A Mesoamerican Archaeology Web Site
On this Web site you can find collected scholarly files, links, resources, software and reports relevant or interesting to Mesoamerican and Pre-Columbian Archaeology. There is a collection of Maya calendar programs, as well as collected documents and arguments about unsubstantiated claims of transoceanic contact with the Americas.
This Web site was created in 1994, at a time when the internet as we know it today was just starting to grow. Few Mesoamerican Archaeology related Web sites existed at the time. Nowadays though, many archaeological research institutes have their own web pages, this page will be updated less frequently, but all the material, including the software, will of course remain.
The contents of this site is copyright of those mentioned as authors/sources.
The information provided here is for scholarly information and not for profit. Copyright 2004.
Statement against
looting, University of Pennsylvania.
Linda Schele
fundraising effort
An Introduction
to the American Indian, by Paul E. Pettennude.
Announcements and Resources:
-
Information
on workshops, exhibitions and other events. Occasionally updated.
-
Exhibition: Maya at the Palazzo Grassi,
Venice, Italy. 6 September 1998 to 16 May 1999.
-
Exhibition: Mexique
Terre des dieux, trésors de l'art précolombien. October
8,98 to January 24, 99, Geneva, Switzerland.
-
5th Annual Maya Art
& Archaeology Symposium 1997, Brevard Community College, Cocoa,
Florida.
-
Maya Art &
Archaeology Symposium, 2. annoucement.
-
Full announcement
for the 1996 Maya Weekend at University of Pennsylvania, link to Brian
Ampolsk's page.
-
Full information
and Order Form for the 1997 Maya Texas Meeting.
-
Full
information and Order
Form for the 1998 Maya Meetings at Texas.
-
Listing of material
available at JENN'S Copy and Binding, Austin (1995).
-
Listing of
material available at Kinko's, the Copy Center, Austin (1998).
-
Sources for
special publications and other useful things, mainly about Maya hieroglyphic
writing. Detailed lists for some material is in the following files.
-
Order form for
THE LORDS OF LIFE, a catalog of figurines in The Snite Museum of Art.
-
Listing of Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing, picture
file 1, and picture
file 2, both in gif picture format.
-
Selected
introductory and specialist books (from the FAQ from sci.archaeology.mesoamerica
and other sources).
-
Turner Libros,
S.A.. Produce the Citibank Art books.
-
Dresden Codex.
-
Bibliography
of references for Mesoamerican ballgames.
-
References
about Tiwanaku (Tiahuanaco).
-
References (1997) on Nakbe
and the North Peten,
Rainpeg project (El Mirador).
-
References
about the Mound Builders.
-
Books about
Pre-Columbian topics, selected list of books about Pre-columbian topics.
-
100 Years of Anthropology
in Costa Rica, a bibliography compiled by John W. Hoopes at his site.
Newsgroups and Listservers:
There are two different types of discussion groups devoted to Pre-columbian
topics. Currently AZTLAN has the higher amount of traffic - it is very
professional -, while - due to its nature as newsgroup - sci.archaeology.mesomamerican
has more basic discussions.
-
The Usenet Newsgroup sci.archaeology.mesoamerican. Further info
about the charter of this newsgroup are contained in the FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) file. Contains also a list of books and
other info (The "Crystal skull", Maya "end of the world").
-
The listserver AZTLAN. This is an email based list, where you can
subscribe to. Read the AZTLAN
Welcome introduction, for detailed guidelines and info. Here is a short
guide to the Topics
of Aztlan.
Archives of the Aztlan messages can be found at the
Linguist List. There is also a Web
based subscription form for Aztlan.
Otherwise, you can subscribe as follows: To subscribe send an email
message to the listserver
listserv@listserv.louisville.edu
with the following message text: SUBSCRIBE AZTLAN "Chris Doe"
(substitute your name).
Once subscribed, email messages are sent to aztlan@listserv.louisville.edu
(not the listserver !), and care should be taken to label the subject line
with appropriate topic as described in the welcome and guide files.
To unsubscribe send an email message to
listserv@listserv.louisville.edu
with the message text: SIGNOFF AZTLAN.
The listserver NAHUAT-L. Subscribe to:
LISTPROC@LISTSERV.UMT.EDU
with the following text: SUBSCRIBE NAHUAT-L "your name".
The listserver ARQUEOLOGIA, about Andean Archaeology, in Spanish.
To subscribe send email to listasrcp@rcp.net.pe . Use SUBSCRIBE
ARQUEOLOGIA [email address] to subscribe.
Administrador de la lista Arqueologia: Daniel Castillo Benites
Email = dcastillo@unitru.edu.pe
The Usenet Newsgroup soc.culture.mexican that deals with the past
and present of Mexico. Here is a link to its FAQ
file.
Software (Calender Converters, databases, fonts, etc.):
-
Mayabase release
5.1, May 1997.
-
Stelabase,
Excel 4 spreadsheet of all Maya stelae, by Christophe Helmke. (zipped,
can also be read by Macintosh)
-
SCULPTORS OF THE REALM: CLASSIC MAYA ARTISTS' SIGNATURES AND SCULPTURAL
STYLE DURING THE REIGN OF PIEDRAS NEGRAS RULER 7 by JOHN ELLIS MONTGOMERY.
John Montgomery's Master Thesis. (Font used for proper formatting: Bookman)
Note: Does not contain figures. (A WWW version is also available below,
but because of it's size of 500 pages, a download is probably more sensible).
Macintosh:
-
macmaya.hqx:
Set of 4 Macintosh programs by Steve Stearns for Maya calendrics. Compacted,
self-extracting archive, binhexed. Transfer in text/binhex mode.
-
mayacalender.hqx:
Collection of 3 Hypercard stacks for Maya calendar conversions for the
Macintosh. One by Bruce Frumker, one by Michael Closs one by Stan Ulrich
and Lucinda Surber. Compacted, self-extracting, binhexed. Transfer in text/binhex
mode.
-
mac-maya.hqx:
Maya Calendar program by Warren Anderson.
-
inter-cal-13.hqx:
Calendar display program by Denis Elliot, displays different calendars,
i.e. Gregorian, Islamic, etc., and Maya.
-
aztec-calendar.hqx:
Aztec calendar hypercard stack by Rene Voorburg. Transfer in text/binhex
mode. You can also get it directly from his
WWW site.
-
ptmu-ref.hqx:
Excel spreadsheet. Cross reference for the book "Painting the Maya Universe";
compiled by Steve Stearns. Compacted, self-extracting archive, binhexed.
Transfer in text/binhex mode. Also available interactivly on Brian Ampolsk's
page (see Links).
-
mayafontsmac.hqx:
Free Maya Calendrics Fonts in Truetype and Postscript 1, Copyright
Ecological Linguistics. Binhexed, extract with Stuffit expander. Note:
2.5 Meg download.
-
Astronomy software:
-
Commercial: Redshift for 68k and PPC MacIntosh computers.
-
Shareware: Starry Night, download it from standard Mac archives or from
their
Home page.
PC:
Note: I had some problems downloading zip files using Netscape on a
MacIntosh. Using ftp it worked fine, in binary mode.
-
ptmu-ref.zip:
Excel spreadsheet of PTMU for PC. Adapted from Steve Stearns' file by Brian
Ampolsk. Zipped, transfer in binary mode.
-
mayacal.zip:
Maya calendar Basic programs by Linda Schele. For the PC (ASCII text so
anybody should be able to read it) Zipped; transfer in binary mode. mayacal2.zip
Second part (those files missing in MAYACAL.ZIP).
-
floyd.zip: Maya
calendar program in Basic for the PC by Floyd Lounsbury, info included.
Zipped, transfer in binary mode. Seems to have a bug when converting Gregorian
dates from 500, 600, 700 (i.e. centuries not dividable by 400).
-
maya3.enc: MAYA3
Maya Calendrics Program for PCs by Mark & John Harris. Zipped/uuencoded.
And this is the zipped version maya3.zip,
transfer in binary. Has the same bug as the Floyd Lounsbury programs, bugfix
in progress by authors.
-
maya.enc: MAYA
CALENDAR 2.02 FOR WINDOWS 3.1 Shareware US$ 29.95, by Gregory Reddick zipped/uuencoded.
-
skyglo36.zip:
Skyglobe 3.6 astronomy program. Shareware. Zipped, transfer in binary mode.
-
mayafontsttw.zip:
Free
Maya Calendrics Fonts in Truetype for Windows, Copyright Ecological Linguistics.
Zipped, transfer in binary. Note: 500k download.
Unix:
Various Notes and Infos:
-
Reports
-
Commentaries
-
Unsubstantiated claims of Pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts, some
arguments against it.
-
Olmec Heads An
archeologist's answer, by Billie Follensbee.
-
More on the Olmecs,
by David Hixson.
-
The facial features of Olmec heads represent Native Americans, not Africans:
picture of a Tzotzil
youth from Chiapas, from the book "Ancient Maya" by Sharer. See also
the Olmec Twins,
smaller sculptures which show the Asiatic features better.
-
Critic of Wiercinski's
skeletal analysis, by Peter van Rossum.
-
White people
in America? Various comments that this is currently just idle speculation.
-
A lack of ocean-going
boats before Columbus, by Paul Pettennude.
-
The Sweet Potato,
how did it get across the Pacific? by Peter van Rossum.
-
Bottle Gourd
and Sweet Potato, modes for auto-diffusion, by Peter van Rossum.
-
On the coconut &
gourd, by Greg Keyes.
-
On the gourd,
by Bernard Ortiz de Montellano.
-
Peanuts in China?
Not much butter to it, by Peter van Rossum.
-
Maize in India?
Not really, by Domingo Martinez Castilla, Greg Keyes, & Peter van
Rossum.
-
Olmec Inscriptions
are very unlikely to be Chinese Shang script.
-
Grave Creek site
and Roman-Hebraic site, just fakes.
-
On supposedly Roman
artifacts etc., by Peter van Rossum.
-
On bananas, by
Bernard Ortiz de Montellano.
-
On the shape of
pyramids, by Bernard Ortiz de Montellano.
-
Problems
of transatlantic diffusion, by Tony West.
-
Parallels between
Moche and Maya or other Mesoamerican iconographies by Lloyd Anderson.
-
Abstracts
about DNA polymorphisms and recovering DNA from bones. Atzlan notes from
Prof. Herveg. More info can be retrieved from his gopher
site.
-
References
for articles about arthritis in Pre-columbians times.
-
Correlation questions
on the Dresden Codex by Lloyd Anderson.
-
Comments on
the Maya creation date by Linda Schele.
-
Comments on
the Maya calendar correlation by Linda Schele.
-
Review of
the book on Maya placenames, reviewed by Lloyd Anderson.
-
Review and comments
on 2 books by Brotherston, reviewed by Lloyd Anderson.
-
Site reports, travel info
-
Other info
Pictures:
Links:
If you have any interesting information, pictures, links that you would like to see included, please send an email to
You are visitor number
.
.
.
.
.
