This volume brings together a range of contributors with different and hybrid academic backgrounds to explore, through bioarchaeology, the past human experience in the territories that span Mesoamerica.
This handbook provides systematic bioarchaeological coverage of skeletal research in the ancient Mesoamericas. It offers an integrated collection of engrained, bioculturally embedded explorations of relevant and timely topics, such as population shifts, lifestyles, body concepts, beauty, gender, health, foodways, social inequality, and violence. The additional treatment of new methodologies, local cultural settings, and theoretic frames rounds out the scope of this handbook. The selection of 36 chapter contributions invites readers to engage with the human condition in ancient and not-so-ancient Mesoamerica and beyond.
The Routledge Handbook of Mesoamerican Bioarchaeology is addressed to an audience of Mesoamericanists, students, and researchers in bioarchaeology and related fields. It serves as a comprehensive reference for courses on Mesoamerica, bioarchaeology, and Native American studies.
About the Author: Vera Tiesler is Research Professor at the Mexican Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, in Mérida, where she heads the Laboratory of Bioarchaeology. She received her BA in art history from Tulane University, an MA in archaeology at the Mexican Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH), and a PhD in anthropology at the National University of Mexico (UNAM), with five accredited years of medical school (MHH, Hannover, Germany, and IPN, Mexico). Tiesler's academic interest lies in illuminating the human condition of the ancient Maya and of past society in general.
