Mesoamerica: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Current Classification (original) (raw)
2014, Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology
AI-generated Abstract
The paper critically examines the term Mesoamerica, evaluating its definition and historical context. It discusses both the strengths and limitations of the term as a heuristic device for analyzing cultural characteristics across the region, while also addressing the implications of its fluid boundaries and the challenges posed by scholarly disagreements. Furthermore, the work emphasizes the value of Mesoamerica in fostering global discussions about complexity and cultural developments, extending from early human migrations to contemporary indigenous rights movements.
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Mesoamerica, the Northwest of Mexico and the Southwest United States
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The complicated cultural history of the modern nation of Mexico has created a lengthy list of people who have vested interests in the protection, promotion, and presentation of the pre-Hispanic past. In this paper, I wrestle with my own attempts to understand the complexities of these competing narratives by examining who the stakeholders are in this situation and why they consider themselves to be stakeholders. Ultimately I attempt to address how we can approach conflicts between stakeholders when their interpretations of the pre-Hispanic past do not agree. These problems unfortunately are not simple and do not have simple solutions, but they do form an important part of understanding the contemporary legacies of ancient Mesoamerica.
Ancient Mesoamerica, 2006
The authors challenge the argument by other world-system scholars that Lower Central America fell outside the Mesoamerican world-system during the late Postclassic period. Drawing on ethnohistoric and archaeological information, it is argued that native peoples along the Pacific Coast of Central America from El Salvador to the Nicoya Peninsula (Costa Rica) are best understood as part of the Mesoamerican periphery. The Central American peoples south of Nicoya formed both a chiefly world-system of their own and part of the Mesoamerican frontier by engaging in networks of trade and preciosity exchanges with the coastal Mesoamericans in Nicoya and Nicaragua. Support for this argument is based primarily on two “microhistoric” case studies of peoples located on both sides of the Mesoamerican/Lower Central America border, specifically the Chorotegans of the Masaya/Granada area of Nicaragua and the Chibchans of the Diquis/Buenos Aires area of Costa Rica. Archaeological information on sites ...
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