Sign-In
Cart
The Mountain Embodied: Head Shaping and Personhood in the Ancient Andes
Hardcover
BeautyArchaeologySouth American History
ISBN13: 9781477331514
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: Jul 15 2025
Pages: 264
Weight: 1.15
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.06 Depth: 9.13
Language: English
A study of the ancient practice of Andean head shaping and its cultural connotations.
In the late sixteenth century, Spanish conquerors in Peru's Colca Valley encountered the Collaguas and Cavanas, Indigenous people who undertook a striking form of body modification: Collaguas bound the heads of infants and children so that their skulls grew narrow and elongated, and Cavanas so that their skulls became wide and squat. Head shaping resulted in craniums that resembled two specific mountains associated with the groups. For Europeans, shaped skulls immediately and durably became a marker of territorialized ethnic difference.
The Mountain Embodied offers a more nuanced story. Having studied hundreds of samples of human remains, bioarchaeologist Matthew Velasco argues that reducing head shape to a mere ethnic marker is a colonial invention. Instead, the social significance of head shaping was protean and intersected with other structures of difference, such as gender, kinship, and status, influencing experience within the community. Head shaping, then, was one factor in the construction of a locally embedded kind of subjectivity. An outsider could deduce group identity from head shape, but for practitioners, head shaping reflected something else: nothing less than personhood itself.
Also in
Archaeology
The Death of Christ: The Bible and Popular Culture Vs Archaeological and Historical Evidence
Rutledge, Steven
Hardcover
Things We Found in the Ground: Discovering the History Buried Beneath Our Feet
Gray, Lucie
Bruce, Ellie
Paperback
Cræft: An Inquiry Into the Origins and True Meaning of Traditional Crafts
Langlands, Alexander
Paperback
Treasures of Egypt: A Legacy in Photographs from the Pyramids to Cleopatra
National Geographic
Hardcover
The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World
Wisnom, Selena
Hardcover
Archaeology and the People of the Bible: Exploring the Evidence for the Historical Existence of Bible Characters
Kennedy, Titus
Paperback
Love, War, and Diplomacy: The Discovery of the Amarna Letters and the Bronze Age World They Revealed
Cline, Eric H.
Hardcover
Those Who Walked Before: Fossil Footprints at White Sands
Bennett, Matthew
Bustos, David F.
Odess, Daniel
Paperback
The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution Is Rewriting Their Story
Mallory, J. P.
Hardcover
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
Anthony, David W.
Paperback
Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings: Evidence of Advanced Civilization in the Ice Age
Hapgood, Charles
Paperback
The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke
Lawler, Andrew
Paperback
Escape from Pompeii: The Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius and Its Survivors
Tuck, Steven L.
Hardcover
An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya
Taube, Karl
Miller, Mary Ellen
Paperback
American Archaeology: Living History, Stolen Pasts, and Defending the Future
Burillo, R. E.
Paperback
The Language Puzzle: Piecing Together the Six-Million-Year Story of How Words Evolved
Mithen, Steven
Hardcover
The Earl and the Pharaoh: From the Real Downton Abbey to the Discovery of Tutankhamun
The Countess of Carnarvon
Paperback
The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of the Modern World
Wisnom, Selena
Paperback
A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai'i
Kirch, Patrick Vinton
Paperback
The First Americans: In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery
Page, Jake
Adovasio, James
Paperback
Slaving States: From West Africa to the Ancient Mediterranean
Fentress, Elizabeth
Rabinowitz, Adam
Hardcover
The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution
Hicks, Dan
Paperback
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
Anthony, David W.
Paperback
Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age
Sheppard, Kathleen
Hardcover
Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest
Turner, Christy G., II
Paperback
The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts
Finkelstein, Israel
Silberman, Neil Asher
Paperback
The Valkyries' Loom: The Archaeology of Cloth Production and Female Power in the North Atlantic
Smith, Michèle Hayeur
Paperback
Behind the Bears Ears: Exploring the Cultural and Natural Histories of a Sacred Landscape
Burrillo, R. E.
Paperback
Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns
Nørgård, Anna
ØStergård, Else
Fransen, LILLI
Paperback
Classic Maya Social Inequality, Networks, and Collapse at DOS Pilas, Petén, Guatemala
Palka, Joel W.
Hardcover
Macedonia Under the Argead Kings: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Superpower
Worthington, Ian
Hardcover
Arrowheads and Stone Artifacts: A Practical Guide for the Amateur Archaeologist
Yeager, C. G.
Paperback
Turtle Island and the Tradition of Giants: When Earth Met Sky and Men Walked with Gods
Hamilton, Ross
Paperback
Uncovering America's First War: Contact, Conflict, and Coronado's Expedition to the Rio Grande
Schmader, Matthew F.
Hardcover
The Bible's First Kings: Uncovering the Story of Saul, David, and Solomon
Faust, Avraham
Farber, Zev I.
Hardcover
The First Signs: Unlocking the Mysteries of the World's Oldest Symbols
Von Petzinger, Genevieve
Paperback
The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World
Broodbank, Cyprian
Hardcover
The Trouble with Ancient DNA: Telling Stories of the Past with Genomic Science
Källén, Anna
Paperback
Stones Still Speak: How Biblical Archaeology Illuminates the Stories You Thought You Knew
Haley, Amanda Hope
Paperback
Roman Maritime Villas: Rediscovering Architecture in Southern Latium and Its Wider Context
Ferritto, Roberta
Hardcover
The Founding of Thessaloniki: A Comparison of Literary, Archaeological and Topographical Evidence
Manoledakis, Manolis
Paperback
Pueblo Bonito and Chaco Canyon Revisited: The Published Versus the Unpublished Record
Reyman, Jonathan E.
Paperback
Talking to the Rain: Paintings and Carvings on Stone in Chihuahuan Desert Landscapes
Schaafsma, Polly
Hardcover
Flaked Stone Artifacts from the East Wenatchee Clovis Cache
Bradley, Bruce A.
Huckell, Bruce
Mehringer, Peter J., Jr.
Hardcover
Ancient and Modern Methods of Arrow Release (History of Archery Series)
Morse, Edward S.
Ford, Horace A.
Paperback
Joining the Dots: uniting Salisbury's past through holes in the ground
Harding, Phil
Higbee, Lorrain
Mepham, Lorraine
Hardcover
Guardians of the Dragon Path: Ancient Temples of the Pyrenees, the Way of the Stars Camino, A Magdalena Meridian
Williams, Ani
Paperback
Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology
Morgan, Rachel
Paperback
The Trouble with Ancient DNA: Telling Stories of the Past with Genomic Science
Källén, Anna
Hardcover
Ancient Effigy Mound Landscapes of Upper Midwestern North America
Birmingham, Robert A.
Rosebrough, Amy L.
Paperback
Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State
Nesbitt, Elizabeth A.
Williams, David B.
Paperback
Petroglyphs (Rock Carvings) in the Susquehanna River near Safe Harbor, Pennsylvania
Cadzow, Donald
Paperback
Archaeology of the Bible: The Greatest Discoveries from Genesis to the Roman Era
Isbouts, Jean-Pierre
Hardcover
Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean
Barber, E. J. W.
Paperback
Paper Number 89: Coastal Archaeology of Suchitepéquez and Escuintla, Guatemala; Paper Number 90: Environment and Settlement in the Jesús River Drainag
Arroyo, Barbara
Pye, Mary Elizabeth
Paperback
The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man's Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt's Greatest Mystery
Brier, Bob
Houdin, Jean-Pierre
Paperback