Mobility and Migration in Ancient Mesoamerican Cities

Mobility and Migration in Ancient Mesoamerican Cities is the first focused book-length discussion of migration in central Mexico, west Mexico and the Maya region, presenting case studies on population movement in and among Classic, Epiclassic, and Postclassic Mesoamerican societies and polities within the framework of urbanization and de-urbanization. Looking beyond the conceptual dichotomy of sedentism versus mobility, the contributors show that mobility and migration reveal a great deal about the formation, development, and decline of town- and city-based societies in the ancient world.

In a series of data-rich chapters that address specific evidence for movement in their respective study areas, an international group of scholars assesses mobility through the isotopic and demographic analysis of human remains, stratigraphic identification of gaps in occupation, and local intensification of water capture in the Maya lowlands. Others examine migration through the integration of historic and archaeological evidence in Michoacán and Yucatán and by registering how daily life changed in response to the influx of new people in the Basin of Mexico.

Offering a range of critical insights into the vital and under-studied role that mobility and migration played in complex agrarian societies, Mobility and Migration in Ancient Mesoamerican Cities will be of value to Mesoamericanist archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and bioarchaeologists and to any scholars working on complex societies.

Contributors:
Jaime J. Awe, Meggan Bullock, Sarah C. Clayton, Andrea Cucina, Véronique Darras, Nicholas P. Dunning, Mélanie Forné, Marion Forest, Carolyn Freiwald, Elizabeth Graham, Nancy Gonlin, Julie A. Hoggarth, Linda Howie, Elsa Jadot, Kristin V. Landau, Eva Lemonnier, Dominique Michelet, David Ortegón Zapata, Prudence M. Rice, Thelma N. Sierra Sosa, Michael P. Smyth, Vera Tiesler, Eric Weaver

M. Charlotte Arnauld is an archaeologist and research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Archéologie des Amériques in France. She has directed or codirected five long-term projects in highland Verapaz and northwest lowland La Joyanca in Petén, Guatemala; Balamku and Río Bec in Campeche, Mexico; and Zacapu in west Mexico. Her publications include several books and coedited books on the archaeology of Michoacán and the Maya lowlands and papers in numerous journals.

Christopher Beekman is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver. His research focuses on sociopolitical organization in ancient western Mexico. He has directed or codirected excavation projects at Llano Grande and Navajas and surveys in the La Primavera region and the Magdalena Valley. He is a coauthor of the first volume of Historia de Jalisco and has coedited several books, including Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands.

Grégory Pereira is research director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Archéologie des Amériques in France. He coordinates the Uacúsecha Project in the Zacapu basin, Michoacán, and collaborates in distinct projects in western and central México, the Gulf Coast, and the Maya area. He has coedited several books including Tradiciones cerámicas del Epiclásico en el Bajío y regiones aledañas, La Ciudad Perdida, Raíces de los soberanos tarascos, and Vista Hermosa, Nobles, artesanos y mercaderes en los confines del mundo huasteco.