Acknowledgments -- Foreword by Richard J. Chacon -- 1. Introduction Rubén G. Mendoza and Linda Hansen -- Part I - Recent Archaeological Evidence 2. Blood Tribute, Earth Offerings, and the Formative Origins of Ritual Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerica Rubén G. Mendoza and Gary Velasco -- 3 Shifting Perspectives on Human Sacrifice at Midnight Terror Cave, Belize Cristina Verdugo, Lars Fehren-Schmitz, and James E. Brady -- 4. Ritual Human Sacrifice Among the Tarascans of West Mexico Cinthia Marlene Campos, José Luis Punzo-Díaz, and Carlos Karam Tapia -- Part II - Iconographic and Contextual Evidence 5. Portals to the Gods: Reciprocity, Sacrifice, and Warfare in the Northern Mixteca Carlos Rincón Mautner -- 6. The Hacha, Decapitation Sacrifice, and Classic Veracruz History Rex Koontz -- 7. Blood and Water: A Mesoamerican SocialCement Annabeth Headrick -- 8. Divine Combat, Warrior Merchants, and Ritual Sacrifice in the Mesoamerican Epiclassic, AD 750-1050 Lucha de Luna Martínez -- 9. The Harvest of Souls: Mimesis, Materiality, and Ritual Human Sacrifice in Mesoamerica Rubén G. Mendoza -- Part III - Emerging Theoretical Perspectives 10. Filled with Divine Fire: Mesoamerican Human Sacrifice and Costumed Rituals as Acts of Deicide Mark Wright -- 11. Bodily Transformation and Sacralization: Human Sacrifice in Southwestern Mesoamerica Javier Urcid -- 12. Human Sacrifice at Tula: Reputation, Representation, and Reality Keith Jordan -- 13. The Myth of the Willing Human Sacrifice: The Complex Nature of Human Sacrifice in Aztec Ceremonialism Linda Hansen Part IV - The Ethnographic Present 14. Indigenous Sacrifice in the Christian Language: Among the Communities of the NorthernMixteca, Oaxaca, Mexico Carlos Rincón Mautner -- 15. Deicide and Fertility in Ch’orti’ Maya Myth and Ritual Kerry Hull -- Index.

This edited volume addresses the environmental and cultural underpinnings of the kind of social conflict that spawned the origins and elaboration of ritualized human and animal sacrifice in Mesoamerica. The chapters variously document the place of cultural evolution and social complexity in the origins and elaboration of ritual human sacrifice, cannibalism, and trophy-taking across a broad spectrum of Mesoamerican cultural and social contexts that first saw the light of day before 2600 BCE, and rapidly developed and proliferated across the Mesoamerican world in the centuries to follow. They study the developments in sacrifice rituals through the centuries into the first millennium CE, when the Mexica Aztec and their allies had elevated ritual human sacrifice such that they produced a plethora of sacrificial acts, modes and manners of death, and associated deities to articulate the necro-cultures and blood-tribute of the times. The chapters further study present-day rites of Amerindian communities from throughout Mesoamerica that include paying homage to the deities of earth and sky through sacrifice and consumption of animal surrogates. The interdisciplinary effort undertaken by this international cadre of scientists, including anthropologists, bioarchaeologists, art historians, ethnohistorians, iconographers, and religious studies experts provides a particularly rich forum for launching an interrogation into the role of conflict, environment, and social complexity in the emergence and persistence of ritual violence and human sacrifice in the Mesoamerican world.