The Biocultural Consequences of Contact in Mexico

Five Centuries of Change
Erscheinungsjahr 2023
ISBN: 978-1-68340-350-0
Verlag: University Press of Florida

Buch, Englisch, 350 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

Reihe: Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives

Examining the long-lasting effects
of European colonization on Mexican populations

The Biocultural Consequences of
Contact in Mexico explores
how Mexican populations have been shaped both culturally and biologically by
the arrival of Spanish conquistadors and the years following the defeat of the
Aztec empire in 1521. Contributors to this volume draw on a diverse set of
methods from archaeology, bioarchaeology, genetics, and history to examine the
response to European colonization, providing evidence for the resilience of the
Mexican people in the face of tumultuous change.

Essays focus on Central Mexico,
Yucatan, and Oaxaca, providing a cross-regional perspective, and they highlight
Mexican scholars’ work and viewpoints. They examine the effects of the castas
system—which the colonizers used to organize society according to parentage and
the social construction of race—on individuals’ and groups’ access to power,
social mobility, health, and mate choice. Contributors illuminate the poorly
understood extent that this system—and the national identity of mestizaje that replaced it—caused
structural inequality and the structural violence of stress and health
disparities, as well as genetic admixture.

Five hundred years after the Spanish
first clashed with Aztec forces and began to influence modern Mexico, this
volume adds to discussions of colonialism, the reconstruction of biosocial
relationships, and the work of decolonization. Students and scholars in
anthropology and history will gain insights into how human populations transform
and adapt in the wake of major historical events that result in migration,
demographic change, and social upheaval.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Physische Anthropologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Ethnographie

Über Autor(innen)

Heather
J. H. Edgar is professor of anthropology at the University
of New Mexico and forensic anthropologist for the State of New Mexico. She is
the author of DentalMorphology
for Anthropology: An Illustrated Manual.

Cathy Willermet is professor of anthropology at Central
Michigan University. She is coeditor of Evaluating Evidence in Biological Anthropology:

The Strange and the Familiar and Bioarchaeology of
Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: An Interdisciplinary Approach.