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The New Archaeology and the Ancient Maya
Jeremy A. Sabloff
By 1990, the study of the ancient Maya had been transformed—by settlement surveys, environmental science, and, above all, the breakthrough decipherment of Maya writing. In this volume for the Scientific American Library, the eminent archaeologist Jeremy Sabloff explains how the 'new archaeology' changed what we can know about Maya cities, farming, trade, and the dramatic 'collapse' of the Classic era. It's a lucid, richly illustrated primer that takes the reader behind the discoveries to the methods that produced them, showing archaeology as an evolving science rather than a parade of treasures. Sabloff writes cleanly for non-specialists without dumbing things down. For readers who want to understand not just what we know about the Maya but how we came to know it, this is an ideal and still-useful introduction.
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The author
Jeremy A. Sabloff (b. 1944) is a leading Americanist archaeologist and a former director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, known both for fieldwork on the Maya and for thinking hard about archaeology as a discipline. He was well placed to survey how the field remade itself.
The book
The New Archaeology and the Ancient Maya appeared in 1990 in the Scientific American Library, a handsomely illustrated series for educated general readers. Sabloff uses the Maya as a case study for the processual 'new archaeology,' showing how questions of population, ecology, and social organization displaced older treasure-hunting, and how epigraphy opened a written Maya history.
How it has aged
Maya studies have moved fast since 1990, especially in decipherment and LiDAR mapping, so some specifics have been overtaken. But the book's real subject—how method shapes knowledge—remains valuable, and it is still a clear window onto a pivotal moment in the field.
For more context
It pairs naturally with the epigraphic revolution associated with scholars like Linda Schele, whose work gave the 'new archaeology' a legible Maya political history to work with.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Jeremy A. Sabloff
- Publisher
- Scientific American Library
- Place of publication
- New York
- Year
- 1990
- ISBN
- 0-7167-5054-6
- Shelf
- Science
- Location
- Maine