AMAN aman12432 Dispatch: November 30, 2015 CE: N/A

Journal MSP No. No. of pages: 2 PE: Haider Sahle

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BOOK REVIEW
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8 Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places: War in Pre-Columbian
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Mesoamerica and the Andes by Andrew K. Scherer and
11 John W. Verano, eds
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13 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. 432 pp.
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15 DOI: 10.1111/aman.12432 resulted in an empire administered from Monte Alban.
16 Using a broad set of criteria for diagnosing territorial
Q117 Gwen Robbins Schug violence and warfare, he finds support for elite status rivalry
18 Appalachian State University among polities, which he argues drove warfare, raiding,
19 sacrifice, and violent displays. Gerardo Gutierrez uses

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20 Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places is a collection of papers ethnohistory, linguistics, iconography, and the archaeology
21 from a symposium entitled Conflict, Conquest, and the of a recurrent battlefield in Guerrero to examine the
22 Performance of War in Pre-Columbian America. The goal experience of Aztec expansion and how sacrifice here fit into
23 was to situate Pre-Columbian violence in its particular his- a complex worldview, features of which were shared among
24 torical and social context and reconstruct the semiotics many Mesoamerican cultures. Ximena Chavez Balderas also
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of violence, its role in ritual performance, power rela-
tions, and statecraft. This volume admirably accomplishes
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explores multiple interpretations of sacrifice, from the func-
tional and reductionist to the structural and symbolic. Based
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27 its goals, with all of the chapters going far beyond common on osteological evidence from the Templo Mayor (Tenochti-
28 tropes in the bioarchaeology of violenceas an individ- tlan), he argues that sacrifice did not involve captives of
29 ual experience, as a manifestation of structural violence, war; he opines that the victims were more likely exchanged
30 as an expression of vulnerability, or in its relationship to in specialized markets or obtained as tribute from defeated
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31 health or stressto contextualize violent behavior in communities.

32 its role in identity construction, the performance of so- The second half of the book focuses on Andean pop-
33 cial relationships, and ritualized expressions of power and ulations, with chapters by Elizabeth Arkush, Tiffiny Tung,
34 resistance. George Lau, J. Marla Toyne, and L. Alfredo Narvaez Vargas
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35 The first six chapters examine the conditions for vio- demonstrating how violence ordered society. Arkush argues
36 lence in Mesoamerica. Takeshi Inomata considers violence that endemic warfare, violence, and threats of violence were
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37 as a social process, which is tied into identity construc- central to the formation of interdependent confederations
38 tion and social relations in Pre-Classic and Classic period and the fluorescence of local identities that in turn exac-
39 Lowland Maya society in the Pasion River region. Andrew erbated conflict in the south-central Andes in the Late In-
40 Scherer and Charles Golden also focus on identity, but they termediate Period. Tung demonstrates how militarism and
41 are more concerned with cultural diversity in western Maya social violence in Wari society legitimized and ultimately
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42 lowland polities, where taking and naming captives was a cultivated a specialization in aggression; this resulted in a
43 performance designed to achieve different social, political, recursive situation where warriors required war, as much as
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44 and economic goals. Matthew Restall takes a deconstruc- war had required warriors. Lau approaches Andean conflict
45 tivist approach to Hernan Cortess idea that Mayan warfare from the perspective that violence is not inherently desta-
46 was highly innovative between 15201540 C.E. He demon- bilizing but can be a form of social order, a creative and
47 strates how a landscape of war resulted in regionally di- a destructive activity. Toyne contends that a mass killing
48 verse narratives of, and approaches to, warfare among Mayan at Kuelap is unrelated to territorial ambitions but instead
49 communities, which ultimately led to different outcomes for represents a destructive and possibly punitive act, the vis-
50 Spanish incursions. ceral consequences of termination, abandonment, and social
51 In a chapter on warfare and conquest in the reconfiguration in the epicontact period. Dennis Ogburn
52 Late/Terminal Formative period of Oaxaca, Arthur Joyce provides a useful summary of Inca warfare as an imperial
53 examines evidence for the predatory expansion model, strategy, describing modes of submission and their impact
54 ultimately rejecting the hypothesis that territorial conquest on incorporation and resettlement.
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57 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 000, No. 0, pp. 12, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. 
C 2015 by the American Anthropological Association.

58 All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/aman.12432

1 2 American Anthropologist Vol. 000, No. 0 xxxx 2015
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3 Several chapters consider Moche captive sacrifice,
4 whether it primarily occurs in the context of warfare
5 or ritual combat, the source of the captives, and the
6 significance of this practice. Luis Jaime Castillo Butters
7 focuses on political fragmentation, arguing that the highly
8 differentiated, multipolity Moche society created diverse
9 options for social relations between polities, including
10 commerce, negotiation, diplomacy, and other discursive
11 modes, as well as warfare and ritual combat. John Verano
12 is interested in the complexity of using iconographic, ar-
ritual practice that functioned to affirm power at regional
centers and remained hardly changed over 600 years.
This volume is deserving of a large and diverse audience.
Scholars from many fields will find value in these chapters,
which often seamlessly weave together history, iconography,
area studies, and the subfields of anthropology. The volume
is a rare example of cross-subdisciplinary excellence. It will
serve as a useful reference for students, containing chap-
ters based on strong scholarship that is accessible at many
levels. The book admirably accomplishes the editors goals

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13 chaeological, bioarchaeological, taphonomic, and mortuary and provides a stunning example of nuanced interpreta-
14 evidence to reconstruct patterns of warfare in the Andes. tion of warfare and violence, history, strategy, power, and

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15 He contends that captive sacrifice represents a longstanding performance in American prehistory.
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Query
Q1: AUTHOR: Please confirm that given names (red) and surnames/family names (green) have been identified correctly.