This handsomely illustrated book offers a panoramic view of ancient Mexico, beginning more than thirty thousand years ago and ending with European occupation in the sixteenth century. Drawing on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources, the book is one of the first to offer a unified vision of Mexico's precolonial past.
Typical histories of Mexico focus on the prosperity and accomplishments of Mesoamerica, located in the southern half of Mexico, due to the wealth of records about the glorious past of this region. Mesoamerica was only one of three cultural superareas of ancient Mexico, however, all interlinked by complex economic and social relationships.
Tracing the large social transformations that took place from the earliest hunter-gatherer times to the Postclassic states, the authors describe the ties between the three superareas of ancient Mexico, which stretched from present-day Costa Rica to what is now the southwestern United States. According to the authors, these superareas-Mesoamerica, Aridamerica, and Oasisamerica-cannot be viewed as independent entities. Instead, they must be considered as a whole to understand the complex reality of Mexico's past and possible visions of Mexico's future.
- ISBN13 9780806132143
- Publish Date 15 November 2001
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 2 June 2021
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Oklahoma Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 368
- Language English