Overview
Trading was the favorite occupation of the Maya, according to early Spanish observers such as Fray Diego de Landa (1566). Yet scholars of the Maya have long dismissed trade—specifically, market exchange—as unimportant. They argue that the Maya subsisted primarily on agriculture, with long-distance trade playing a minor role in a largely non-commercialized economy. The Ancient Maya Marketplace reviews the debate on Maya markets and offers compelling new evidence for the existence and identification of ancient marketplaces in the Maya Lowlands. Its authors rethink the prevailing views about Maya economic organization and offer new perspectives. They attribute the dearth of Maya market research to two factors: persistent assumptions that Maya society and its rainforest environment lacked complexity, and an absence of physical evidence for marketplaces—a problem that plagues market research around the world. Many Mayanists now agree that no site was self-sufficient, and that from the earliest times robust local and regional exchange existed alongside long-distance trade. Contributors to this volume suggest that marketplaces, the physical spaces signifying the presence of a market economy, did not exist for purely economic reasons but served to exchange information and create social ties as well. The Ancient Maya Marketplace offers concrete links between Maya archaeology, ethnohistory, and contemporary cultures. Its in-depth review of current research will help future investigators to recognize and document marketplaces as a long-standing Maya cultural practice. The volume also provides detailed comparative data for premodern societies elsewhere in the world.
Full Product Details
Author: Eleanor M. King
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Imprint: University of Arizona Press
Edition: 2nd
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.30cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.589kg
ISBN: 9780816500413
ISBN 10: 081650041
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 30 November 2015
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
The book is a landmark because the ancient Maya have always been seen as an outlier when it comes to commerce. Scott R. Hutson, author of Dwelling, Identity and the Ancient Maya
The book is a landmark because the ancient Maya have always been seen as an outlier when it comes to commerce. Scott R. Hutson, author of <i>Dwelling, Identity and the Ancient Maya</i>
Author Information
Eleanor M. King is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Howard University, USA. She is the co-director of the Maax Na Archaeology Project in northwestern Belize.
