Origins of the Nuu: Archaeology in the Mixteca Alta, Mexico

Combining older findings with new data on 1,000 previously undescribed archaeological sites, Origins of the Nuu presents the cultural evolution of the Mixteca Alta in an up-to-date chronological framework. The nuu - the kingdoms of the famous Mixtec codices - are traced back through the Postclassic and Classic periods to their beginnings in the first states of the Terminal Formative, revealing their origin, evolution, and persistence through two cycles of growth and collapse. Challenging assumptions that the Mixtec were peripheral to better-known peoples such as the Aztecs or Maya, the book asserts that the nuu were a major demographic and economic power in their own right. Older explanations of multiregional or macroregional systems often portrayed civilizations as rising in a cradle or hearth and spreading outward. New macroregional studies show that civilizations are products of more complex interactions between regions, in which peripheries are not simply shaped by cores but by their interactions with multiple societies at varying distances from major centers. Origins of the Nuu is a significant contribution to this emerging area of archaeological research.