The Social Life of Pre‐Sunrise Things: Indigenous Mesoamerican Archaeology

• Published in: Current anthropology 2002-06, Vol.43 (3), p.351-382
• Main Author: Hamann, Byron
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: American Indians; Anthropology; Archaeology; Central America; Intellectual History; Material culture; Middle Ages; Past; Reflexivity; Sixteenth Century; Social life; Social theory; Twentieth Century
• ISSN: 0011-3204; 1537-5382
• DOI: 10.1086/339526

Comments are offered by Jennifer Ahlfeldt, Quetzil Castaneda, George L. Cowgill, Arthur A. Demarest, Yannis Hamilakis, Ian Hodder, Rosemary A. Joyce, & Maria de los Angeles Romero Frizzi. A reply is offered by Hamann. Centuries before the creation of archaeology as a scientific discipline in the modern West, indigenous people in Mesoamerica developed their own interpretations for the physical remains of their past. This study draws on archaeological, ethnographic, & historical sources to explore a tradition of indigenous Mesoamerican archaeology. By resorting to the culture-area concept of Mesoamerica, an interpretive structure of the long term is outlined. This framework is used to explore the social life of objects & places from "the past" in three paired locations: the Classic site of Teotihuacan & the 16th-century Mexica Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan; the Classic site of Yucunudahui & the 16th-century Mixtec community of Chachoapan; & the Postclassic site of Chichen Itza & the 20th-century Yucatec Maya community of Chan Kom. Shifting between wide & narrow perspectives in time & space, this study considers archaeology as a social practice, inventions & revisions of tradition, & the productivity of regional generalizations & structures of the long term. 5 Figures, 180 References. Adapted from the source document.