Interregional Interaction in Ancient Mesoamerica

“Interregional interaction is a timely subject in Mesoamerican studies. This volume will offer a range of approaches to understand and assess interaction.”

—Cynthia Kristan-Graham, Auburn University

"The essays in this volume bolster a growing consensus that interregional interaction was the norm and not the exception in ancient Mesoamerica."

—Antiquity

"I congratulate the editors for assembling such an informative series of essays. The strength of this book is the empirical data, and I encourage colleagues to take the plunge and explore these richly presented analyses of sites and their materials."

—Latin American Antiquity

"Interregional Interaction in Ancient Mesoamerica will be an influential volume for future scholarship of the formation and maintenance of Mesoamerica. This book is a treasure trove for Mesoamericanist scholars of all stripes."

—Hispanic American Historical Review

“The editors and authors are to be complimented for their efforts and often brilliant insights.”

—Journal of Anthropological Research

Interregional Interaction in Ancient Mesoamerica explores the role of interregional interaction in the dynamic sociocultural processes that shaped the pre-Columbian societies of Mesoamerica. Interdisciplinary contributions from leading scholars investigate linguistic exchange and borrowing, scribal practices, settlement patterns, ceramics, iconography, and trade systems, presenting a variety of case studies drawn from multiple spatial, temporal, and cultural contexts within Mesoamerica.

Archaeologists have long recognized the crucial role of interregional interaction in the development and cultural dynamics of ancient societies, particularly in terms of the evolution of sociocultural complexity and economic systems. Recent research has further expanded the archaeological, art historical, ethnographic, and epigraphic records in Mesoamerica, permitting a critical reassessment of the complex relationship between interaction and cultural dynamics. This volume builds on and amplifies earlier research to examine sociocultural phenomena—including movement, migration, symbolic exchange, and material interaction—in their role as catalysts for variability in cultural systems.

Interregional cultural exchange in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica played a key role in the creation of systems of shared ideologies, the production of regional or “international” artistic and architectural styles, shifting sociopolitical patterns, and changes in cultural practices and meanings. Interregional Interaction in Ancient Mesoamerica highlights, engages with, and provokes questions pertinent to understanding the complex relationship between interaction, sociocultural processes, and cultural innovation and change in the ancient societies and cultural histories of Mesoamerica and will be of interest to archaeologists, linguists, and art historians.

Contributors: Philip J. Arnold III, Lourdes Budar, José Luis Punzo Diaz, Gary Feinman, David Freidel, Elizabeth Jiménez Garcia, Guy David Hepp, Kerry M. Hull, Timothy J. Knab, Charles L. F. Knight, Blanca E. Maldonado, Joyce Marcus, Jesper Nielsen, John M. D. Pohl, Iván Rivera, D. Bryan Schaeffer, Niklas Schulze