Offering an alternative to traditional textbooks, Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice places the reader in the middle of contemporary debates by top archaeologists actively exploring the major prehispanic societies of Central America.

• Offers a comprehensive introduction to the archaeology of Mesoamerica by focusing on key time periods, sites, and the issues these times and places require us to confront.
  
• Examines key moments in the Mesoamerican historical tradition, from the earliest villages where Olmec art flourished, to the Aztec and Maya City-states that Spanish invaders described in the 16th century.
  
• Engages the chronological benchmarks of precolumbian social development in Mesoamerica, such as the transition to village life, emergence of political stratification, and formation of Mesoamerican urban centers.
  
• Includes an extensive introduction by the editors that situates contemporary Mesoamerican archaeology in the broader terms of the social politics of archaeology.

For further resources to use with this book - including study questions, maps and photographs - visit the website at www.blackwellpublishing.com/BSGA/mesoam