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List of contents
1: Massive Assumptions and Moundbuilders: The History, Method, and Relevance of Architectural Energetics
Elliot M. Abrams and Leah McCurdy
2: Built Environments and Social Organizations: A Comparative View from Asia
Nam C. Kim and Jina Heo
3: Pharaonic Power and Architectural Labor Investment at the Karnak Temple Complex
Megan Drennan and Michael J. Kolb
4: An Energetics Approach to the Construction of the Heuneburg: Thoughts on Celtic Labor Cost Choices
François Remise
5: To House and Defend: The Application of Architectural Energetics to Southeast Archaic Greek Sicily
Jerrad Lancaster
6: Labor Mobilization and Medieval Castle Construction in at Salemi, Western Sicily
Michael J. Kolb, Scott Detrich Kirk, and William M. Balco
7: Labor Recruitment among Tribal Societies: An Architectural Energetic Analysis of Serpent Mound, Ohio
Jamie L. Davis, Jarrod Burks, and Elliot M. Abrams
8: The Energetics of Earthen Landscape Modification: An Assessment of an Emerging Mississippian Polity
Cameron H. Lacquement
9: Dual Labor Organization Models for the Construction of Monumental Architecture in a Corporate Society
Anthony James DeLuca
10: Peopling Monuments: Virtual Energetics and Labor Impact Analysis of Monumental Construction at Xunantunich, Belize
Leah McCurdy
11: A Construction Management Approach to Building the Monumental Adobe Ciudadelas at Chan Chan, Peru
Richard L. Smailes
12: Towards a Multiscalar Comparative Approach to Power Relations: Political Dimensions of Urban Construction at Teotihuacan and Copan
Tatsuya Murakami
13: The Future of Architectural Energetics in 2D and 3D
Leah McCurdy and Elliot M. Abrams
About the author
Leah McCurdy is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) and a Research Associate with The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Leah earned her PhD from UTSA in 2016 with her dissertation focused on the application of energetics and labor analysis to the ancient Maya site of Xunantunich, Belize. Leah has been excavating at Xunantunich since 2008 to collect data relevant to her research interests in ancient construction practices, cooperative labor, the intersections of monumentality and community, as well as the meaning of the ancient built environment.
Elliot M. Abrams is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Ohio University. He refined and promoted the methodology of architectural energetics in How the Maya Built Their World (1994). In addition to his archaeological research in Mesoamerica, he has conducted excavations in the Ohio Valley for over three decades. He coedited (with AnnCorinne Freter) The Emergence of the Moundbuilders: The Archaeology of Tribal Societies in Southeastern Ohio (2005), which outlines the formation of sedentary tribal communities. He also studies environmental change, economic institutions, and social power through the lens of anthropological archaeology.
Summary
Architectural Energetics in Archaeology assembles an international array of scholars who have analyzed architecture from archaeological and historic societies using architectural energetics. It is the first such volume of its kind. It also outlines in detail the estimates of costs that can be used in future architectural analyses.
