In the Shadow of Giants: The Earliest Ballcourt Sites in the Puuc Region of the Northern Maya Lowlands

Ken Seligson, PhD, California State University Dominguez Hills

Over the past twenty years, archaeologists have come to realize that far from being a cultural backwater, the northern lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula were integral to the development of the ancient Maya civilization. Communities constructed humongous platform mounds around the edges of the hilly Puuc Region as early as 800 BC, at the same time that some intrepid settlers established the first farming villages within the Puuc Region itself. These early agriculturalists needed to develop complex environmental management systems to overcome the scarcity of permanent water resources in the region. This talk will focus on recent evidence uncovered at the two early ballcourt sites of Xanab Chak and Paso del Macho, that demonstrates how even the smallest population centers were actually plugged into far-reaching trade and communication networks at the start of the first millennium BC.

Dr. Ken Seligson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at California State University Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles County. He earned his AB in Anthropology and History from Brown University and his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Seligson has been conducting archaeological fieldwork in the Northern Maya Lowlands since 2010, focusing mainly on human-environment relationships and resource management practices, as well as on ancient technology. His first book The Maya and Climate Change, which was written for a broader public audience interested in the ancient Maya, was published by Oxford University Press in November 2022. He is currently directing the "Small-Scale Sites in the Eastern Puuc" Archaeological Project, which focuses on the transition to settled life at the earliest ballcourt sites in the Puuc region of Yucatan, and will be sharing some of the project's most recent findings his lecture in March.

The March member-supported meeting will be presented on Zoom. The meeting is open to the public but pregistration is required. To pre-register, click HERE.

Unveiling the Ancient Secrets of the Chinchorro Mummies

Bernardo Arriaza, PhD, Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile

This presentation delves into the remarkably sophisticated mortuary traditions of the Chinchorro people, a complex hunter-gatherer society that thrived in the Atacama Desert region of Northern Chile and Southern Peru over 7,000 years ago.  Using sticks, clay, and mineral pigments like manganese, they meticulously conserved bodies, adding realistic details such as open eyes and mouths. This presentation synthesizes the Chinchorro's mortuary practices, daily life, and mummy preparation consequences. As one of the earliest known examples of artificial mummification, this ancient culture provides a unique glimpse into the social complexity, worldview, and symbolic expressions of coastal hunter-gatherer populations.nia.

Bernardo Arriaza, PhD, is a Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks and Professor at the Universidad de Tarapacá in Arica, Chile. As Director of the Chinchorro Cultural Heritage Center (Arica), he played a pivotal role in securing UNESCO World Heritage status for the Chinchorro sites in 2021. Dr. Arriaza received his PhD in Physical Anthropology from Arizona State University in 1991 and conducted postdoctoral research at the Smithsonian Institution.. Prior to his current appointment, he was Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (1992-2004).

Dr. Arriaza's research focuses on the bio-cultural adaptation of early coastal hunter-gatherers to arid environments, utilizing mortuary contexts to investigate this phenomenon. He has authored over 100 scientific articles, books, and book chapters. Notable publications include "Beyond Death" (Smithsonian Press, 1995) and "Chinchorro Culture: Past and Present" (Editions Universidad de Tarapacá, 2016, co-edited with Vivien Standen). Currently, Dr. Arriaza is investigating manganese poisoning in Chinchorro populations of the Atacama Desert, northern Chilee.

The February 2025 member-supported meeting will be presented on Zoom. The meeting is open to the public but pregistration is required. To register, click HERE.

The Way to the Water Is a Wharf: Evidence of Intensive Human Interaction and Interconnective Infrastructure in Ancient Amazonia from the Port of Macurany, Brazil

M. Grace Ellis, PhD Candidate, Colorado State University

In recent decades, archaeologists have documented large-scale pre-Columbian construction projects spanning entire regions of Amazonia, including extensive interfluvial road networks along the southern rim of the Amazon Basin and wharfs and canal systems along the lowland Amazon River floodplains. This evidence defies traditional notions of ancient Amazonians as socially fragmented and ephemeral. Instead, the presence of such large-scale, planned, permanent, infrastructural features indexes increasing intensive human habitation and interaction at local and regional scales just prior to European contact, and likely increased economic activities as well. New archaeological evidence from the port of Macurany, located along the Middle Amazon River, corroborates recent claims, revealing that pre-Columbian inhabitants in this region of Amazonia engineered numerous wharfs as part of a large-scale, fluvial-terrestrial infrastructure project that helped facilitate regional interconnectivity and exchange, likely of Brazil nuts among other goods, with larger regional polities centered on the Central and Lower Amazon River. This research highlights an emerging facet of Amazonian archaeology that explicitly recognizes the important and active role of regional interaction and economic exchange among ancient Amazonian communities, and the crucial role these activities played in the development of material infrastructural networks that lasted for centuries and helped perpetuate regional polities and build nascent urban centers. Ultimately, the port of Macurany represents an understudied region that sheds light on early forms of urbanism and intensive landscape engineering in tropical contexts, and networks of exchange and the nature of economies in ancient Amazonia.

M. Grace Ellis is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Colorado State University and Associate Student at the Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeological Research and Evolution of Human Behavior at the University of Algarve.  She specializes in landscape archaeology and remote sensing approaches to explore past human-environment interactions in various geographic contexts. In Amazonia, her research focuses on land use intensification, infrastructure, and social interaction among pre-Columbian floodplain communities. Her dissertation research focuses on modelling how the pre-Columbian maritime network developed and changed across the Caribbean Sea from AD 0 – AD 1500 to understand the impact of local and regional exchange on polities across the study area and the macroregional maritime system as a whole.

The Janauary 2025 member-supported meeting will be presented on Zoom. The meeting is open to the public but pregistration is required. Click HERE to register..

Of Clouds and Stone: An Atmospheric View of the Copán Valley Stelae, Honduras

Catherine H. Popovici, PhD, Department of Art History, Indiana University

NOTE: AT THE REQUEST OF OUR SPEAKER, NO YOUTUBE OR OTHER RECORDING OF THIS TALK IS TO BE MADE. PLEASE RESPECT THE WISHES OF OUR GUEST PRESENTER.

The Copan Valley stelae are a sculptural ensemble commissioned in 652 CE by K’ahk Uti’ Witz’ K’awiil, the twelfth king of the Maya city-state of Copán. Situated in foothills that rise above the valley floor, five of these sculptures feature lengthy hieroglyphic texts and two are uncarved, minimally molded by human hands. This talk will explore how various environmental circumstances influenced both the embodied viewing of these Maya stelae as well as the monuments’ own communicative capabilities. In looking at topography and weather phenomena, tonight’s speaker contends that a sculpture’s immediate environment was an integral component of its functionality.

Catherine H. Popovici, PhD, is the Robert E. and Avis Tarrant Burke Postdoctoral Fellow in Ancient and Indigenous Art of the Americas in the Department of Art History at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her work primarily focuses on visual and material landscapes in the Indigenous Americas. Her in-progress book manuscript, “Variable Atmospheres: Experiencing the Stelae of the Copán Valley, Honduras,” centers a seventh-century suite of Maya sculpture and participates in conversations across art history, anthropology, and the environmental humanities and is supported by the ACLS H. and T. King Fellowship in Ancient American Art and Culture. She has previously held positions at Johns Hopkins University, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the John Carter Brown Library, and the Blanton Museum of Art. Popovici earned a PhD in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin, a MA in Art History from Penn State, and a BA with High Honors in the History of Art from Smith College..

The December member-supported meeting will be presented on Zoom. This meeting is open to all but to attend you must pre-register. To register, click HERE.

Resilient Maya City at the End of the Classic Period: Archaeological Evidence from the Site of Ucanal, Petén, Guatemala

Christina T. Halperin, PhD, Université de Montréal

The end of the Classic period in the Southern Maya Lowlands is known as a time of political collapse and site abandonment. Not all settlements, however, were abandoned and some even prospered during the Terminal Classic period (ca. 810-1000 CE). This talk presents new archaeological data from one of these prospering settlements, the ancient city of Ucanal, the capital of the K’anwitznal kingdom. Research at the site by the Proyecto Arqueológico Ucanal documents an early 9th century fire-burning event at the Maya site of Ucanal and argues that it marked a momentous moment in not only the political history of the kingdom, but in the political transition between the Late Classic (ca. 600-810 CE) and Terminal Classic (ca. 810-950 CE) period in the Southern Maya Lowlands. The fire-burning rite involved the destruction of an earlier dynastic line, in which the contents of a Late Classic royal tomb were taken out and burned. This talk outlines the archaeological evidence for this momentous event as well as a range of evidence documenting the ways in which the K’anwitznal polity reinvented itself and in which the city of Ucanal went on to a flourishing of activities throughout the Terminal Classic period and beyond.

Christina T. Halperin is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal. Her research examines ancient Maya politics from the perspectives of households, gender, materiality, and everyday life.  Halperin has conducted archaeological field investigations in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize over the last 28 years. She currently directs an international, multi-disciplinary archaeological project at the site of Ucanal, Guatemala. She has published extensively on topics such as ceramic figurines, textiles, the production and circulation of polychrome pottery, architecture, and landscape archaeology.  Halperin is author or editor of the following books: Foreigners Among Us: Alterity and the Making of Maya Societies (2023), Vernacular Architecture of the Pre-Columbian Americas (2017), Maya Figurines: Intersections between State and Household (2014) and Mesoamerican Figurines: Small-Scale Indices of Large-Scale Social Phenomena (2009).

The November member-supported meeting will be presented on Zoom. This meeting is open to the public but to attend you must pre-register here.

Late Classic Queens of the Snake Realm and their Role in Crafting State Politics: A View from Ancient Waka’

Olivia C. Navarro-Farr, PhD, College of Wooster

This talk focuses on the symbolic significance of Classic Maya royal Queens of the snake realm (Kaan) and their political power which rose prominently during the Late Classic period (~AD 550-900) under the auspices of that regime. Their hypogamous marriages to subordinate vassal polities throughout the southern Maya lowlands created a network of alliances that elevated the snake realm’s hegemony. In consideration of the Indigenous ontological creation principle of gender complementarity as a foundation, Dr. Navarro-Farr argues the power of these snake Queens was grounded not only in their association with that regime, but as women with the attendant implications of fecundity and reproductive power as central to their political cachet. These power domains, steeped in the potent magic of fertility, were also central to their rulership as conjurers and diviners, with acts of sorcery themselves metaphorically linked to birth and birth work. Orienting Dr. Navarro-Farr's position from the ancient city of Waka’, she will review the substantial archaeological and epigraphic data surrounding two such queens who ruled during the 6th and 7th centuries, respectively. She will evaluate how these lines of evidence permit a keen understanding of their governing strategies, their wielding of sacred power, and how the people they ruled elevated them as revered ancestresses in memory for generations to follow. This cemented their legacy within Waka’s social and political landscape and beyond.

Olivia C. Navarro-Farr, PhD, is Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Chair of the Program in Archaeology at the College of Wooster. She teaches courses in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient Mesoamerica. She has worked in the Maya area since 1997 on projects in Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala and she currently directs research at the Proyecto Arqueológico Waka’ (PAW) with David Del Cid of San Carlos University of Guatemala and Damien Marken of Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. She has published in Latin American Antiquity, Feminist Anthropology, and in numerous chapters in various edited volumes. She is also co-editor (with Michelle Rich) of Archaeology at El Perú -Waka’: Performances of Ritual, Memory, and Power detailing research at ancient El Perú -Waka’. She has directed investigations at Waka’s primary civic-ceremonial structure (M13-1) since 2003. Her interests include the archaeology of ritual, monumental architecture, site abandonment processes, Classic Period Politics, and the role of royal women in Classic Maya statecraft.

The October member-supported meeting will be presented on Zoom. This meeting is open to the public but you must pre-register to attend. Click here to pre-register.

From Cholula to Nicaragua: The Origins of the 'Mixteca-Puebla' Tradition in Polychrome Ceramics

Geoffrey McCafferty, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of Calgary

This presentation covers 40+ years of research in the central Mexican religious center of Cholula (Puebla, Mexico) that eventually took the speaker to Pacific Nicaragua, following ethnohistoric accounts of migration during the Early Postclassic period. A central theme of this journey has been an interest in the beautiful and richly symbolic polychrome pottery that characterizes the 'Mixteca-Puebla stylistic tradition.' Cholula was a cult center for Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, patron of sacred knowledge as well as long distance merchants. Cholula was famous as a marketplace for exotic goods originating throughout greater Mesoamerica, as well as being an artisan center for elaborate crafts, including brightly colored ceramics embellished with codex-style iconography. Similar pottery caught the attention of Central Americanist archaeologists in the early 20th century, and the prominence of feathered serpents as a decorative element implied a connection with Cholula itself. This was further amplified through ethnohistoric accounts of migrations into Nicaragua by the Oto-Manguean-speaking Chorotega culture, plausibly a derivation of Cholulteca (inhabitants of Cholula). This presentation will outline cultural similarities and differences relating to the alleged migration, emphasizing the evidence found in the polychrome pottery and concluding with a plot twist and a sweet ending.

Geoffrey McCafferty, PhD, is Professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, as well as current Research Adjunct at the University of Kentucky. He began his graduate school career at the Universidad de las Americas in Cholula (Puebla, Mexico) before completing his PhD at the State University of New York in Binghamton. Following graduation, he was a Mellon Fellow in Latin American Art and Architecture at Brown University before moving to Canada. Although he began his career focusing on central Mexico, since 2000 he has excavated in Pacific Nicaragua in search of evidence of the migrations 'out of Mexico.' His wide-ranging research interests center around past social identities such as ethnicity and gender, using archaeological, ethnohistorical, and art historical sources. He has published over 100 books and articles, often in collaboration with his wife, Sharisse. He is currently editor of the journal Latin American Antiquity for the Society for American Archaeology.

This September member-supported meeting will be presented on Zoom. This meeting is open to the public but you must pre-register to attend. To sign up for this meeting, click HERE .

Finding Evidence of Early Caddo Potters at Cahokia

Paige Ford, PhD, Arkansas Archaeological Survey

This presentation explores early Caddo-Cahokia connections through the analyses of Early Caddo (AD 900-1150) fineware pottery found in both Caddo and Cahokia contexts. Dr. Ford (ARAS-PBMRS) and colleague Dr. Shawn Lambert (Mississippi State University) examined Caddo-like fineware ceramics found at Cahokia Mounds to investigate whether these vessels were 1) produced by Caddo potters who lived and worked at Cahokia, 2) produced by local Cahokia potters who copied Caddo motifs, or 3) were imported to Illinois from the southern Caddo area located in Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The results of their analyses suggest these pots were indeed made by Caddo craft specialists living at Cahokia, as they discovered continuity in style and design between pots manufactured in the southern Caddo area and those found at Cahokia. Dr. Ford will describe their investigations and results, describing the significance of this study in understanding not only the connections between Caddo people and Cahokia, but their role in building this large multi-ethnic Mississippian community.

Dr. Paige Ford is a Station Archeologist with the Arkansas Archeological Survey stationed at Plum Bayou Mounds Archeological State Park. She is a native of North Carolina and completed her Bachelor’s in Archaeology at UNC Chapel Hill as well as her her Master’s and Ph.D. in Anthropology from East Carolina University and the University of Oklahoma, respectively. Her primary research involves better understanding the relationships Pre-Columbian peoples forged and maintained locally and regionally with one another. Focusing now on the understudied Late Woodland period in Arkansas, she examines the ways in which potters made and decorated their ceramics, to reconstruct those community relationships at the local and regional levels using social network analysis. In addition to these research activities, she focuses on the development of public outreach and education programs in collaboration with other local and regional entities; training university interns; and the preservation and management of Plum Bayou Mounds.

The August member-support meeting will be presented on Zoom. It is and open to the public. To pre-register, click HERE.

Place for Politics: The Wari Palace on Cerro Baúl

Donna J. Nash, PhD, Arizona State University

NOTE: This lecture will be the second Friday of the month

The origin and organization of early states is a significant component of the human past. The challenge for archaeologists is to identify what material remains might be used to understand how states developed and what approach can reveal their organization. Dr Nash focuses on the settings of state institutions, as well as the people and their practices within these contexts. Palaces, in particular, were significant as the houses of state officials and the settings of state institutions. Further, palaces often act as symbols of state leadership and power. Palace research can reveal the strategies of elite decision-makers because they can be affiliated with a particular elite official (or members of a powerful family). This approach is efficacious because “states” do not make decisions or engage in activities to build power; people make decisions and build power. The presentation will offer insights from excavations of a Wari provincial palace at the site of Cerro Baúl. Dr. Nash will describe the excavated palace spaces, the activities of its elite residents, and the compound’s ritual abandonment.

Dr. Donna J. Nash is an Associate Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University and Adjunct Curator of South American Archaeology at the Field Museum in Chicago. She examines imperial expansion from the perspectives of state agents and members of subject groups. This includes the methodological problems arising from studying ‘prehistoric’ empires and their material culture. Her research has focused on the Wari Empire (ca. 600-1100 CE) and the groups with which they have come in contact. Nash has been working in the region of Moquegua, Peru since 1993 and started excavating on Cerro Baúl in 1997. She directed excavations at the site from 2001-2007 during which areas of a palace was excavated. Nash has received funding to support her research from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Howard Heinz Endowment for Latin American Archaeology, the Curtiss T. and Mary G. Brennan Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. Nash was contributing editor for the Handbook of Latin American Studies from 2009 to 2012. She has published in the Archaeological Papers of the AAA, Bulletin de l’Institut d’Estudes Andines, Chungara, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Journal of Anthropological Research, Journal of Archaeological Research, Nawpa Pacha, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, World Archaeology and other venuest.

The July member-support meeting will be presented on Zoom. It will be free and open to the public. Please preregister HERE for this event..

Historical Maya Culture in Guatemala: Post-Classic to Post-Modern

George L. Scheper, PhD, Johns Hopkins University

THIS IS A ZOOM EVENT

This presentation will be an overview of episodes of Maya history and culture from the time of the 16th century Spanish encounters through the periods of Spanish colonialism and Guatemalan nationalism to the present, with a focus on the radical changes to Maya lifeways brought about by laissez-faire government policies from the late 19th century to the 1954 coup and subsequent violence and repression, and the emergence of Maya intellectuals, poets and writers in the present day, and also questions involving cultural survivalism and religious syncretism.

Dr. George L. Scheper holds a PhD in English Literature from Princeton University. He has been Director of the Odyssey Program and is currently Senior Lecturer in the Master of Liberal Arts Program, both of Johns Hopkins University. His teaching and research focus on cultural studies and religious studies, with a particular emphasis on the cultural history of cities, and of indigenous cultures of the Americas. He has been project co-director, along with Dr. Laraine Fletcher, of numerous National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institutes for college and university faculty, including on-site Institutes on "Maya Worlds," as well as faculty Institutes on Andean Cultures, on the Cultures of Mesoamerica and the Southwest, and Native Cultures of Southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Coast.

The June member-support meeting will be presented on Zoom. It will be free and open to the public but you must pre-register .

Archaeological Research in the Puuc Hills, Yucatán, Mexico

Tomás Gallareta Negrón, PhD, Co-Director of the Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project

THIS WILL BE A ZOOM-ONLY EVENT

For the past 25 years the Bolonchen Region Archaeological Project (BRAP) has conducted investigations in several sites in the Hill Country of Yucatán. This presentation will summarize the project  recent efforts and results related to the Preclassic occupations of the Puuc. It will also discuss the form and composition of the ancient Classic communities, and their main economic activities. LiDAR data has been instrumental for learning about such issues.

Tomás Gallareta Negrón (PhD 2013, Tulane University) is a Research Associate of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) in Yucatán, México, and Co-Director of the Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project (BRAP). He has directed projects of research and conservation at Labna (1991-2003) and at the archaeological site of Xocnaceh. After participating in the survey and excavations at Komchen in 1980, Gallareta became interested in the early occupation of the land and the development of complex societies in Yucatán during the Middle Preclassic. With extensive remote sensing experience for mapping and surveying many sites in the Northern Lowlands such as Cobá, Sayil, and Isla Cerritos, his research areas include the development of economic and settlement strategies and the interpretation of the architectural forms and complexes, both in public and domestic built spaces.he a.

The May member-support meeting is free and open to the public, but you must be pre-registered to attend. To register, click HERE.

Early Social Complexity in Southern Costa Rica

Amanda Suárez Calderón, PhD, Dumbarton Oaks, Pre-Columbian Studies

The archaeological region of Southern Costa Rica is well known for the beautiful gold figurines and the impressive stone sculptures that indigenous populations manufactured there during Pre-Columbian times. Hundreds of these objects are currently exhibited in museums across the world; however, most of them lack contextual information due to the history of how they were acquired and traded during modern times. This talk will be an overview of the archaeological research conducted in Southern Costa Rica over the last century, with special emphasis in the advances of the last decade. Specifically, we will explore the social organization of the indigenous societies who lived in this region between 300 and 1500 AD. Particular attention will be given to the fundamental transformation in social complexity that these societies experienced around 800 AD when the first villages appeared in the region. We will learn about the role of ceremonial activities and monumentalism in these early villages, as well as the intricate relationship between social complexity and hierarchy through times.

 Dr. Amanda Suárez Calderón obtained her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2023. She holds a bachelor's degree in Anthropology from the University of Costa Rica. Her research interests include the emergence of social complexity and hierarchies in Pre-Columbian Central America, warfare, ethnohistory, GIS and statistics. In addition to directing her dissertation fieldwork, partially funded by a Lewis and Clark grant from the American Philosophical Society, Amanda has participated in several fieldwork projects in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Peru. During her doctoral program at Pitt, Amanda received a Heinz fellowship for Latin American Archaeology, and she was a teaching fellow at the Department of Anthropology. Amanda is currently a Research Fellow in Pre-Columbian Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC.

The April 2024 monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture. For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually. Click Here to register. All monnthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

"My Teeth Are My Finery": Cultures of Oral Care in the Maya World

Joshua Schnell, PhD, Fellow in Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks

The decorated smiles of the early Maya have been the subject of more than a century of research, but the therapeutic and medicinal components of Maya dental practice – and the extent to which they existed – have remained the subject of speculation until quite recently. In this talk, Schnell will highlight his ongoing research which is bringing to light the oral care practices of the Maya, particularly during the Classic period (~250-1000 CE). Over the course of analyzing more than 300 individuals across 25 archaeological sites in the Maya Lowlands, Schnell has documented evidence for an entire suite of previously undocumented oral care practices including tooth cleaning and polishing, toothpick-use, extractions, fillings, and even oral surgery. This work is part of a larger research program in which Schnell emphasizes the importance of considering human agency in the study of health and disease in the past and pushes the boundaries of how care and care-related practices are traditionally studied. By focusing on oral care and dental practices, he argues for the unique capacity of the human mouth to address a broader definition of care that considers sociality, morality, and aesthetics in addition to health and medicine. Through this work, Schnell combines osteological analyses and paleopathology with detailed visual and material culture studies alongside broader ethnohistorical and ethnomedical research to situate early Maya oral care practices within their cultural and social contexts.  Please Note: this talk will contain images of human teeth.

Joshua Schnell is an anthropological bioarchaeologist whose work explores the intersection of human biology and the visual and material culture of aesthetic and medical practices in the past, particularly among the early Maya. His current research is pioneering this approach in the Maya area through the case study of oral care and the human mouth. He obtained his PhD and MA from the Department of Anthropology at Brown University and holds a BS in Anthropology and a BA in Religious Studies from Michigan State University. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, the Sperry Fund, the John Carter Brown Library, and Dumbarton Oaks. He has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico at a variety of sites ranging from mortuary rockshelters and caves to large civic-ceremonial dynastic centers. He currently works with the Proyecto Arqueológico Busilhá-Chocoljá in Chiapas, Mexico. 

The March 2024 monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture. For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually.

The Zoom registration link for this meeting is: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SL9Y6s64TS-Yw-YQIVyNBA

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

In Tlamacazqueh, In Tlenamacaqueh: Refiguring the Mexica Priesthood

Anthony Meyer, PhD, Dumbarton Oaks, Pre-Columbian Studies

In the Mexica Empire (c. 1325 – 1521), state ceremonies dominated the landscape with their visual performances, booming sounds, and fragrant smells. Behind these arresting displays were a group of trained religious leaders who made the many sacred works that filled them. To transform and shape materials such as fig bark, amaranth seed, and feathers into artworks, religious leaders required a great depth of artistic skill. Though scholars have positioned religious leaders as imperial agents with sacred knowledge, argues in this presentation, that we also need to situate them as key makers in the Mexica world. Seeing religious leaders as deft makers in their own right forces us to “re-figure” their roles and flesh out the broad applicability of artistry in the Mexica Empire, which goes beyond our current scope of state artisans and elite artworks.

 Dr. Meyer will unpack the historiography on religious leaders in the Mexica Empire, tracing how colonial texts have influenced scholars to position these figures outside of art historical categories. Then, he will explore titles for these leaders that evince the special relationships they had with materials; namely, the two that are used in conjunction to refer to the religious body as a whole: the tlamacazqueh, who were offerers or “givers of things,” and the tlenamacaqueh, who were trained in forms of incensing and sacrifice. Part of this lexical plunge will be to untangle the problems and frameworks that scholarship has placed on these figures in referring to them as “priests,” and Dr. Meyer will argue for a switch to the term “religious leader” to work against these interpretive biases. Finally, he will examine some of the artistic practices and skills that religious leaders were engaged with in the Mexica world, showing how they made things in relational ways that imbued materials with sacred energies while, at the same time, infusing their own bodies with sacredness.

Anthony Meyer holds a PhD in Art History from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a focus in the Indigenous Americas. His research, broadly speaking, explores the crossroads between Nahua art, language, and religion in the Mexica Empire (1325–1521 C.E.) and the transatlantic world of colonial New Spain. He is currently working on his first book project, The Givers of Things: Religious Leaders and Sacred Making in the Nahua World, which examines how Nahua religious leaders used artistic skill and knowledge to make and animate sacred artworks in the Mexica Empire and New Spain. For his research, he has received support from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Dumbarton Oaks, the Fulbright Association, the Huntington Library, the John Carter Brown Library, the Renaissance Society of America, the Society for Architectural Historians, and the Social Science Research Council.

The February 2024 monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture. For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually.

The registration link for this meeting is https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fUBFPklYTCKfqxwWHIrYKQ  

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

Exploring Mesoamerican Routes of Travel and Exchange: Least Cost Paths and the Southern Maya Area

Eugenia Robinson, PhD, Research Fellow, Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University

GIS-based Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis provides new insights into interactions among human groups and areas in prehistoric Mesoamerica. Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis models routes of travel for trade or communication, shedding light on the economic, social and political functions of individual sites on the routes.  A recent focus of work has been in the Southern Maya Area. This presentation will explore how LCP analysis amplifies our understanding of dynamic cultural interregional interaction by linking nodes such as the major highland Maya site Kaminaljuyu with key entities on the Pacific coast, the Maya lowlands, Veracruz, and the Mexican highland site Teotihuacan; the routes of trade goods for Copan; and of interregional connections within the Maya highlands as revealed by obsidian distributions.

Eugenia Robinson has her PhD from Tulane University and is now a Research Fellow of the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane.  She is a Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Montgomery College and the Director of the Proyecto Arqueológico del Área Kaqchikel.  Her interests are regional settlement and landscape studies, the use of the GIS-based analyses for modeling routes of travel and interaction, and rock “art” in the Kaqchikel Maya Highlands,  Her recent co-edited publication is a collection of studies titled “Routes, Interaction and Exchange in the Southern Maya Area.”

The January, 2024, monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture. For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually. Click HERE to register.

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

The Tonalamatl as Talking Book: Conversing with Time-Persons in the Key of Life

Jim Maffie, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Emeritus and Affiliate, University of Maryland

The Mexica conceived the paint-ink-on-paper figures of the Aztec tonalamatl (or "divinatory codices") as teixiptlahuan, i.e., as living and talking deities. As such they were presentations -- not re-presentations, pictures, symbols, or depictions -- of the relevant deities of the tonalpohualli (or 260-day ritual calendar). The Mexica tonalpouhque (or "diviner") communicated orally with these deity-presences in the courses of understanding the powers in play on any given day of the tonalpohualli. Using the tonalamatl to understand the tonalpohualli thus involved speaking, not reading.

Jim Maffie is Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Emeritus and Affiliate, Departments of Philosophy, Latin American Studies, & Religious Studies, University of Maryland, College Park. He is author of Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion, University Press of Colorado (2014) and numerous articles on Aztec ethics. He is currently working on a book entitled Talking with Time: Rethinking the Aztec Tonalamatl from which tonight's presentation is taken.

The November monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture. For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually. Click HERE to register.

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

Protecting the Irreplaceable: The Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Government Efforts to Preserve the Americas’ Cultural Heritage

Andrew Zonderman, PhD, Cultural Heritage Center, U.S. Department of State

For over a half century, the Government of the United States has taken measures independently and with the international community to protect and preserve cultural heritage.  Its earliest and most enduring interventions have been in the Western Hemisphere, notably the 1970 Treaty of Cooperation with the Government of Mexico and the 1972 Pre-Columbian Monumental and Architectural Sculpture and Murals Act. Dr. Zonderman will examine these and other U.S. federal laws, policies, and programs that ensure contemporary and future peoples can engage with the millennia of human history in the Americas.

Andrew Zonderman is a Foreign Affairs Officer and 2020 class Presidential Management Fellow.  At the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ Cultural Heritage Center he is responsible for monitoring cultural heritage issues in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean as well as managing bilateral cultural property agreements between the United States and countries within these regions.  Dr. Zonderman received his Ph.D. in History from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in 2019 and earned his A.B. in History from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he was a Robertson Scholar.

The October monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture.

For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually. Click HERE to register.

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

Paradise, Disaster, and the Ancestors in the Ceremonial Center of Tibe, Puerto Rico

Antonio Curet, PhD, National Museum of the American Indian

The archaeological site of Tibes in southern Puerto Rico, is to date the earliest ceremonial center in the Caribbean. It consists of nine stone structures and includes a variety of archaeological deposits. The information at hand suggests that the site began as a village around AD 500 and it acted as a ceremonial center from AD 900 to 1250, when it was abandoned. Traditionally, this shift has been interpreted by scholars as evidence of the development of social stratification. However, evidence obtained by the current project questions this interpretation. This lecture presents and discusses this evidence in some detail and proposes a new perspective on the social history of the island..

L. Antonio Curet is a Curator of the National Museum of the American Indian. He was born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico in 1960 and attended the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras where he obtained his B.A. and M.A. in Chemistry. Curet received his Ph.D. in 1992 from Arizona State University.  He was part of the faculty at Gettysburg College (1993-1996) and University of Colorado at Denver (1996-2000).  From 2000 to 2013 he was Curator at the Field Museum and Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and DePaul University.  His research focuses on cultural and social change in the Ancient Caribbean, but he has participated also in archaeological projects in Arizona, Puerto Rico, and Veracruz, Mexico. He has directed several projects including Excavations at La Gallera, Ceiba, Puerto Rico and the Archaeological Project of the Valley of Maunabo.  Since 1995 he has been conducting excavations at the Ceremonial Center of Tibes, Ponce, Puerto Rico and in 2013 began co-directing a regional project in the Valley of Añasco in Western Puerto Rico. Curet has published multiple articles in national and international journals, a book on Caribbean paleodemography, and has edited volumes on Cuban Archaeology, the archaeology of Tibes, Puerto Rico, and long-distance interaction in the Caribbean. He is also in the editorial boards of the Journal for Caribbean Archaeology, Revista Arqueológica del Area Intermedia, and Latin American Antiquity, Antípoda (Universidad de los Andes, Colombia) and is the editor of the Caribbean Archaeology and Ethnohistory Book Series of the University of Alabama Press.

The September monthly lecture will be hosted the second Friday instead of the usual first Friday this month. The talk will be given in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture.

For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually. Click HERE to register.

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

The Tonalamatl as Talking Book: Conversing with Time-Persons in the Key of Life

Jim Maffie, PhD, University of Maryland, College Park

The Mexica conceived the paint-ink-on-paper figures of the Aztec tonalamatl (or "divinatory codices") as teixiptlahuan, i.e., as living and talking deities. As such they were presentations--not re-presentations, pictures, symbols, or depictions -- of the relevant deities of the tonalpohualli (or 260-day ritual calendar). The Mexica tonalpouhque (or "diviner") communicated orally with these deity-presences in the courses of understanding the powers in play on any given day of the tonalpohualli. Using the tonalamatl to understand the tonalpohualli thus involved speaking, not reading.

Jim Maffie, PhD, is Senior Lecturer, Department of History, Emeritus and Affiliate, Departments of Philosophy, Latin American Studies, & Religious Studies, University of Maryland, College Park. He is author of Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion, University Press of Colorado (2014) and numerous articles on Aztec ethics. He is currently working on a book entitled Talking with Time: Rethinking the Aztec Tonalamatl from which tonight's presentation is taken..

The August monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture.

For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually. Click HERE to register.

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

Archaeological Investigations Under the National Historic Preservation Act

Alexis Clark, MA, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

Archaeological surveys and excavations performed under the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act’s Section 106 make up most of the archaeological research performed in the United States today. But what is this piece of legislation, when is it required, and how does it work to protect archaeological sites? This presentation will provide an introduction to the nation’s commitment to archaeological site preservation and an overview of how sites are protected under Section 106.  It will offer an understanding of when it applies and how it compares to other federal laws in place to protect archaeological sites. Following the review of the process, we will look at several case studies that highlight preservation successes through Section 106.

Alexis Clark is a Historic Preservation Specialist at the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. She is responsible for the Section 106 case review for an assortment of agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Air National Guard, Bureau of Reclamation, the Presidio Trust, and U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies providing federal assistance. She is a graduate of The George Washington University with a MA in Anthropology and BA in Archaeology, where her research focused on Mesoamerican archaeology.

The July monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. The meeting will be held in the lecture theatre of the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, Washington, D.C. Photo ID is required to enter the building. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM and light refreshments will be available before the lecture.

For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed via Zoom but you must pre-register to attend virtually. To register, click HERE.

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public.

The Archaeological Conservancy's Preservation Efforts in the East: from the Paleoindian through 20th-Century Industrial Sites

Kelley Berliner, MA, The Archaeological Conservancy

For the past 43 years The Archaeological Conservancy has been the only national nonprofit organization dedicated to the permanent preservation of archaeological sites across the country. These sites range in diversity from the Thunderbird site, which contains the remains of one of the earliest Paleoindian structures discovered in the country, to the Pamplin Pipe Factory, a manufacturing facility that grew from an early cottage industry of making pipes from local clays. Across the country the Conservancy has preserved Ancestral Puebloan villages, Haudenosaunee/Iroquois sites, petroglyphs, Hopewell earthworks, mounds, prehistoric quarries, Chaco outliers, French and Indian War fortifications, plantation sites, and more. These sites are protected through fee-simple ownership or, less frequently, easements, and are maintained as permanent open-space archaeological research preserves that are open to professional archaeologists and for educational purposes.  This talk will highlight some of the important sites protected by the Conservancy.

Kelley Berliner began working with The Archaeological Conservancy in 2013 and currently serves as the Eastern Regional Director, managing over 70 properties containing prehistoric and historic sites from Maine south through North Carolina, all while working to preserve additional sites. Previously she worked as a field archaeologist in the CRM Industry, educator, and museum interpreter in the Eastern United States, Michigan, and Canada. She has a BA in Anthropology from the University of Toronto and a MA in Historical Archaeology from The College of William and Mary. Her interests include public archaeology, community engagement, preservation, and archaeology of the northeastern United States and Canada.

We are excited to announce that the June monthly lecture will be hosted in person as well as virtually. This will be our first face-to-face meeting since April 2020 and we are looking forward with great anticipation to seeing many of you again at the Sumner School, located at M and 17th Streets, NW, in Washington, D.C.

For those of you who cannot make it to the Sumner School in person, the lecture will be live streamed but you must pre-register to attend virtually. Click HERE to register.

All monthly lecture meetings of the Pre-Columbian Society are free and open to the public. Doors to the in-person meeting will open around 6:30 PM.

The Expansive Lives of Chavin Artists and their Creations across the Ancient Andes

Nicholas E. Brown, PhD

Fellow, Pre-Columbian Studies, Dumbarton Oaks

This presentation explores the spread of Chavin art across the Andean world of the early first millennium B.C. To understand the lives of the people responsible for its spread, in this talk, Dr. Brown will embark on a journey through several sites of Chavin artistic production in Peru, tracing the visual evidence of ancient communication between far-flung regions. Beginning in the north-central highlands, he will discuss the carved stone monuments of Chavin de Huantar to highlight the criteria involved in labeling a work of art as “Chavin”, then shift to the south coast sites of Karwa and Coyungo to consider how Chavin and Paracas design traditions were fused by artists who painted cotton textiles. The talk will conclude with a discussion of the east-central highlands sites of Chawin Punta, Quillarumi, and Kanchan Wanka, which contain an impressive array of carved and painted art that suggests the importance of artistic mobility within the Chavin phenomenon. By considering the influential lived experiences of ancient people who traveled through the central highlands on their journeys to and from Chavin de Huantar, fresh insights can be gained about the diversity of creative inspirations involved in the social movements of Chavin art throughout the Peruvian Andes.

Nicholas E. Brown holds a PhD in Anthropology from Yale University, having received a BA in Archaeology at Stanford University. Brown directs the Chawin Punta-Kunturay Archaeology Project (2016-2023) and the Central Andes-Amazonia Headwaters Survey (2020-2023). Brown's research explores how the interplay between human interaction and social innovation resulted in widespread circulation of symbols and ideas across different parts of South America in ancient times, focusing on the Chavin phenomenon in Peru during the second and first millennium BC. Brown also studies the contemporary mobilization of Andean heritage in Peru, Chile, and Ecuador and its impact around the world in museums, universities, and UNESCO’s World Heritage Program..

This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register to attend. Click HERE to register for this Zoom lecture. A confirmation email and a reminder message will be sent the day before the talk.

Digital Resources for Studying the Nahuatl Language and Nahua Culture

Stephanie Wood, PhD, Kislak Chair, Library of Congress

In this well-illustrated lecture, Dr. Wood will share examples from three open-access digital collections, including the Mapas Project, (about indigenous-authored pictorial manuscripts of New Spain); the Online Nahuatl Dictionary, (which combines early and contemporary Nahuatl, with attestations from manuscripts and publications); and, the Visual Lexicon of Aztec Hieroglyphs, (a database of hieroglyphs from a growing number of manuscripts, all with description, analysis, and the tracking of characteristics of the writing system and culture in the autonomous era and under colonialism).

Dr. Stephanie Wood holds the Kislak Chair at the Library of Congress (2022-2023). She is the Director of the Wired Humanities Projects and a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Equity Promotion, College of Education, University of Oregon. Prior to this position, Wood was adjunct faculty at the same university (1992–2015) and Assistant Professor at the University of Maine (1984–1989), teaching Latin American and U.S. History. Wood is the author of the monograph, “Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico” (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), co-editor of five anthologies, and the author of dozens of articles and essays on early Mexican ethnohistory. With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), she has directed six summer institutes for U.S. schoolteachers.

This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register to attend. Click HERE to our Zoom April lecture. A confirmation email, and reminder will be will be sent the day before the event.

Burning Rings of Fire: Ancient Maya Resource Conservation Strategies

Ken Seligson, PhD, California State University Dominquez Hills

The Ancient Maya used burnt lime for everything. From the mortar that held their elaborate temple pyramids together to the processing of corn into a nutritious staple food, burnt lime was literally the glue that held the Maya world together. Yet until recently, archaeologists did not know how the Pre-hispanic Maya made their burnt lime. The amount of wood used in traditional above-ground kilns during the Colonial Period, and more recently, raises the possibility that burnt lime production may have led to rampant deforestation during the Classic Period. In this lecture, Dr. Seligson will discuss the many archaeological methods that he used to identify a fuel-efficient Pre-hispanic pit-kiln technology in the Northern Maya Lowlands–a finding that questions the idea that Classic Maya civilization “collapsed.”

Dr. Ken Seligson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at California State University Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles County. He earned his AB in Anthropology and History from Brown University and his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Seligson has been conducting archaeological fieldwork in the Northern Maya Lowlands since 2010, focusing mainly on human-environment relationships and resource management practices, as well as on ancient technology. His first book The Maya and Climate Change, which was written for a broader public audience interested in the ancient Maya, was published by Oxford University Press in November 2022.

This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register. Click HERE to register. A confirmation email, and reminder will be will be sent the day before the event.

Understanding the Maya Codex of Mexico: Meaning and History of the Fourth Maya Codex

Mary Miller, PhD, and Andrew D. Turner, PhD, Getty Research Institute

Prior to the 1960s, only three pre-Hispanic Maya books were known to have survived the humidity of the tropics and the deliberate efforts of Spanish invaders to destroy them. The sudden and controversial appearance of a fourth Maya codex under private ownership sparked decades of debate about its origin and authenticity. Recent collaborative scientific and art historical studies have determined that not only is the Maya Codex of Mexico (formerly known as the Grolier Codex) authentic, but also that it predates the other surviving books by centuries. This presentation explores the importance of Maya books and controversy surrounding the acquisition of the Maya Codex of Mexico, and demonstrates how Maya astronomers used the book to predict the dangerous and complex movements of the planet Venus 900 years ago.

Mary Miller, PhD, is the Director of the Getty Research Institute, where she also leads the Pre-Hispanic Art Provenance Initiative (PHAPI), a systematic study of the 20th century international market for pre-Hispanic art. A specialist in the art of ancient Mexico and the Maya, her numerous publications include The Murals of Bonampak (1986), The Art of Mesoamerica (1986, now in its 6th edition), Maya Art and Architecture (1999, now in a new edition with Megan O’Neil), and The Spectacle of the Late Maya Court: Reflections on the Murals of Bonampak (2013). She is Sterling Professor Emeritus in History of Art at Yale University and the recipient of many national awards.

Andrew D. Turner, PhD, is a senior research specialist at the Getty Research Institute. Trained as both an archaeologist and art historian, Turner’s work focuses on ancient Mesoamerican material culture, symbolism, and cross-cultural interaction. He has authored several scholarly works on ancient Mesoamerican and Andean material culture, and is the editor of the books Flower Worlds: Religion, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Mesoamerica and the American Southwest (with Michael Mathiowetz, 2021) and Códice Maya de México: Understanding the Oldest Surviving Book of the Americas (2022)..

This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register. Click HERE to register. A confirmation email and reminder will be will be sent the day before the event.

Gault and the Peopling of the Americas Myth

D. Clark Wernecke, PhD, Director (ret.), Prehistory Research Project, University of Texas at Austin

Recent discoveries, including the Gault Archaeological Site, have triggered a paradigm shift regarding the earliest peoples in the Americas. Though a number of researchers over the years publicly doubted the mainstream idea that the Clovis culture represented the first peoples in the New World the excavations at Monte Verde, Chile in the 1970's changed the nature and tenor of the arguments. For the first time many archaeologists agreed that a site met the rules of evidence showing human occupation in the Western Hemisphere prior to Clovis. As more evidence surfaced and older sites were re-examined, we were forced to revise the story of the peopling of the Americas. Paradigm shifts are messy, and we still have nearly as many questions as answers but it is clear that we need to more closely test new hypotheses for the peopling of the Americas.

Clark Wernecke, PhD, is the retired Director of the Prehistory Research Project at the University of Texas at Austin and the nonprofit Gault School of Archaeological Research. Dr. Wernecke started his academic career with a degree in history from Southern Methodist University followed by an MBA from Northwestern University, a MA in Anthropology from Florida Atlantic, and finally his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin. He came back to archaeology after a career in business and has worked in the Middle East, Mesoamerica, the American Southeast and Southwest, and Texas.

This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register. Click HERE to register.

Soul Expressions: Speech and Breath in Archaic Period Rock Art

Carolyn Boyd, PhD, Research Professor, Texas State University, San Marcos

At least 5,000 years ago, Archaic Period hunters-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, began painting complex rock art mural along rock shelter walls and cliff overhangs. Polychromatic images of humans and animals populate the murals and display an array of semantically charged visual attributes, such as headdresses, body ornaments, and paraphernalia. Attributes such as these function like a giant vocabulary and their arrangement in the mural, not unlike syntax, conveys meaning. One of the most ubiquitous attributes is the subject of this presentation: speech-breath. Lower Pecos artists often portrayed dots or lines emanating out of or into the mouths of humans and animals. In this talk, Dr. Boyd will discuss patterns in shape, color, and arrangement of this pictographic element and propose that this graphic device denotes speech, breath, and the soul. Artists communicated meaning through the image making process, alternating brushstroke direction to show inhalation vs exhalation or using different paint application techniques to reflect forceful speech. The choices made by artists in the production of imagery reflect their cosmology and the framework of ideas and beliefs through which they interpreted and interacted with the world. Bridging iconographic data with ethnohistory and ethnographic texts from Mesoamerica, our speaker suggests that speech-breath express in the rock art of the Lower Pecos was intimately tied to concepts of the soul, creation, and human origins.

Dr. Carolyn Boyd is the Shumla Endowed Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University, San Marcos. She is the founder of a non-profit organization, Shumla Archaeological Research and Educational Center, which was established in 1998 to preserve the ancient rock art murals of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands in southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico. Boyd is the author of Rock Art of the Lower Pecos (2003, Texas A&M University Press) and The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative (2016, the University of Texas Press), which received the 2017 Scholarly Book Award from the Society for American Archaeology. Her current projects include Origins and Tenacity of Myth in Archaic Period Rock Art in Southwest Texas and Northern Mexico, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Layers of Meaning: Chronological Modeling and Pictograph Stratigraphy, funded by the National Science Foundation.

This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register. Click HERE to register.

Wari Power and Local Encounters in Middle Horizon, Cusco, Peru

Véronique Bélisle, PhD, Associate Professor, Millsaps College

In the Andes, the Middle Horizon (600-1000 CE) has traditionally been interpreted as a period during which a strong Wari imperial state conquered several provinces and tightly controlled local populations. In the Cusco region of southern Peru, research conducted at large Wari installations has long guided reconstructions of Wari power, leading scholars to argue that Wari presence resulted in the loss of local autonomy and the reorganization of economic activities. In this talk, our speaker uses regional surveys as well as excavation data from the local center of Ak’awillay and from the Wari site of Kaninkunka to test this model. She evaluates Wari economic impact in Cusco and assesses the nature of the relationships between local communities and Wari colonists. Results suggest strong continuity in agricultural production and exchange networks, pointing to a rather weak Wari impact on economic activities. Encounters with Wari were not grounded in violence, and some ritual spaces were a theater for alliances and exchange with select members of local populations.

Dr. Véronique Bélisle is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Millsaps College. She is interested in state expansion, its impact on local lifeways, and the strategies that state colonists develop to interact with the communities they meet. More specifically, her research focuses on the impact of Wari expansion in the Cusco region of southern Peru, where she has directed large-scale excavations. She investigated local settlements for over a decade, and is currently working on a new project at a Wari site in Cusco. She has published her research in English and Spanish in different journals, including Latin American Antiquity, Journal of Anthropological Anthropology, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Journal of Archaeological Science, Ñawpa Pacha, and Chungara. She is working on a book that uses a bottom-up approach to understand Wari impact in Cusco.

This meeting is free and open to the public but you must pre-register. Click HERE to register.

COLLECTING HUASTEC SCULPTURE BEFORE 1940: HUASTEC CULTURAL PATRIMONY AT THE INTERSECTION OF EURO-AMERICAN IMPERIAL AND INDUSTRIAL AMBITIONS

Kim N. Richter, PhD, Getty Research Institute

Pre-Columbian Huastec sculptures are nearly ubiquitous in private and museum collections of Mesoamerican art. While these sculptures appeal to modern collectors because of their bold forms and sometimes naturalistic style, I argue that it is the region’s location and natural resources that resulted in the dispersal of these sculptures into international collections. The city of Tampico in the Huasteca region of northeastern Mexico—today considered a marginal town on the Gulf coast—was a major international hub during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following Mexican Independence. The lure of silver mining, the construction of railroads, and discovery of “black gold” first found in the region brought foreign prospectors, geologists, oil executives, industrialists, and diplomats to Tampico, who carried off Huastec sculptures to their home countries as souvenirs and prized ancient collectibles. Eventually, many of these sculptures came to grace the exhibition halls of some of the grandest museums in Europe, the USA, and Mexico. This story of Huastec coleccionismo directly intersects with global politics and, indeed, directly results from Euro-American imperial and industrial ambitions in Mexico.

Kim N. Richter, PhD, is senior research specialist in the Director’s Office at the Getty Research Institute. She received her PhD in art history at the University of California, Los Angeles, specializing in Pre-Columbian art and archaeology. She is author of numerous articles on Huastec art, co-editor of The Huasteca: Culture, History, and Interregional Exchange (2015), co-curator of Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas (2017), and co-editor of the award-winning accompanying Golden Kingdoms catalogue. She leads the collaborative digital initiative focused on the Florentine Codex, an encyclopedic manuscript about Mexica life and culture created in sixteenth-century Mexico, and co-leads the newly launched Latin American and Latinx Art Initiative.

This lecture is free and open to the public. To attend you, must pre-register and a link will be provided to you prior to the event. To pre-register, click HERE.