The Biocultural Consequences of Contact in Mexico

Five Centuries of Change

Heather J. H. Edgar, Cathy Willermet

• Publisher: University of Florida Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781683403500
• eBook ISBN: 9781683403647
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Mexican History
• Index: Social Sciences

Examining the long-lasting effects of European colonization on Mexican populations

The Biocultural Consequences of Contact in Mexico explores how Mexican populations have been shaped both culturally and biologically by the arrival of Spanish conquistadors and the years following the defeat of the Aztec empire in 1521. Contributors to this volume draw on a diverse set of methods from archaeology, bioarchaeology, genetics, and history to examine the response to European colonization, providing evidence for the resilience of the Mexican people in the face of tumultuous change.

            

Essays focus on Central Mexico, Yucatan, and Oaxaca, providing a cross-regional perspective, and they highlight Mexican scholars’ work and viewpoints. They examine the effects of the castas system—which the colonizers used to organize society according to parentage and the social construction of race—on individuals’ and groups’ access to power, social mobility, health, and mate choice. Contributors illuminate the poorly understood extent that this system—and the national identity of mestizaje that replaced it—caused inequality and the structural violence of stress and health disparities, as well as genetic admixture.

            

Five hundred years after the Spanish first clashed with Aztec forces and began to influence modern Mexico, this volume adds to discussions of colonialism, the reconstruction of biosocial relationships, and the work of decolonization. Students and scholars in anthropology and history will gain insights into how human populations transform and adapt in the wake of major historical events that result in migration, demographic change, and social upheaval.

Contributors: Josefina Bautista Martínez | Alfredo Coppa | Andrea Cucina | Heather J. H. Edgar | Blanca Z. González-Sobrino | María Teresa Jaén Esquivel | Haagen D. Klaus | Michaela Lucci | Abigail Meza-Peñaloza | Emily Moes | Corey S. Ragsdale | Katelyn M. Rusk | Robert C. Schwaller | Julie K. Wesp | Cathy Willermet

 

 

A volume in the series Bioarchaeological Interpretations of the Human Past: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives, edited by Clark Spencer Larsen

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• 1. Contextualizing the Biocultural Examination of Colonization in Mexico
• 2. Movement, Power, and Race: Dynamics of Colonialism in Mexico
• 3. Spanish / North African Population Affinity: Implications for North American Mestizos
• 4. The Domestication of Death among the Natives of New Spain Seen from the Cemetery of the Royal Hospital of San José de los Naturales
• 5. Biocultural Impacts of Labor in Colonial Mexico City: The Intersections of Age, Sex, and Heritage
• 6. The Microevolution of Dental Morphology in the Northern Maya Lowlands after European Contact
• 7. Regional Changes in Population Structures with Spanish Contact
• 8. Genetic Diversity in Mesoamerica, Pre- and Postcontact
• 9. Living and Health Conditions in a Religious Order: The Nuns from San Jerónimo, Mexico City
• 10. A View of Stress and Inequality in Colonial Mexico City through Cranial Fluctuating Asymmetry
• 11. Reflections on 1521 and the Bioarchaeological Study of the Conquest of Mexico
• List of Contributors
• Index