Category: historyPage 2 of 2

Processual and Postprocessual, Emic and Etic

These are words you might encounter if you read archaeological writing about Mesoamerica — or anywhere else for that matter. Since the meanings aren’t transparent, I asked a…

Ancient Offerings Found at Nevado de Toluca

An AP article announces the find by scuba divers of what may be Aztec offerings deep in a volcanic crater lake west of Mexico City. The snow-capped volcano…

Mayan Languages and the Origin of the Maya

I’ve reformatted and added a bit more information to my page about Mayan languages. It remains a confusing subject, since there are a large number of languages that…

Old School Maya Archaeology

I’ve posted a look back at the work of two great Mayanists of the early and mid twentieth century, Sylvanus Morley (shown at left) and Eric Thompson. The…

The Great Collapse of the Classic Maya

For centuries travelers through the Maya world have encountered majestic ruins of a civilization that appears to have completely disappeared. Still today people ask what caused such a…

The Cult of the Talking Cross

I’m starting to put up some images from my recent trip to the Yucatan. The image at left is a picture of the little spring that sustained the…