Overview

On an August evening around AD 600, residents of the CerÉn village in the Zapotitán Valley of what is now El Salvador were sitting down to their nightly meal when ground tremors and loud steam emissions warned of an impending volcanic eruption. The villagers fled, leaving their town to be buried under five meters of volcanic ash and forgotten until a bulldozer uncovered evidence of the extraordinarily preserved town in 1976. The most intact Precolumbian village in Latin America, CerÉn has been called the ""Pompeii of the New World."" This book presents complete and detailed reports of the excavations carried out at CerÉn since 1978 by a multidisciplinary team of archaeologists, ethnographers, volcanologists, geophysicists, botanists, conservators, and others. The book is divided into sections that discuss the physical environment and resources, household structures and economy, special buildings and their uses, artifact analysis, and topical and theoretical issues. As the authors present and analyze CerÉn's houses and their goods, workshops, civic and religious buildings, kitchen gardens, planted fields, and garbage dumps, a new and much clearer picture of how commoners lived during the Maya Classic Period emerges. These findings constitute landmark contributions to the anthropology and archaeology of Central America.

Full Product Details

Author:   Payson D. Sheets
Publisher:   University of Texas Press
Imprint:   University of Texas Press
Dimensions:   Width: 21.60cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 27.90cm
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780292726215

ISBN 10:   029272621
Pages:   238
Publication Date:   01 July 2002
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Preface (Payson Sheets) Introduction (Payson Sheets, with an Appendix by Brian R. McKee) Part I. Multidisciplinary Research Volcanology, Stratigraphy, and Effects on Structures (C. Dan Miller) Geophysical Exploration at Ceren (Lawrence B. Conyers and Hartmut Spetzler) Ceren Plant Resources: Abundance and Diversity (David L. Lentz and Carlos R. Ramirez-Sosa) Part II. Household Archaeology Ancient Home and Garden: The View from Household 1 at Ceren (Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett, Scott E. Simmons, and David B. Tucker) Household 2 at Ceren: The Remains of an Agrarian and Craft-Oriented Corporate Group (Brian R. McKee) Structure 16: The Kitchen of Household 3 (Inga Calvin) Structure 4: A Storehouse-Workshop for Household 4 (Andrea I. Gerstle and Payson Sheets) Part III. Special Buildings The Civic Complex (Andrea I. Gerstle) Structure 9: A Precolumbian Sweat Bath at Ceren (Brian R. McKee) Structure 10: Feasting and Village Festivals (Linda A. Brown and Andrea I. Gerstle) Divination at Ceren: The Evidence from Structure 12 (Scott E. Simmons and Payson Sheets) Part IV. Artifacts Ceramics and Their Use at Ceren (Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett, with contributions by Ronald L. Bishop) The Chipped Stone Artifacts of Ceren (Payson Sheets) Groundstone Artifacts in the Ceren Village (Payson Sheets) Household and Community Animal Use at Ceren (Linda A. Brown) Artifacts Made from Plant Materials (Harriet F. Beaubien and Marilyn Beaudry-Corbett) Part V. Topics and Issues of Ceren Research The Conservation Program at Ceren (Harriet F. Beaubien) Household Production and Specialization at Ceren (Payson Sheets and Scott E. Simmons) Cultivating Biodiversity: Milpas, Gardens, and the Classic Period Landscape (Payson Sheets and Michelle Woodward) Continuity and Change in the Contemporary Community of Joya de Ceren (Carlos Benjamin Lara M. and Sarah B. Barber) Summary and Conclusions (Payson Sheets) Glossary References Index

Reviews

Overall, Before the Volcano Erupted will open the eyes of many Mesoamerican archaeologists to the magnitude of what they may normally be missing, and will stand as a widely cited benchmark for years to come. It is a must-buy for Mayanists, most Mesoamerican archaeologists and students of volcanic archaeology, but archaeologists in general will find it a phenomenally interesting read.--Charles D. Frederick, University of Sheffield The Holocene (01/01/2004)

Overall, Before the Volcano Erupted will open the eyes of many Mesoamerican archaeologists to the magnitude of what they may normally be missing, and will stand as a widely cited benchmark for years to come. It is a must-buy for Mayanists, most Mesoamerican archaeologists and students of volcanic archaeology, but archaeologists in general will find it a phenomenally interesting read.

Author Information

Payson Sheets is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado.

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