"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.