Embattled bodies, embattled places : war in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes / Andrew K. Scherer and John W. Verano, Editors.
Scherer, Andrew K., author, editor.; Verano, John W., author, editor.
2014
F1219.3.W37 E49 2014 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection

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Title
Embattled bodies, embattled places : war in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes / Andrew K. Scherer and John W. Verano, Editors.
ISBN
9780884023951 (hardcover)
0884023958 (hardcover)
Published
Washington, D.C. : Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, [2014]
Language
English
Description
viii, 424 pages : illustrations, maps ; 29 cm.
Call Number
F1219.3.W37 E49 2014
Dewey Decimal Classification
980/.01
Summary
With spears and arrows, atl-atls and slings, the people of the New World fought to defend themselves against European invasion and conquest. Over a century of scholarship on warfare has substantially enhanced our understanding of the scope and scale of violent conflict in Pre-Columbian America. Yet we still struggle to understand the nuances of indigenous warfare and its importance for native politics and society. This volume sheds new light on the nature of war in Mesoamerica and the Andes. Relying on methodological and theoretical developments in anthropological archaeology, bioarchaeology, and ethnohistory, the contributors highlight the particularities of warfare in indigenous societies and shed light on the commonalities of warfare in cross-cultural perspective. Their essays focus on place and the body as they explore the importance of captive-taking, sacrifice, performance, and political history in the conduct of war. Observers have debated whether the indigenous peoples of the Americas were distinctly noble or frightfully savage in their way of war. This volume shows that such polarized positions are unfounded. By focusing on the nuances of indigenous violent conflict, the contributors demonstrate that war in the Americas was much like war elsewhere in the ancient and modern world: strategic, political, bloody, socially productive, yet terribly destructive. -- from back cover.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Added Author
Scherer, Andrew K., author, editor.
Verano, John W., author, editor.
Series
Dumbarton Oaks Pre-Columbian symposia and colloquia.
Record Appears in
On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
Introducing war in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes / Andrew K. Scherer and John W. Verano
War, violence, and society in the Maya lowlands / Takeshi Inomata
War in the west : history, landscape, and classic Maya conflict / Andrew K. Scherer and Charles Golden
Invasion : the Maya at war, 1520s-1540s / Matthew Restall
Warfare in late/terminal formative-period Oaxaca / Arthur A. Joyce
Aztec battlefields of eastern Guerrero : an archaeological and ethnohistorical analysis of the operational theater of the Tlapanec War / Gerardo Gutierrez
Sacrifice at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan and its role in regard to warfare / Ximena Chavez Balderas
"I against my brother" : conflict and confederation in the south-central Andes in late prehistory / Elizabeth Arkush
Making warriors, making war : violence and militarism in the Wari empire / Tiffiny A. Tung
Taming the Moche / Luis Jaime Castillo Butters
Warfare and captive sacrifice in the Moche culture : the battle continues / John W. Verano
A materiality of opposition : on ancient Andean conflict and organization in northern Peru / George F. Lau
The fall of Kuelap : bioarchaeological analysis of death and destruction on the eastern slopes of the Andes / J. Marla Toyne and L. Alfredo Narvaez Vargas
The scope of Inca warfare as an imperial strategy of conquest and control / Dennis E. Ogburn
Some concluding remarks : the view from outside / John Haldon.

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