Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History Book | Mayan, Aztec & Olmec Civilizations | Perfect for History Students, Researchers & Travel Enthusiasts

This is a fantastic general overview of Mesoamerican archaeology: accurate, comprehensive (I mean REALLY comprehensive), clearly written, and brimming with illustrations.I used this book to study for my comprehensive exams in archaeology. I highly recommend it for that purpose, or as a guide to some of the regions that all too often get left out of general-audience books on Mesoamerica: West Mexico, Veracruz and the Huasteca, etc.This is a Thames and Hudson book and it feels like one--readers familiar with Fagan's "Ancient North America" or Coe's twin volumes, "Mexico" and "The Maya," can expect the same standards of publication and the same quantity of beautifully-reproduced line drawings, maps, and photographs. Toby Evans's book is better than Coe's, though: not only is it a single synthetic volume, but her writing is clearer and she does not use the text to grind axes or name-check her former graduate students.The text benefits from having only a small dose of theory, which when it does show up is mostly of the cultural ecology variety one would expect from an author with Toby Evans's Penn State affiliation.Throughout the book, there are special 1-2 page sections on all kinds of topics: pottery, exchange systems, birth and childhood among the Aztecs, chinampa agriculture, etc. These are especially useful for general readers--somebody planning a trip to Mexico, for instance--looking for some background on the details of life in prehistory, and not just what-happened-when.