ABOUT THIS BOOK

The first book to focus on children in ancient Mesoamerica, this vital reference offers a key methodological guide for archaeologists studying children and their roles not only in Mesoamerica, but also in ancient societies worldwide.

Contributors examine material evidence, historical records, and iconography, productively criticizing the claim that children are invisible in the archaeological record and elucidating an ancient childhood comprising multiple and complex identities. They explore the methodological and theoretical difficulties created when investigating childhood - a category defined by each culture - in the archaeological record.

Sure to appeal widely to New World and Old World archaeologists and anthropologists, The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica will open up new avenues of research into the lives of this previously overlooked yet remarkably large population.

Contributors include Traci Ardren, Ximena Chávez Balderas, Billie Follensbee, Byron Hamann, Scott R. Hutson, Rosemary A. Joyce, Stacie M. King, Jeanne Lopiparo, Patricia McAnany, Geoffrey G. McCafferty, Sharisse D. McCafferty, Juan Alberto Román Berrelleza, Rebecca Storey, Rissa M. Trachman, Fred Valdez Jr.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Traci Ardren is professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Miami. Scott R. Hutson is associate professor in anthropology and international studies at the University of Kentucky.

REVIEWS

"This volume . . . seeks to redress the previous near-invisibility of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican children and to demonstrate that their inclusion is vital to the understanding of Mesoamerican cultures. . . . [T]o date, while there have been a few scattered articles on Mesoamerican childhood, no one has attempted to bring the incipient scholarship on this topic together."
- Kathryn Kamp, editor, Children in the Prehistoric Puebloan Southwest

"I highly recommend this volume both for the diversity of methodological approaches detailed in the various chapters and for the significant theoretical movements represented in many of these chapters... This work is recommended for scholars working in Mesoamerica and for those with a topical interest in the archaeology of childhood."
- Jane Eva Baxter, American Anthropologist

"The University Press of Colorado has developed a very strong list of titles dealing with Ancient Mesoamerica... The most recent addition to that list is The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica... This book fills a clear gap in our knowledge concerning children and childhood in the pre-contact period. The essays cover many regions of Mesoamerica, although they focus on the Maya and Nahua. Taken as a whole, these are fascinating glimpses of children and childhood and serve well to both summarize much of the current research and to provide a point of departure for future research."
--John F. Schwaller, State University of New York, Potsdam

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword by Davíd Carrasco
List of Contributors
Part I: Introduction
1. Setting the Table: Why Children and Childhood Are Important in an Understanding of Ancient Mesoamerica
Traci Ardren
Part II: Defining the Child
2. Boys and Girls Interrupted: Mortuary Evidence of Children from Postclassic Cholula, Puebla
Geoffrey G. McCafferty and Sharisse D. McCafferty
3. Children of K¿axob: Premature Death in a Formative Maya Village
Rebecca Storey and Patricia A. McAnany
4. Identifying Childhood Among the Ancient Maya: Evidence Toward Social Reproduction at the Dancer Household Group in Northwestern Belize
Rissa M. Trachman and Fred Valdez Jr.
Part III: Childhood in Practice
5. Children Not at Chunchucmil: A Relational Approach to Young Subjects
Scott R. Hutson
6. CRAFTING CHILDREN: MATERIALITY, SOCIAL MEMORY, AND THE REPRODUCTION OF TERMINAL CLASSIC HOUSE SOCIETIES IN THE ULÚA VALLEY, HONDURAS
Jeanne Lopiparo
7. The Marking of Age in Ancient Coastal Oaxaca
Stacie M. King
Part IV: Sacrifice, Violence, and the Sanctity of Children
8. Child Martyrs and Murderous Children: Age and Agency in Sixteenth-Century Transatlantic Religious Conflicts
Byron Ellsworth Hamann
9. The Role of Children in the Ritual Practices of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan and the Great Temple of Tlatelolco
Juan Alberto Rom n Berrelleza and Ximena Ch vez Balderas
10. The Child and the Childlike in Olmec Art and Archaeology
Billie Follensbee
Part V: Conclusion
11. Where We All Begin: Archaeologies of Childhood in the Mesoamerican Past
Rosemary A. Joyce
Index