Karl Andreas Taube is an American Mayanist, anthropologist, epigrapher and ethnohistorian, known for his publications and research into the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica and the American Southwest. He is currently (as of 2006) Professor of Anthropology at the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, University of California, Riverside.^[1] Mayanist is a term which has been in widespread use from the late 19th century onwards, to refer to scholars who have specialised in research and study of the Central American pre-Columbian Maya civilization. ... See Anthropology. ... Epigraphy (Greek, επιγραφή - written upon) is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved into stone or other permanent materials, or cast in metal, the science of classifying them as to cultural context and date, elucidating them and assessing what conclusions can be deduced from them. ... Ethnohistory uses both historical and ethnographic data as its foundation. ... The term Pre-Columbian is used to refer to the cultures of the New World in the era before significant European influence. ... The cultural areas of Mesoamerica The term Mesoamérica is used to refer to a geographical region that extends roughly from the Tropic of Cancer in central Mexico down through Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua to northwestern Costa Rica, and which is characterized by the particular cultural homogeneity... The Southwest region of the United States is drier than the adjoining Midwest in weather; the population is less dense and, with strong Spanish-American and Native American components, more ethnically varied than neighboring areas. ... Initiation rite of the Yao people of Malawi Anthropology (from the Greek word , man or person) consists of the study of humanity (see genus Homo). ... The University of California, Riverside, is a public coeducational university whose main campus is in a suburban district of the city of Riverside, California. ...

Taube commenced his undergraduate education at Stanford, relocating to Berkeley where he completed a B.A. in Anthropology in 1980. His graduate studies were undertaken in Anthropology at Yale, where he completed his Masters degree in 1983 and was awarded his Doctorate in 1988.^[2] In some educational systems, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a Bachelors degree. ... The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University (or simply Stanford), is a private university located approximately 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles northwest of San José in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County. ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, and by other names, see below) is the oldest and flagship campus of the ten-campus University of California system. ... A Bachelor of Arts (B.A. or A.B.) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or program in the arts and/or sciences. ... A graduate school is the school that a college student may attend after completion of his or her undergraduate education in order to obtain a degree higher than a Bachelors degree. ... Yale redirects here. ... A Master of Arts is a postgraduate academic masters degree awarded by universities in North America and the United Kingdom (excluding the ancient universities of Scotland and Oxbridge. ...

Field research undertaken during the course of his career include a number of assignments on archaeological, linguistic and ethnological projects conducted in the Chiapas highlands, Yucatán Peninsula, central Mexico and latterly Honduras, where Taube has been involved with a major ongoing research project at Copán. Taube has also investigated pre-Columbian sites in Ecuador and Peru.^[3] In the southern most state of Chiapas in Mexico. ... The Yucatán peninsula as seen from space The Yucatán Peninsula separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico. ... Location of Copán The Pre-Columbian city now known as Copán is a locale in extreme western Honduras, in the Copán Department, near to the Guatemalan border. ...

An early theme examined by Taube's papers and other publications concerned the agricultural development and symbolism of Mesoamerica, such as in his 1983 presentation to the Fifth Palenque Round Table on the Maya maize god.^[4] Taube has also written on the symbolism and deity associations of maize for other cultures, such as the Olmec. Agriculture in Mesoamerica dates to the Archaic period of Mesoamerican chronology (8000-2000 BC). ... Like other Mesoamerican peoples, the traditional Mayas recognize in the maize a vital force with which they strongly identify. ... Corn redirects here. ... Monument 1, one of the four Olmec colossal heads at La Venta. ...

Another research theme explored by Taube is that of inter– and intra-regional exchanges and contacts for Mesoamerica, such as with those of Aridoamerica and the American Southwest. He has also researched the interactions between Teotihuacan, a dominant center in Mexico's plateau region during the Classic era of Mesoamerican chronology, and contemporary Maya polities.^[5] Aridoamerica is a term used to describe the northern region of Mexico, in contrast to Mesoamerica (the south). ... Teotihuacan was the largest Pre-Columbian known city in the Americas, and the name Teotihuacan is used to refer to the civilization this city dominated, which at its greatest extent included most of Mesoamerica. ... Mesoamerican chronology The chronology of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica is usually divided into the following eras: Paleo-Indian Period c. ... Polity is a general term that refers to political organization of a group. ...

His father, Canadian-born Henry Taube (d. 2005), was the recipient of the 1983 Nobel Prize in chemistry.^[6] Professor Henry Taube, Ph. ... This is a list of Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry from 1901 to 2006. ...

Notes

References

• Board of Regents, UC (2006). Taube, Karl A. UC Riverside, Faculty Directory. Regents UC. Retrieved on 2007-01-11.

• Shwartz, Mark (November 17 2005). Henry Taube, recipient of Nobel Prize in chemistry, dead at 89. Stanford Report. Stanford University. Retrieved on 2007-01-11.

• Taube, Karl (1985). Virginia M. Fields (volume ed.) "The Classic Maya Maize God: A Reappraisal" (PDF). Fifth Palenque Round Table, 1983, Merle Greene Robertson (general ed.), Online publication:November 2003, Monterey, CA: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute. Retrieved on 2007-01-12.