Architecture and the Origins of Preclassic Maya Politics

"Architecture and the Origins of Preclassic Maya Politics highlights the dramatic changes in the relationship of ancient Maya peoples to the landscape and to each other in the Preclassical period (ca. 2000 BC-250 AD). Offering a comprehensive history of Preclassic Maya society, James Doyle focuses on recent discoveries of early writing, mural painting, stone monuments, and evidence of divine kingship that have reshaped our understanding of cultural developments in the first millennium BC. He also addresses one of the crucial concerns of contemporary archaeology: the emergence of political authorities and their subjects in early complex polities. Doyle shows how architectural trends in the Maya Lowlands in the Preclassic period exhibit the widespread cross-cultural link between monumental architecture of imposing intent, human collaboration, and urbanism"-- "The study of ancient politics is a messy endeavor. The basic questions are not the problems: how did past societies organize themselves, and how and why did those organizational strategies succeed or fail? Yet archaeologists can only glean social choices and cultural meanings from materials, architecture, and by identifying where people built their lives. Acknowledging the inherent challenges we face to understand fully how ancient peoples conceived and narrated their own beliefs, this book puts forth a new take on an old story to understand how political authorities emerged"--