Kirjahaku

An archaeological exploration of the role of creativity and invention in the ancient Maya civilizationDrawing on archaeological findings from the Maya lowlands, War Owl Falling shows how innovation and creativity led to social change in ancient societies. Markus Eberl discusses the ways eighth-century Maya (and Maya commoners in particular) reinvented objects and signs that were associated with nobility, including scepters, ceramic vessels, ballgame equipment, and the symbol of the owl. These innovations, he argues, reflect assertions of independence and a redistribution of power that contributed to the Maya collapse in the Late Classic period.Eberl emphasizes that decision-making—the ability to imagine alternate worlds and to act on that vision—plays a large role in changing social structure over time. Contextualizing these decisions in his "Garden of Forking Paths" model, Eberl shows how innovators were those individuals who imagined an array of possible futures and negotiated power to reach desirable outcomes. He dissects the social underpinning of Maya creativity by illustrating their situated method of learning via observation and imitation, stressing that societal constraints or opportunities dictated whether members' ideas were realized. Pinpointing where and when Maya inventions emerged, how individuals adopted them and why, War Owl Falling connects technological and social change in a novel way.A volume in the series Maya Studies, edited by Diane Z. Chase and Arlen F. Chase

Through the use of sophisticated ceramic chronology techniques, the author documents how small farming communities like Nacimiento and Dos Ceibas grew from hamlets in the seventh century A.D. into villages with several hundred inhabitants. He traces how local elites emerged during the eighth century A.D. and built outsized residential groups. Mutual exchanges in these villages levelled material wealth, but also translated into social status and legitimised social inequality. As settings for public rituals, these exchanges helped integrate the communities, while individual households conducted domestic rituals that included ancestor veneration, dedication offerings, and termination rituals. The inhabitants of Aguateca's rural hinterland interacted on multiple levels within and beyond the boundaries of their communities. The economic, sociopolitical, and ritual changes during the Late Classic highlight the complexity and dynamism of local communities.