapter Nine. Cane and Consumerism: Nineteenth-Century Sugar Growing at Lamanai, Belize
Tracie Mayfield, Elizabeth Graham, and David Pendergast
Chapter Ten. An Archaeology of Indigo: Changes in Labor and Technology in the Izalcos Region of Western El Salvador
Kathryn E. Sampeck
Chapter Eleven. Technological and Cultural Change during the Conquest Period at Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador
Jeb J. Card and William R. Fowler Jr.
Chapter Twelve. European Technology and Native Traditions in Mesoamerican History: A Commentary
Anthony P. Andrews
References Cited
Contributors
Index
