Williams Eduardo. Aquatic Adaptations in Mesoamerica: Subsistence Activities in Ethnoarchaeological Perspective

Archaeopress Archaeology, 2022. — 280 p. — (Archaeopress Pre-Columbian Archaeology 15).Aquatic Adaptations in Mesoamerica explores the subsistence strategies that ancient Mesoamericans implemented to survive and thrive in their environments. It discusses the natural settings, production sites, techniques, artifacts, cultural landscapes, traditional knowledge, and other features linked to human subsistence in aquatic environments. The study is based on analyses of fishing, hunting, gathering, and manufacture (among other activities), all of which were integral elements of aquatic lifeways. In addition to the aquatic lifeways themselves, salt-making, and intensive agriculture developed and practiced in lakes and marshes are also examined. The study adopts a perspective based on ethnoarchaeology and ethnohistory, complemented by archaeological field data.Eduardo Williams obtained his Ph.D. from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, in 1989. He joined the faculty of the Colegio de Michoacán (Zamora, Mexico) in 1990, where he holds the post of Professor in the Center for Archaeological Research. He has published several books, including La sal de la tierra (2003, winner of the Alfonso Caso Prize awarded by the Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History), and Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene (Archaeopress, 2020). Professor Williams has been a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences since 2002.