Publications

Bookshelves filled completely with books of different colors and sizes.

Publications

The Peabody Museum has long published a variety of print and electronic publications relating to collections, projects, and excavations conducted by Peabody Museum staff and Department of Anthropology faculty.

Current publications can be found under Books with links to purchase, while pre-1970s publications include links to texts when available. 

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Books

The Excavation of Los Muertos and Neighboring Ruins in the Salt River Valley, Southern Arizona

The Excavation of Los Muertos and Neighboring Ruins in the Salt River Valley, Southern Arizona

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Papers Volume 24, no. 1
Last updated on 01/10/2022

The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A 200,000-Year Record of Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and Society

The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A 200,000-Year Record of Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and Society

Abstract:

A decade of zooarchaeological fieldwork (1992-2001) went into Mary Stiner’s pathbreaking analysis of changes in human ecology from the early Mousterian period through the end of Paleolithic cultures in the Levant. Stiner employs a comparative approach to understanding early human behavioral and environmental change, based on a detailed study of fourteen bone assemblages from Hayonim Cave and Meged Rockshelter in Israel’s Galilee. Principally anthropological in outlook, Stiner’s analysis also integrates chemistry, foraging and population ecology, vertebrate paleontology, and biogeography. Her research focuses first on the formation history, or taphonomy, of bone accumulations, and second on questions about the economic behaviors of early humans, including the early development of human adaptations for hunting large prey and the relative "footprint" of humans in Pleistocene ecosystems of the Levant.

Last updated on 01/10/2022

The Hieroglyphic Stairway, Ruins of Copan: Report on Explorations by the Museum

Citation:

George Byron Gordon. 1902. The Hieroglyphic Stairway, Ruins of Copan: Report on Explorations by the Museum, Pp. 83. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. READ ONLINE
The Hieroglyphic Stairway, Ruins of Copan: Report on Explorations by the Museum

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Memoirs Volume 1, no. 6
Last updated on 01/03/2022

The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages

Citation:

Jeffrey Quilter. 2/28/2011. The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages, Pp. 172. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages

Abstract:

Peru’s ancient Moche culture is represented in a magnificent collection of artifacts at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. In this richly illustrated volume, Jeffrey Quilter presents a fascinating introduction to this intriguing culture and explores current thinking about Moche politics, history, society, and religion.

Quilter utilizes the Peabody’s collection as a means to investigate how the Moche used various media, particularly ceramics, to convey messages about their lives and beliefs. His presentation provides a critical examination and rethinking of many of the commonly held interpretations of Moche artifacts and their imagery, raising important issues of art production and its role in ancient and modern societies.

The most up-to-date monograph available on the Moche—and the first extensive discussion of the Peabody Museum’s collection of Moche ceramics—this volume provides an introduction for the general reader and contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions. Quilter’s fresh reading of Moche visual imagery raises new questions about the art and culture of ancient Peru.

Last updated on 12/13/2022
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Series

Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 1: Yaxchilan

Citation:

Ian Graham and Eric von Euw. 3/12/1980. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 1: Yaxchilan, Pp. 64. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 1: Yaxchilan

Abstract:

For more than 45 years, the Peabody Museum has been publishing The Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. The goal of this unique series of folio volumes is to document in photographs and detailed line drawings all known Maya inscriptions and their associated figurative art to advance the study of the ancient Maya. When complete, the Corpus will have published the inscriptions from over 200 sites and 2,000 monuments. The series has been instrumental in the remarkable success of the ongoing process of deciphering Maya writing, making available hundreds of texts to epigraphers working around the world, and to source communities in in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Each volume in the series consists of three or more fascicles, which examine an individual site or group of neighboring sites and include maps of site location and plans indicating the placement monuments within each site. Each inscription is reproduced in its entirety in both photographs and line drawings with descriptive texts. 

Volume 3 documents the lintels and hieroglyphic stairways  of Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico.

Last updated on 05/24/2022

Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 2: Yaxchilan

Citation:

Ian Graham. 5/25/1979. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 2: Yaxchilan, Pp. 64. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 2: Yaxchilan

Abstract:

For more than 45 years, the Peabody Museum has been publishing The Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. The goal of this unique series of folio volumes is to document in photographs and detailed line drawings all known Maya inscriptions and their associated figurative art to advance the study of the ancient Maya. When complete, the Corpus will have published the inscriptions from over 200 sites and 2,000 monuments. The series has been instrumental in the remarkable success of the ongoing process of deciphering Maya writing, making available hundreds of texts to epigraphers working around the world, and to source communities in in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Each volume in the series consists of three or more fascicles, which examine an individual site or group of neighboring sites and include maps of site location and plans indicating the placement monuments within each site. Each inscription is reproduced in its entirety in both photographs and line drawings with descriptive texts.

Volume 3 documents the lintels and hieroglyphic stairways  of Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico.

 

Last updated on 05/24/2022

Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 4: Yaxchilan

Citation:

Barbara W. Fash, Alexandre Tokovinine, and Ian Graham. 12/6/2022. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 4: Yaxchilan. Edited by Barbara W. Fash, Pp. 108. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Peabody Museum Press and Dumbarton Oaks Publications. BUY THIS BOOK
Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 3: Part 4: Yaxchilan

Abstract:

The goal of the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions is to document in photographs and detailed line drawings all known Maya inscriptions and their associated figurative art. As monuments continue to be discovered, the CMHI series is ongoing and far from complete. It has been instrumental in the remarkable success of the ongoing process of deciphering Maya writing, making available hundreds of texts to epigraphers working around the world, in addition to assisting studies among Maya communities and scholars.

This folio-sized volume documents thirty stelae at Yaxchilan, a Classic Maya city located on the Usumacinta River in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. Precisely rendered line drawings and three-dimensional scans bring out details of the monuments that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. These illustrations are accompanied by descriptions of the stelae in English and Spanish.

Last updated on 03/08/2023

Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 4: Part 2: Uxmal

Citation:

Ian Graham. 3/1/1993. Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 4: Part 2: Uxmal, Pp. 64. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions, Volume 4: Part 2: Uxmal

Abstract:

For more than 45 years, the Peabody Museum has been publishing The Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. The goal of this unique series of folio volumes is to document in photographs and detailed line drawings all known Maya inscriptions and their associated figurative art to advance the study of the ancient Maya. When complete, the Corpus will have published the inscriptions from over 200 sites and 2,000 monuments. The series has been instrumental in the remarkable success of the ongoing process of deciphering Maya writing, making available hundreds of texts to epigraphers working around the world, and to source communities in in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Each volume in the series consists of three or more fascicles, which examine an individual site or group of neighboring sites and include maps of site location and plans indicating the placement monuments within each site. Each inscription is reproduced in its entirety in both photographs and line drawings with descriptive texts.

 

Last updated on 05/24/2022

Holon: A Lower Paleolithic Site in Israel

Citation:

1/30/2008. Holon: A Lower Paleolithic Site in Israel, Pp. 214. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Holon: A Lower Paleolithic Site in Israel

Abstract:

Excavations at the open-air site of Holon, Israel, have provided a unique perspective on hominin behavior, technology, and subsistence strategies in the Middle East at the end of the Lower Paleolithic. This excavation, carried out by Tamar Noy between 1963 and 1970, was one of the first successful salvage projects in the region. This ASPR volume is the first integrated monograph on a Lower Paleolithic site to be published from the region. It brings together the results of interdisciplinary research on the site of Holon—geology, dating, archaeology, paleontology, taphonomy, and spatial analysis—by a team of leading international researchers. The results are synthesized to address fundamental questions of human evolution, including whether early hominins hunted or scavenged very large animals, and the nature of culture change in the Lower Paleolithic. The lithic analysis documents the final stage of the Lower Paleolithic before the transition to Middle Paleolithic technology. This book will be an essential point of reference for students and specialists working in the archaeology of human evolution, as well as all archaeologists working in the region of the Levant.

Last updated on 01/10/2022

Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel, Part I: The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archaeology

Citation:

Liliane Meignen. 3/30/2008. Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel, Part I: The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archaeology. Edited by Ofer Bar-Yosef, Pp. 352. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel, Part I: The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archaeology

Abstract:

The Levantine corridor sits at the continental crossroads of Africa and Eurasia, making it a focal point for scientific inquiry into the emergence of modern humans and their relations with Neanderthals. The recent excavations at Kebara Cave in Israel, undertaken by an international, interdisciplinary team of researchers, has provided data crucial for understanding the cognitive and behavioral differences between archaic and modern humans.

In this first of two volumes, the authors discuss site formation processes, subsistence strategies, land-use patterns, and intrasite organization. Hearths and faunal remains reveal a dynamic and changing settlement system during the late Mousterian period, when Kebara Cave served as a major encampment. The research at Kebara Cave allows archaeologists to document the variability observed in settlement, subsistence, and technological strategies of the Late Middle and early Upper Paleolithic periods in the Levant.

Last updated on 01/10/2022

Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel, Part II: The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archaeology

Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel, Part II: The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archaeology

Abstract:

The remains from Skhul, Qafzeh, Amud, and Kebara caves in Israel provide evidence for the possible contemporaneity and eventual replacement of several distinct hominin populations over time: early Archaic-Modern humans by Neanderthals, and Neanderthals by Modern humans. Kebara Cave, which dates to 65,000 to 48,000 years ago, is well known for its Neanderthal remains and marvelously preserved archaeological record. Dense concentrations of fireplaces and ash lenses and rich assemblages of stone tools, animal bones, and charred plant remains testify to repeated and intensive use of the cave by late Middle Paleolithic foragers.

This second and final volume of the Kebara Cave site report presents findings from nine years of excavation and analysis of the archaeology, paleontology, human remains, and lithic industries from the Middle and Upper Paleolithic periods. Its full documentation of the daily activities of the cave’s Neanderthal inhabitants clearly indicates behavioral patterns generally attributed only to Modern humans. The two volumes on Kebara Cave provide a cornerstone for the story of humankind in a critical geographic region: the continental crossroads between Africa and Eurasia in the Levant.

Last updated on 01/17/2022

Mecklenburg Collection, Part I: Data on Iron Age Horses of Central and Eastern Europe and Human Skeletal Material from Slovenia

Citation:

Sándor Bökönyi J. Lawrence and Angel. 12/1/2004. Mecklenburg Collection, Part I: Data on Iron Age Horses of Central and Eastern Europe and Human Skeletal Material from Slovenia. Edited by Hugh Hencken, Pp. 116. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Mecklenburg Collection, Part I: Data on Iron Age Horses of Central and Eastern Europe and Human Skeletal Material from Slovenia

Abstract:

These three volumes deal with the Iron Age grave materials from Magdalenska gora, excavated by the Duchess Paul Friedrich von Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The Duchess of Mecklenburg, a member of an Austrian royal family with estates in Slovenia, conducted her excavations in the early years of the twentieth century. The materials from Magdalenska gora were purchased by the Peabody Museum in the 1930s.

Volume I presents data and analysis of the horse remains and human skeletal materials.

Last updated on 01/10/2022

Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Effigy Pottery from the Edwin Curtiss Collection

Citation:

John H. House. 1/22/2004. Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Effigy Pottery from the Edwin Curtiss Collection, Pp. 120. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Gifts of the Great River: Arkansas Effigy Pottery from the Edwin Curtiss Collection

Abstract:

Foreword by Ian W. Brown

In 1879 Edwin Curtiss set out for the wild St. Francis River region of northeastern Arkansas to collect archaeological specimens for the Peabody Museum. By the time Curtiss completed his fifty-six days of Arkansas fieldwork, he had sent nearly 1,000 pottery vessels to Cambridge and had put the Peabody on the map as the repository of one of the world’s finest collections of Mississippian artifacts. John House brings us a lively account of the work of this nineteenth-century fieldworker, the Native culture he explored, and the rich legacies left by both. The result is a vivid re-creation of the world of Indian peoples in the Mississippi River lowlands in the last centuries before European contact. The volume’s focus is Curtiss’s collection of charming and expressive effigy vessels: earthenware bowls and bottles that incorporate forms of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and humans, including the Peabody’s famous red-and-white head vase.

John H. House is Station Archaeologist, Pine Bluff Research Station, and Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Hunters, Carvers & Collectors: The Chauncey C. Nash Collection of Inuit Art

Citation:

Maija M. Lutz. 11/12/2012. Hunters, Carvers & Collectors: The Chauncey C. Nash Collection of Inuit Art, Pp. 128. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Hunters, Carvers & Collectors: The Chauncey C. Nash Collection of Inuit Art

Abstract:

In the late 1950s, Chauncey C. Nash started collecting Inuit carvings just as the art of printmaking was being introduced in Kinngait (Cape Dorset), an Inuit community on Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. Nash donated some 300 prints and sculptures to Harvard’s Peabody Museum—one of the oldest collections of early modern Inuit art. The Peabody collection includes not only early Inuit sculpture but also many of the earliest prints on paper made by the women and men who helped propel Inuit art onto the world stage.

Author Maija M. Lutz draws from ethnology, archaeology, art history, and cultural studies to tell the story of a little-known collection that represents one of the most vibrant and experimental periods in the development of contemporary Inuit art. Lavishly illustrated, Hunters, Carvers, and Collectors presents numerous never-before-published gems, including carvings by the artists John Kavik, Johnniebo Ashevak, and Peter Qumalu POV Assappa. This latest contribution to the award-winning Peabody Museum Collections Series fills an important gap in the literature of Native American art.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Painted by a Distant Hand

Citation:

Steven A. LeBlanc. 4/30/2005. Painted by a Distant Hand, Pp. 120. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Painted by a Distant Hand

Abstract:

Foreword by Rubie Watson

Photographs by Hillel S. Burger

1st place, 2006 NEMA Awards (Books Over $10)

Highlighting one of the Peabody Museum’s most important archaeological expeditions—the excavation of the Swarts Ranch Ruin in southwestern New Mexico by Harriet and Burton Cosgrove in the mid-1920s—Steven LeBlanc’s book features rare, never-before-published examples of Mimbres painted pottery, considered by many scholars to be the most unique of all the ancient art traditions of North America. Made between A.D. 1000 and 1150, these pottery bowls and jars depict birds, fish, insects, and mammals that the Mimbres encountered in their daily lives, portray mythical beings, and show humans participating in both ritual and everyday activities. LeBlanc traces the origins of the Mimbres people and what became of them, and he explores our present understanding of what the images mean and what scholars have learned about the Mimbres people in the 75 years since the Cosgroves’ expedition.

Steven A. LeBlanc is an archaeologist and former Director of Collections at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

Rubie Watson is Curator of Comparative Ethnology in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages

Citation:

Jeffrey Quilter. 2/28/2011. The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages, Pp. 172. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages

Abstract:

Peru’s ancient Moche culture is represented in a magnificent collection of artifacts at Harvard’s Peabody Museum. In this richly illustrated volume, Jeffrey Quilter presents a fascinating introduction to this intriguing culture and explores current thinking about Moche politics, history, society, and religion.

Quilter utilizes the Peabody’s collection as a means to investigate how the Moche used various media, particularly ceramics, to convey messages about their lives and beliefs. His presentation provides a critical examination and rethinking of many of the commonly held interpretations of Moche artifacts and their imagery, raising important issues of art production and its role in ancient and modern societies.

The most up-to-date monograph available on the Moche—and the first extensive discussion of the Peabody Museum’s collection of Moche ceramics—this volume provides an introduction for the general reader and contributes to ongoing scholarly discussions. Quilter’s fresh reading of Moche visual imagery raises new questions about the art and culture of ancient Peru.

Last updated on 12/13/2022
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Avenue Patrice Lumumba

Citation:

Guy Tillim. 1/9/2009. Avenue Patrice Lumumba, Pp. 128. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press.
Avenue Patrice Lumumba

Abstract:

Foreword by Robert Gardner

“Guy Tillim … combines a profound sense of historic documentation of African countries ravaged by conflicts and tragedies of all kinds and a very stringent formal aesthetic devoid of all mannerism.”'
—Michket Krifa

As the first recipient of the Robert Gardner Fellowship in Photography at the Peabody Museum, Guy Tillim traveled through Angola, Mozambique, Congo, and Madagascar, documenting the grand colonial architecture and how it has become part of a contemporary African stage. His photographs reveal the decay and detritus of colonialism in Western and Southern Africa and convey an acute sense of humanity.

Tillim is an award-winning photographer from South Africa. His photographic documentation of social conflict and inequality in the countries of Africa has been exhibited in more than a dozen countries and widely published.


Co-published with Prestel Verlag. 

Last updated on 02/28/2024

Caspian: The Elements

Citation:

Chloe Dewe Mathews, Morad Montazami, Sean O’Hagan, and Arnold van Bruggen. 10/1/2018. Caspian: The Elements, Pp. 216. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press and Aperture. BUY THIS BOOK
Caspian: The Elements

Abstract:

Caspian: The Elements is Chloe Dewe Mathews’s record of five years spent roaming the borderlands of the Caspian Sea. In a resource-rich region roiled by contested geopolitics, Dewe Mathews found that elemental materials like oil, rock, and uranium are central to the mystical, practical, artistic, religious, and therapeutic aspects of daily life. With essays by Morad Montazami, Sean O’Hagan, and Arnold van Bruggen, Caspian: The Elements offers a series of powerful visual narratives that explore the deep links between the peoples of the Caspian and their enigmatic and coveted landscapes.

Last updated on 02/28/2024

Community Fire

Citation:

Zhang Xiao. 8/8/2023. Community Fire, Pp. 192. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press and Aperture. BUY THIS BOOK
Community Fire

Abstract:

In his project Community Fire, the photographer Zhang Xiao takes a local, hometown look at Shehuo (社火), a Chinese Spring Festival tradition celebrated in rural northern Chinese communities, including temple fairs, dragon dances, and storytelling. Shehuo—literally, “community fire”—is devoted to the worship of land and fire, and boasts a history of many thousands of years. During the festival, people hold ceremonies, pray for the next year’s good harvest, and confer blessings of peace and safety for all family members. 

However, what was once a heterogeneous cultural tradition with myriad regional variations has largely become a tourist-facing, consumption-oriented enterprise. In the early 2000s, Shehuo received an “intangible cultural heritage” designation from the People’s Republic of China, resulting in increased funding in exchange for greater government involvement. While transforming the practitioners’ relation to Shehuo, this change expresses itself most visually in the way Qing dynasty–era costumes and props have been replaced with newer, cheaper products from online shopping websites. Zhang’s photographs capture how these mass-produced substitutions have transformed the practice of Shehuo. Through a colorful and fantastical blend of portraiture and ephemera that documents the blurred edges between the everyday and the absurd, Community Fire is a dynamic visual exploration of one of China’s oldest traditions. 

Copublished by Aperture and Peabody Museum Press
Last updated on 02/28/2024

House of Love

Citation:

Dayanita Singh. 6/30/2011. House of Love, Pp. 198. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
House of Love

Abstract:

by Dayanita Singh

Finalist, 2012 New England Book Show (Pictorial)

House of Love is a work of photo fiction by Dayanita Singh. Working closely with the writer, Aveek Sen, whose prose follows a journey of its own, Singh explores the relationships among photography, memory, and writing. House of Love, designed to blur the lines between an art book of photographic images and a work of literary fiction, is a book whose images demand to be read, not just seen, and whose texts create their own sensory worlds. The combination creates a new vocabulary for the visual book.

The “House of Love” itself is the Taj Mahal, but the Taj Mahal is a recurring motif that stands for a range of meanings — meanings made up of the truths and lies of night and day, love and illusion, attachment and detachment. Through images of cities both visible and invisible, of people real and surreal, Singh creates her own mysterious and ineffable, strange yet familiar language, using her trademark black-and-white photography and her newer nocturnal color work.

Dayanita Singh was born in New Delhi in 1961. She studied at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and later concentrated on photojournalism and documentary photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. Her photos have been exhibited many times, most recently at the Venice Biennale 2011. Singh’s books include, Myself Mona Ahmed, Privacy, Go Away CloserSent a Letter, Blue book, Dream Villa and Dayanita Singh. She lives in New Delhi.

Aveek Sen is a senior assistant editor (editorial pages) of The Telegraph, Calcutta, where he has written extensively on photography. He was a Rhodes Scholar at University College, Oxford, where he studied English literature, before going on to teach English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. He is the winner of the 2009 International Center for Photography Infinity Award for Writing on Photography.

Last updated on 01/13/2022
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Artifacts from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan

Citation:

Clemency Chase Coggins. 10/14/1992. Artifacts from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Pp. 408. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Artifacts from the Cenote of Sacrifice, Chichen Itza, Yucatan

Abstract:

Introduction by Gordon R. Willey
Appendixes by April K. Sievert and Fred Trembour

In this abundantly illustrated third and final volume on the artifacts found by Edward H. Thompson in the Well of Sacrifice, specialists analyze the great variety of objects and debate whether they represent evidence of dateable prehistorical ritual. The collection includes the rare remains of hundreds of textiles, wooden objects, and copal incense offerings that were preserved in the waters of this limestone sinkhole, as well as the lithics, ceramics and bone and shell artifacts commonly found in Maya burials and caches and about 250 mammalian remains. These objects are remarkable for having been cut, torn, broken, and burned before they were thrown into the green waters of the sacred well at Chichen Itza.

Last updated on 01/10/2022

Cave of Loltun, Yucatan: Report of Explorations by the Museum, 1888–89 and 1890–91

Citation:

Edward H. Thompson. 1897. Cave of Loltun, Yucatan: Report of Explorations by the Museum, 1888–89 and 1890–91, Pp. 44. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. READ ONLINE
Cave of Loltun, Yucatan: Report of Explorations by the Museum, 1888–89 and 1890–91

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Memoirs Volume 1, no. 2
Last updated on 01/03/2022

An Archaeological Survey of West Central New Mexico and East Central Arizona

An Archaeological Survey of West Central New Mexico and East Central Arizona

Abstract:

Peabody Museum Papers Volume 44, no. 1
Last updated on 01/03/2022

Anthropology at Harvard: A Biographical History, 1790–1940

Citation:

David L. Browman Stephen and Williams. 7/15/2013. Anthropology at Harvard: A Biographical History, 1790–1940, Pp. 602. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Anthropology at Harvard: A Biographical History, 1790–1940

Abstract:

"A monumental achievement"—American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Anthropology at Harvard recounts the rich and complex history of anthropology at America’s oldest university, beginning with the earliest precursors of the discipline within the study of natural history. The story unfolds through fascinating vignettes about the many individuals—famous and obscure alike—who helped shape the discipline at Harvard College and the Peabody Museum. Lively anecdotes provide in-depth portraits of dozens of key individuals, including Louis and Alexander Agassiz, Frederic Ward Putnam, Mary Hemenway, Alice Cunningham Fletcher, Sylvanus Morley, A. V. Kidder, and Antonio Apache. The text also throws new light on longstanding puzzles and debates, such as Franz Boas’s censure by the American Anthropological Association and the involvement of Harvard archaeologists in espionage work for the U.S. government during World War I.

The authors take a “cohort” perspective, looking beyond the big names to the larger network of colleagues that formed the dynamic backdrop to the development of ideas. The significant contributions of amateurs and private funders to the early growth of the field are highlighted, as is the active participation of women and of students and scholars of diverse ethnic backgrounds. A monumental achievement, Anthropology at Harvard makes an important contribution to the history of Americanist anthropology.

"Overall, Anthropology at Harvard provides a comprehensive view of the East Coast development of the discipline and handles a prodigious amount of data remarkably well."—Donald McVicker, Isis >> read the full review

 

"Anthropology at Harvard will serve as an important, though limited, work of reference for historians of archaeology and anthropology."—Vincent Crapanzano, "Natives," The Times Literary Supplement >> read the full review

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites

Citation:

Lorna J. Marshall. 1/24/2000. Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites, Pp. 400. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rites

Abstract:

With style and depth, Lorna Marshall leads the reader through the intricacies, ambiguities, and silences of !Kung beliefs. Her narrative, based on fieldwork among the Bushmen of the Kalahari in the early 1950s, brings into focus a way of life that appears to have existed for millennia. She presents the culture, beliefs, and spirituality of one of the last true hunting-and-gathering peoples by focusing on members of different bands as they reveal their own views. This account, with photography by John Marshall, presents a system of beliefs, one in which personified deities and unpersonifled supernatural forces (n!ow and n/um) interact with man and the natural world. The !Kung believe that this interaction accounts for much of the mystery of life and the vicissitudes of the good and evil that befall mankind. The book also depicts an egalitarian lifestyle based on sharing and group awareness, a lifestyle that has not survived intact the increasing integration of the Bushmen into the modern world.

A companion volume to her 1976 work, The !Kung of Nyae Nyae, this book was published to mark the one-hundredth birthday of Lorna Marshall (1898 – 2002).

Last updated on 01/13/2022

Remembering Awatovi: The Story of an Archaeological Expedition in Northern Arizona, 1935-1939

Citation:

Hester A. Davis. 12/15/2008. Remembering Awatovi: The Story of an Archaeological Expedition in Northern Arizona, 1935-1939, Pp. 240. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
Remembering Awatovi: The Story of an Archaeological Expedition in Northern Arizona, 1935-1939

Abstract:

Winner, 2008 New England Book Show (General Trade, Cover)

Gold Medal, 2009 IPPY Awards (West Mountain - Best Regional Non-Fiction)

Remembering Awatovi is the engaging story of a major archaeological expedition on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona. Centered on the large Pueblo village of Awatovi, with its Spanish mission church and beautiful kiva murals, the excavations are renowned not only for the data they uncovered but also for the interdisciplinary nature of the investigations. In archaeological lore they are also remembered for the diverse, fun-loving, and distinguished cast of characters who participated in or visited the dig.

Hester Davis’s lively account—part history of archaeology, part social history—is told largely in the words of the participants, among whom were two of Davis’s siblings, artist Penny Davis Worman and archaeologist Mott Davis. Life in the remote field camp abounded with delightful storytelling, delicious food, and good-natured high-jinks. Baths were taken in a stock tank, beloved camp automobiles were given personal names, and a double bed had to be trucked across the desert and up a mesa to celebrate a memorable wedding.

Remembering Awatovi is illustrated with over 160 portraits and photographs of camp life. Essays by Eric Polingyouma and Brian Fagan enrich the presentation.

Last updated on 01/13/2022

The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization

Citation:

Martha Lamberg-Karlovsky. 10/18/2020. The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization, Pp. 152. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum Press. BUY THIS BOOK
The Breakout: The Origins of Civilization

Abstract:

For much of the twentieth century, Mesopotamia was thought to he the singular "Cradle of Civilization;" and the agents of change that brought it about were thought to be demographic, ecological, and technological. Bronze Age Mesopotamian accomplishments were believed to have diffused outward, influencing the development of civilization in the rest of the world. Part of this Mesopocentric view was revised as archaeological evidence revealed that other unique civilizations had existed in both the Old and New Worlds, but the traditional Near Eastern pattern of development continued to serve as a model.

In the mid-1980s, however, Harvard’s Kwang-chih Chang proposed in Symbols--a publication of Harvard’s Peabody Museum and Department of Anthropology--that China’s first civilization did not evolve according to the conventional Mesopotamian model and argued instead for a new paradigm for understanding the origins of civilization in ancient China and the New World.

In this collection of subsequent Symbols articles and other essays, Maya and Near Eastern studies specialists engage in a stimulating debate of Chang’s thesis, also presented here.

Last updated on 01/13/2022
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