Mesoamerican Studies On-Air

In this episode we interview art historian Beth Wilson Norwood about her research into the art of West Mexican figurines.

Beth Wilson Norwood is an art historian specializing in Pre-Columbian art, funerary art, and the art of ancient West Mexico. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of New Mexico and the editor-in-chief of the 15th volume of the journal Hemisphere: Visual Culture of the Americas. She holds an MA from UT San Antonio and a BA from the University of Central Arkansas. Her dissertation “Narrative Ceramics and Networks of Practice: West Mexican Visual Traditions in the Late Formative-Early Classic Periods,” will focus on the issue of visual communication, and the role West Mexican ceramic sculpture may have played in the expression of important cultural narratives and histories, as well as their use in performance and oral storytelling.

Catherine Nuckols es la fundadora del podcast, pero también es candidata al doctorado en la universidad de Tulane. En este episodio, ella comparte su investigación sobre las inscripciones de glifos de cuerpo completo del mundo maya en el siglo 8.

In this episode we discuss a video game set in the Spanish-Aztec war, the dangers of inaccurate representation, and the importance of nuance when revisiting the past.

In this episode, Dr. Marijke Stoll shares her recent research incorporating both qualitative and quantitative analysis to reimagine the use of GIS in mapping modern and ancient pathways in Oaxaca. We talk about insights gleaned from interviews carried out on the trail, creative ways of using new technology, and bringing the human element into all aspects of our research.

Marijke Stoll received her PhD of Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2018. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow with the National Science Foundation and is based out of Indiana University-Bloomington.

En este episodio, platicamos con Alan Suárez Ortiz sobre su trabajo estudiando los hongos, los sistemas adivinatorios, y el imaginario ritual en Huautla de Jiménez, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Cuauhtémoc Vidal Guzmán es candidato al doctorado en la Universidad de George Washington. Estudió antropología en la Universidad de Albany-SUNY y luego estudió la maestría en antropología en la Universidad de Colorado Boulder. Ha participado en proyectos arqueológicos en los estados mexicanos de Yucatán, Chiapas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, y Oaxaca. Su tesis doctoral examina la transición del Clásico Tardío al Posclásico en Etlatongo, un sitio en la Mixteca Alta de Oaxaca. Sus intereses incluyen la persistencia indígena, la investigación participatoria, el nuevo materialismo, y la memoria social.

Cuauhtémoc Vidal Guzmán is currently a PhD candidate at the George Washington University. He studied his BA in anthropology at the University at Albany-SUNY. Then, he studied his MA, also in anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has participated in archaeological projects in the Mexican states of Yucatan, Chiapas, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, and Oaxaca. His current dissertation research studies the Late Classic Postclassic transition at Etlatongo, a site in the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca. His interests gravitate around Indigenous persistence, participatory research, new materialism, and social memory.

Join Tony and Catherine as they discuss the recent article "Household salt production by the Late Classic Maya: underwater excavations at Ta'ab Nuk Na" by Heather McKillop and E. Cory Sills, and other examples of how salt appears in the archaeological and visual records of ancient Mesoamerica. We talk about the importance of salt and what it reveals and suggests about the lives of everyday people.

McKillop, Heather, and E. Cory Sills. "Household salt production by the Late Classic Maya: underwater excavations at Ta'ab Nuk Na." Antiquity 96, no. 389 (2022): 1232-1250.

Guernsey, Julia. "Water, maize, salt, and canoes: An iconography of economics at Late Preclassic Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico." Latin American Antiquity 27, no. 3 (2016): 340-356.

Williams, Eduardo. "Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene." Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene (2020): 1-466.

Williams, Eduardo. "Salt production in the coastal area of Michoacan, Mexico: An ethnoarchaeological study." Ancient Mesoamerica 13, no. 2 (2002): 237-253.

Williams, Eduardo. "Salt-Making in Mesoamerica: Production Sites and Tool Assemblages." Ancient Mesoamerica (2021): 1-23.

Williams, Eduardo. "Salt production and trade in Ancient Mesoamerica." In Pre-Columbian Foodways, pp. 175-190. Springer, New York, NY, 2009.

Mtro. Cesar V. Hernández Estrada:

Arqueólogo por la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH). Maestro en Análisis espacial y Geoinformática en la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México (UAEMEX) y Especialista en Geomática por el Centro en Investigación en Ciencias de Información Geoespacial (CONACYT). He dirigido y participado en proyectos de investigación, salvamento y rescate arqueológico en diferentes Centro Regionales del Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, El Colegio de Michoacán (COLMICH) y el Centro de Estudios Mesoamericanos y Centroamericanos (CEMCA-Francia) en la Ciudad de México y en el interior del país. He sido docente de la Licenciatura en Arqueología de la Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Universidad Tecnológica de México. 

Participe en el Salvamento Arqueológico del Tren Maya donde proceso la nube de puntos LIDAR, he realizado levantamientos fotogramétricos y en zonas arqueológicas de Michoacán, Veracruz, Querétaro y la Ciudad de México.

Como Analista he laborado en proyectos sobre Geografía de la salud y actualización de catastro y como Asesor en la liquidación de Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México (SAE-SHCP).

Actualmente preparo diferentes proyectos que están enfocados en el uso y desarrollo de temas acerca de Geomática, análisis espacial, drones y fotogrametría en arqueología.

In this episode I talk with Christopher Hernández about his recent archaeological work on Postclassic Maya warfare. 

Christopher Hernández is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago. His work in anthropological archaeology is fundamentally shaped by the issue of contemporary relevance. How does the past matter or not? This question stems from his upbringing in Chicago as the child of Guatemalan migrants who talked endlessly about their love for Guatemala and the importance of ancient Maya history. Searching for a sense of self in a country that treats all Latinx peoples as foreigners led him to study ancient pyramids as well as contemporary culture: given the pride felt for the Indigenous past, why are contemporary Maya peoples treated so poorly in Guatemala and other part of Latin America? This formative experience shapes how and why he conducts research.

Christopher Hernández’s current research is focused on issues of archaeological ethics, the application of community-based methods, relational philosophy, and understanding social conflict in long-term perspective. Through the application of aerial laser scanning (lidar), documentary analysis, and traditional excavation methods, he investigates how the process of making war shaped landscapes at a regional level. This analysis entails collaborative research into martial tactics and the consolidation of archaeological remains to attract tourism. The reconstruction of ancient structures is conducted in service of the local Indigenous community of Puerto Bello Metzabok.

Today we discuss Anabelle Rodríguez' work at the site of Xunantunich, Belize, for her dissertation. Her dissertation is titled Curating Xunantunich and it is based on fieldwork and archival research related to the preservation of culture and nature at the Xunantunich Archaeological Reserve, a popular tourist attraction in Belize, Central America.

Anabelle Rodríguez is an artist/curator/educator from Puerto Rico and a Ph.D. candidate at Rutgers University. Before joining Rutgers, Anabelle curated exhibitions for alternative art spaces, cultural organizations, educational institutions, and government agencies in Philadelphia and New York City. She is the founder of an independent research platform called The ~curARTorial LAB and her current interests include: art + anthropology; anthropologies and sociologies of art; art as craft/craft as art; art law and repatriation; Caribbean archaeology and Indigenous identities; cultural imperialisms and (de)coloniality; experimental ethnographies; feminist, queer, and Indigenous art histories; the illicit traffic of global antiquities; natureculture preservation; peripheral art worlds; problematic archives and collections; sacred sites and heritages; visual research methodologies.

Join me in welcoming the podcast's new co-host, Tony DeLuca! Tony has worked for over a decade on the social media channel Tlatollotl, and has agreed to come onto the podcast as the co-host for our new segments, Mesoamerica in the Media and Mesoamerica in Pop Culture. In this episode Tony and I discuss the ideas that brought this change about, and what we hope for the podcast's future. 

Desde una glifoteca en línea, hasta un recurso para el aprendizaje, y ahora a juegos de mesa– el Proyecto Maya Scripta está transformando la manera en que la gente en Guatemala y en el extranjero interactúa con la escritura maya. En este episodio platicamos con epigrafista y lingüista Rubén Morales Forte, quien co-dirige el proyecto Maya Scripta. Este proyecto formó su tesis de maestría en la Universidad de Tulane y comenzó durante su licenciatura en la Universidad del Valle Guatemala.

Rubén Morales Forte nació y creció en Guatemala, donde obtuvo una licenciatura en Arqueología de la Universidad del Valle. Luego continuó con una Maestría en Estudios Latinoamericanos y es actualmente un estudiante de doctorado en Antropología, ambos en la universidad de Tulane. Sus intereses principales son el estudio integral de la cultura maya antigua y contemporánea, la implementación del involucramiento comunitario y de otras metodologías de divulgación pública como el aprendizaje lúdico. Cuando no está trabajando en esto, le encanta ver y hacer deporte, especialmente montar bicicleta y explorar la naturaleza.

From an online glyphs database to a teaching aid to a set of historical board games, Maya Scripta is transforming the way people in Guatemala and abroad interact with Maya hieroglyphic writing. In this episode we talk with epigrapher and linguist Rubén Morales Forte, a Mayanist scholar co-leading the Maya Scripta project. The project formed the topic of his Master's thesis at Tulane University and stemmed from his licenciatura (undergraduate degree) studies at Universidad del Valle Guatemala.

Rubén Morales Forte was born and raised in Guatemala, where he did his undergraduate in Archaeology. He then did an MA in Latin American Studies and is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. Student in Anthropology, both at Tulane University. His main interests are the integral study of ancient and modern Maya culture, the implementation of community-engaged scholarship, and other public outreach methodologies such as gamification. When he is not working on this, he loves to do and watch sports, especially riding his bike and exploring nature.