Arthur Andrew Demarest

"The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands revisits one of the great problems in Maya archaeology-the apparent collapse of Classic Maya civilization from roughly A.D. 830 to 950. During this period the Maya abandoned their power centers in the southern lowlands and rather abruptly ceased the distinctive cultural practices that marked their apogee in the Classic period. Archaeological fieldwork during the past three decades, however, has uncovered enormous regional variability in the ways the Maya experienced the shift from Classic to Postclassic society, revealing a period of cultural change more complex than acknowledged by traditional models." "Featuring an impressive roster of scholars, The Terminal Classic in the Maya Lowlands presents the most recent data and interpretations pertaining to this perplexing period of cultural transformation in the Maya lowlands. Although the research reveals clear interregional patterns, the contributors resist a single overarching explanation. Rather, this volume's diverse and nuanced interpretations provide a new, more properly grounded beginning for continued debate on the nature of lowland Terminal Classic Maya civilization. Book jacket."--Jacket.

"The role played by ideology in the evolution of civilizations is being energetically debated by archaeologists, but until now the theoretical debates have had little impact on the actual interpretation of field data from Mesoamerica or South America. Studies on pre-Columbian ideology have generally used historical, ethnohistorical, and iconographic data to look synchronically at specific ancient religions. Little progress has been made in applying archaeological information to address the broader problem of the role of ideology in prehistoric culture change... The authors of these papers take a variety of theoretical approaches, seeking to understand how ideology interacts with the ecological, economic, and political factors involved in culture change. They are concerned not with ideologies or cosmologies per se but with the effect of ideology on power relations, since the expansions and collapses of civilizations are, in the end, the successes and failures of political systems"--Back cover.

In this archaeological study, Arthur Demarest brings the lost pre-Columbian civilization of the Maya to life. In applying a holistic perspective to the most recent evidence from archaeology, paleoecology, and epigraphy, this theoretical interpretation emphasizes both the brilliant rain forest adaptations of the ancient Maya and the Native American spirituality that permeated all aspects of their daily life.