We Met Thru Match.com, a mixed-media artwork by Tomokazu Matsuyama, whose work was on view in March at Kavi Gupta, in Chicago © The artist. Courtesy Kavi Gupta, Chicago

Writing appeared more often in Mesoamerican societies that were autocratic and unequal; the Inca of the Chincha Valley responded to the desecration of graves by early European colonists by threading the vertebrae of their ancestors onto reed posts; and for seven millennia, with the exception of the Late Horizon, Andean dietary preferences were driven by climate change. Sinkholes in the Yucatán mark the sacred cacao groves of the…