The sixteen-volume Handbook of Middle American Indians, completed in 1976, has been acclaimed the world over as the most valuable resource ever produced for those involved in the study of Mesoamerica. When it was determined in 1978 that the Handbook should be updated periodically, Victoria Reifler Bricker, well-known cultural anthropologist, was selected to be series editor. This first volume of the Supplement is devoted to the dramatic changes that have taken place in the field of archaeology. the volume editor, Jeremy A. Sabloff, has gathered together detailed reports from the directors of many of the most significant archaeological projects of the mid-twentieth century in Mesoamerica, along with discussions of three topics of general interest (the rise of sedentary life, the evolution of complex culture, and the rise of cities).
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Jeremy A. Sabloff is Curator of Mesoamerican Archaeology, Williams Director Emeritus, and the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Society of Antiquaries, London. Sabloff's research interests range from the study of ancient Maya civilization, to archaeological theory and method, to the history of American archaeology, to pre-industrial urbanism, and to the use of settlement pattern studies. He has conducted field work in the Maya lowlands of Mexico and Guatemala including co-directing the major field project at the Yucatan site of Sayil. He is author or editor of 20 books and countless articles on the Maya and the history of archaeology. Sabloff is former president of the Society for American Archaeology.
