“Cacao and Jade: The Diffusion of the Calendars Along Preclassic Maya Trade Routes”
Our understanding of pre-Columbian trade routes derives more from archaeology than is the case with many of the other textually based societies found worldwide. Archaeologists reconstruct trade and exchange by documenting the distribution of raw materials and finished goods with respect to their sources of acquisition and production. The ancient Maya civilization had an advanced trade system consisting of short, medium, and long trade routes, along with a robust market for a range of goods and materials. Ancient trade routes spanned the Americas from northern South America all the way up to the US Southwest.
This presentation by Jim Reed, editor of The Aztlander monthly enewsletter and the Institute of Maya Studies Explorer newsletter, includes all new visuals and an extensive collection of new maps to tell the story of cacao and jade.
Alice Kehoe is Professor of Anthropology, emeritus, at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This lecture presented strong evidence of Cahokia’s Mexican connection, ties it to an origin as a native American type of dispersed towns, and interprets it as such a Late Woodland trading town that linked to Cholula, the most powerful trading empire of its time. Kehoe restores Cahokia to its place in history.
Alice first visited Teotihuacán in Mexico at the end of a summer in the excavation of a site in Durango, Mexico. Back then, the ancient city had not been restored to the glory we see today. Pachuca obsidian green blades lay on the avenues along with potsherds, yet its monumental grandeur was overwhelming. The following summer, Kehoe visited Cahokia. Cahokia was overwhelming, in part because of its obvious close resemblance to ancient Mexican cities. By the late 1960s, when Lewis Binford led a revolution in American archaeology turning to statistics instead of cultural comparisons, Cahokia’s tie to Mexico was obvious.
Dr. Alice Beck Kehoe has conducted archaeological and ethnohistorical research in the Northern Plains/Canadian Prairie, Tiwanaku, Dolni Vestonice, and traveled in Asia and Mesoamerica following Precolumbian contacts. Host: Jim Reed of The Aztlander.
“At Home with the Aztecs: An Archaeologist Uncovers Their Daily Life” by Michael E. Smith
Michael E Smith is one of the leading international authorities on the Aztecs, with extensive experience excavating at Aztec sites. He is currently a professor at Arizona State University. He is an archaeologist with two research themes: The Aztecs, Teotihuacan, and other societies in ancient central Mexico, and comparative urbanism.
He has directed fieldwork projects at numerous sites in the provinces of the Aztec empire in central Mexico. His fieldwork focuses on the excavation of houses and the study of daily life. He has published seven books and numerous scholarly articles on the Aztecs; his books include the award-winning “At Home with the Aztecs”.
Alice Kehoe visited Teotihuacán in Mexico at the end of a summer in the excavation of a site in Durango, Mexico. Back then, the ancient city had not been restored to the glory we see today. Pachuca obsidian green blades lay on the avenues along with potsherds, yet its monumental grandeur was overwhelming. The following summer, Kehoe visited Cahokia. Cahokia was overwhelming, in part because of its obvious close resemblance to ancient Mexican cities. By the late 1960s, when Lewis Binford led a revolution in American archaeology turning to statistics instead of cultural comparisons, Cahokia’s tie to Mexico was obvious.
This lecture presents strong evidence of Cahokia’s Mexican connection, ties it to an origin as a native American type of dispersed towns, and interprets it as such a Late Woodland trading town that linked to Cholula, the most powerful trading empire of its time. Kehoe restores Cahokia to its place in history. Dr. Alice Beck Kehoe has conducted archaeological and ethnohistorical research in the Northern Plains/Canadian Prairie, Tiwanaku, Dolni Vestonice, and traveled in Asia and Mesoamerica following Precolumbian contacts. She is Professor of Anthropology, emeritus, at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Folks, I’ve seen Alice present in an AIA zoom in February. She is really good, very knowledgeable. Please plan to be there with us!
“At Home with the Aztecs: An Archaeologist Uncovers Their Daily Life”
The great Michael Smith
At Home with the Aztecs provides a fresh view of Aztec society, focusing on households and communities instead of kings, pyramids, and human sacrifice. This new approach offers an opportunity to humanize the Aztecs, moving past the popular stereotype of sacrificial maniacs to demonstrate that these were successful and prosperous communities. Michael Smith engagingly describes the scientific, logistic and personal dimensions of archaeological fieldwork, drawing on decades of excavating experience and considering how his research was affected by his interaction with contemporary Mexican communities. Through first-hand accounts of the ways archaeologists interpret sites and artifacts, the book illuminates how the archaeological process can bring ancient families and communities to light. Smith’s research also redefines success, prosperity and resilience in ancient societies. Michael’s zoom will be suitable not only for those interested in the Aztecs but in the examination of resilient households and communities across space and time.
*Michael E. Smith is one of the leading international authorities on the Aztecs, with extensive experience excavating at Aztec sites. He is an archaeologist with two research themes: (1) The Aztecs, Teotihuacan, and other societies in ancient central Mexico, and,(2) comparative urbanism. He has directed fieldwork projects at numerous sites in the provinces of the Aztec empire in central Mexico. His fieldwork focuses on the excavation of houses and the study of daily life. He has published seven books and numerous scholarly articles on the Aztecs; his books include the award-winning “At Home with the Aztecs” (2016), the textbook, “The Aztecs” (3rd edition, 2012), “Aztec City-State Capitals” (2008), and “Rethinking the Aztec Economy” (co-edited by Nichols, Berdan & Smith, 2017). He now focuses on the study of urban life, society, inequality and prosperity at the ancient city of Teotihuacan.
Smith’s second major theme – comparative and transdisciplinary research on urbanism – has developed since his arrival at ASU in 2005. By analyzing ancient cities using concepts and methods from contemporary urban studies, Smith is exploring the similarities and differences among cities throughout history and around the world. Neighborhoods, wealth inequality, the provision of urban services, and patterns of scaling regularities are among the few urban universals, and Smith is part of several transdisciplinary research groups addressing these topics, These include an informal working group at ASU and the Santa Fe Institute to determine whether the regularities of urban and settlement scaling (worked out for contemporary cities) also apply to ancient cities. This project investigates cities and urbanism at the most fundamental level: the interactions among people in built environments. Smith also publishes on comparative empires, economies, and systems of social inequality. Smith’s teaching focuses on Mesoamerican archaeology, comparative urbanism, and archaeological method and theory.
Geophysical and archaeological investigations have been conducted for the past five years at the Fort Hill Earthwork Complex (site 33CU1), one of only two known prehistoric earthwork complexes, located in Rocky River Valley of Northeast Ohio. The site is located at the eastern-end of a 100 foot-high, steeply-sided plateau, consisting of a line of three earthen embankments each with its own external borrow ditch. Our investigations suggest that the earthwork was built during the Early Woodland Period by the Adena Culture (1,000 –100 BCE).
*Phil Wanyerka in his own words: “I teach at Cleveland State University (CSU) and do local fieldwork in Northeast Ohio, most recently working on a 2,300-year-old (Early Woodland, Adena) earthwork site. My research is concerned with exploring the interrelationships between language, culture, and writing with a real focus on ancient Mesoamerica.
Get into Ancient North American cultures! Plan to be there with us Thursday evening!
“Who Will Be Our Sustainers?”: Gods, People,and Human Mediation in the Popol Vuh”
With Allen Christenson
The ancient Maya saw themselves as intimately interconnected with the natural world, but it was nature of a certain kind – that which is dependent on humanity for its existence. The earliest Maya literature to have survived the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century, particularly the Popol Vuh, attempted to explain the origins of chaotic nature as the first in a series of unsuccessful stages of creation leading ultimately to an agriculturally-centered world of predictable cycles of life, death, and regeneration, mediated by humans. In Maya belief, even gods are not self-sustaining and require human mediation for their existence.
October 25, 8:00 PM ET • 7:00 PM CT Aztlander October Zoom Non-Maya Glyphs at Chichen Itza” with Dr. Bruce Love Access and bookmark this zoom hyperlink: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86835769578
“Cacao and Jade: The Diffusion of the Calendars Along Preclassic Maya Trade Routes”
Our understanding of pre-Columbian trade routes derives more from archaeology than is the case with many of the other textually based societies found worldwide. Archaeologists reconstruct trade and exchange by documenting the distribution of raw materials and finished goods with respect to their sources of acquisition and production. The ancient Maya civilization had an advanced trade system consisting of short, medium, and long trade routes, along with a robust market for a range of goods and materials. Ancient trade routes spanned the Americas from northern South America all the way up to the US Southwest.
This presentation by Jim Reed, editor of The Aztlander monthly enewsletter and the Institute of Maya Studies Explorer newsletter, includes all new visuals and an extensive collection of new maps to tell the story of cacao and jade.
Not too long ago, the term “Formative Period Urbanism” would have struck many Mesoamerican archaeologists as an oxymoron. Yet, research over the past 20 years has demonstrated that the Formative Period was not a mere prelude to the Classic Period (300-900 CE), but that in many regions it exceeded the Classic; not only were there true cities in the Formative period, but they were as large or larger than those of the Classic. As one of the limited number of cases where urban centers developed independently, Mesoamerica plays a major role in the world-wide comparative analysis of first-generation cities and urbanism in general. World-wide models of early cities need updated data from the first-generation cities of ancient Mesoamerica. Dr. Michael W. Love is a Professor in the Anthropology department at California State University – Northridge. He just released a book, edited by him and Julia Guernsey; the same title as his program. Michael’s principal interests are in Mesoamerica, the development of social complexity, and household archaeology. His research to date has concentrated on the Pacific coast region of Guatemala and investigating the early complex societies found there during the Preclassic period. Please plan to join us on Monday evening !
Where the Earth Meets the Sky: Defining Sacred Geography at an Early Woodland Earthwork Complex in Northeast Ohio
Geophysical and archaeological investigations have been conducted for the past five years at the Fort Hill Earthwork Complex (site 33CU1), one of only two known prehistoric earthwork complexes, located in RockyRiver Valley of Northeast Ohio.
Phil Wanyerka teaches at Cleveland State University (CSU) and does local fieldwork in Northeast Ohio, most recently working on a 2,300 year old (Early Woodland, Adena) earthwork site. Phil is the Director of CSU’s Archaeological Fieldschool Program and is head of their archaeological curation lab. Phil is also the President of the Cleveland Archaeological Society.
Also, if you missed Allen Christenson’s excellent program, check out the recording of his zoom event:
“Who Will Bee Our Sustainers?”: Gods, People, and Human Mediation in the Popol Vuh
The ancient Maya saw themselves as intimately interconnected with the natural world, but it was nature of a certain kind – that which is dependent on humanity for its existence. The earliest Maya literature to have survived the Spanish Conquest in the early sixteenth century, particularly the Popol Vuh, attempted to explain the origins of chaotic nature as the first in a series of unsuccessful stages of creation leading ultimately to an agriculturally-centered world of predictable cycles of life, death, and regeneration, mediated by humans. In Maya belief, even gods are not self-sustaining and require human mediation for their existence.
“Ohio’s Great Serpent Mound and the Effigy Mounds of Wisconsin: Shared Symbols, Shared Stories” with Brad Lepper, Senior Archaeologist of the Ohio History Connection’s World Heritage Program
Brad’s program is now preserved on The Aztlander YouTube channel.
To view the recording, accessthis zoom recording hyperlink:
The effigy mounds of the Upper Midwest and the Ohio Valley have been thought to be distinct and independent cultural developments, built at different times and by unrelated people. But recent work by a team of researchers points towards a different conclusion. In spite of their geographic separation, the effigy mounds of Ohio and Wisconsin are products of a shared cultural tradition. The best available evidence indicates they were built at around the same time period and by groups who shared specific artistic motifs that can be linked to the genesis stories of Contact Period American Indian tribes of the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys.
AZTLANDER 