Institute of Mesoamerican Studies at UAlbany

The following monographs are in print and distributed through the University Press of Colorado. 
Order IMS Monographs at the the University Press of Colorado.
 

IMS Monograph Number 15

Utatlán: The Constituted Community of The K'iche' Maya of Q'umarkaj

By Thomas F. Babcock
ISBN 978-1-60732-154-5
$75

One of the most important Postclassic cities, Utatlán, in highland Guatemala, was excavated more than three decades ago. However, the data amassed by archaeologists have not been published until now.

Details on architecture, pottery, burials, and artifacts, along with a focus on residential archaeology, make Utatlán: The Constituted Community of the K'iche' Maya of Q'umarkaj a significant contribution to Maya archaeology. Most information available on Utatlán focuses on the ceremonial center and ignores the city of the commoners.

Using the archaeological data, Utatlán attempts to determine the boundaries of the community and to characterize subdivisions within it. Evidence of indigenous nonelite houses, rich burials, and grave goods unlike those found in contemporary sites reveals information about the supporting residence zone.

In addition, Babcock applies the concept of "constituted community," interpreting the archaeological data from a prehistoric context, and proposes a theoretical framework for interpreting prehistoric sites with respect to urbanism and political complexity. Utatlán: The Constituted Community of the K'iche' Maya of Q'umarkaj will be of interest to students and scholars of Mesoamerican anthropology, archaeology, and ethnohistory.
 

IMS Monograph Number 14

Postclassic Soconusco Society: The Late Prehistory of the Coast of Chiapas, Mexico

By Barbara Voorhies and Janine Gasco
ISBN 0-942041-20-8
$39.95

This timely report presents new archaeological data on Postclassic sites (11th through 16th centuries, AD) in one of the key regions of Mesoamerica. The Pacific coast of Soconusco was at the forefront of cultural developments from the time of its earliest farmers in the Formative period through the Spanish conquest. Yet until now the Postclassic archaeology of this region has remained poorly known.

This book presents the results of archaeological fieldwork at the political center Acapetahua and other key Postclassic sites in Soconusco by two leading Mesoamericanist archaeologists. The authors' analyses of artifacts shed light on subsistence activities, the production of textiles and other craft items, commercial exchange, and the social context of life in this area.

A notable feature of this report is the discussion of the place of these sites within the broader setting of Postclassic Mesoamerica. The Late Postclassic period was a dynamic and innovative time when peoples from all parts of Mesoamerica were drawn together by processes of commercial and stylistic interaction.

Until recently, however, Postclassic archaeological data has been limited to a few areas. Postclassic Soconusco Society now adds a key region to the overall picture. This work will serve as both a basic reference on the Postclassic archaeology of a key region and a case study in the local impacts and manifestations of ancient empires and world-systems.
 

IMS Monograph Number 13

Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature

By Louise M Burkhart
ISBN 0-942041-21-6
$26.95

The introduction of the Virgin Mary to the native peoples of Mexico is often closely associated with Our Lady of Guadalupe, the principal Mexican Marian devotion. According to legend, the devotion originated in 1531 when the Virgin appeared to a Nahua man, Juan Diego, and left her image miraculously imprinted on his cloak.

Historical evidence indicates, however, that the Mexican shrine was not established until the 1560s, the legend was virtually unknown until its initial publication in Spanish in 1648 and in Nahuatl the following year; and native people did not participate in the devotion to any extensive degree until after the mid-seventeenth century. How, then, was devotion to the Virgin actually introduced to Nahuas during the first decades of Christian evangelization?

This book addresses this question through the presentation of Nahuatl-language devotional texts relating to Mary, texts through which Nahuas learned about the Virgin and expressed their own developing devotion to her. The wide range of Nahuatl literature on the Virgin shows that, far from some early "syncretic" mixing of Mary with native "goddess" cults, Nahuas were introduced to, and to varying degrees participated in, the full-blown medieval and Renaissance devotion to Mary, adapted into their own language.

These sources date from the 1540s through the 1620s and represent all of the major religious orders involved in the evangelization of the Nahuas: Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Jesuits. Native scholars participated in the composition of much of this material. Genres include sermons, catechisms, prayers, narratives, drama, hymns, and antiphonal chants.

The earliest extant edition of the rosary in Nahuatl is included, as are twelve miracle narratives, a complete Augustinian sermon on the Purification, and a lengthy native-edited account of the Assumption. Nahuatl text and English translation are presented in parallel columns. Each text is preceded by introductory commentary that explicates the European background of the material and its new meanings and uses in the Mexican context.
 

IMS Monograph Number 12

Classic Period Mixtequilla, Veracruz, Mexico: Diachronic Inferences from Residential Investigations.

Edited by Barbara L. Stark
ISBN 0-942041-17-8
$49.95

This archaeological site report presents new in sights on an important but poorly-studied Mesoamerican culture-the Classic period of the Mexican Gulf Coast. Stark discusses her excavations at several sites in the Mixtequilla region, describes the deposits and artifacts encountered, and provides interpretations of the sites and their significance within a wider context.

Her analysis of the ephemeral remains of perishable houses is innovative and contains one of the most sophisticated treatments of site formation processes yet carried out in Latin America. Particularly important is the identification of some of the earliest spindle whorls in Mesoamerica, leading to new views of the importance of cotton textiles in the changing economies of the Late Preclassic and Classic periods.

Superb artifact illustrations, detailed descriptions, and an ample use of data tables, make this a valuable reference work. Mesoamericanists will find much of interest in this book, as will readers interested in tropical lowland settlement patterns, household archaeology, and site formation processes.
 

IMS Monograph Number 11

Hach Winik: The Lacandon Maya of Chiapas, Southern Mexico

By Didier Boremanse
ISBN 0-942041-16-X
$19.95

Hach Winik may be the last comprehensive study of traditional Lacandon Maya society based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork. Long isolated, culturally conservative, and bearing a mystique of Mesoamerican "primitivism," the Lacandon now live on the brink of cultural disintegration. Their habitat is all but destroyed by lumbering and by the large-scale invasion of other Maya peoples in search of land.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Dr. Didier Boremanse collected cultural data and textual materials from two groups of Lacandon who still remained relatively isolated. Hach Winik describes and compares the cultural traditions of these two groups.

Topics presented in this volume include the history of Lacandon contact with other peoples as well as settlement patterns, life cycle, social control, residence and marriage, the kinship system, and the ritual expression of these social domains. Statistical data are balanced by a wealth of descriptive detail concerning events and individuals. A number of oral narratives are also presented and include many words and utterances in the original language with English glosses.
 

IMS Monograph Number 9

Phoneticism in Mayan Hieroglyphic Writing

By John S. Justeson and Lyle Campbell
ISBN 0-942041-08-9
$29.95

A classic in the literature on the decipherment of Mayan writing, Phoneticism grew out of the famous Albany conference--a gathering of the leading Mayanists who were working within the modern, linguistically-informed paradigm for the analysis of Mayan hieroglyphic text. The volume contains nine senimal articles and appendixes.

Many of the phonetic readings on which current epigraphic work depends are worked out and presented here. Several papers focus on or carefully exemplify rigorous decipherment methodology; others provide primary data on the ancient language forms that lie behind the glyphic representations.

The following publications are in print and distributed through the University Press of Colorado. Order a book from UPC.
 

Volume 9

Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds: Religion and Modernity in a Transnational K'iche' Community
By C. James MacKenzie

Hardcover ISBN: 9781607323938 — $110
Paperback ISBN: 9781607325567 — $34.95
Ebook ISBN: 9781607323945 — $27.95

Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds examines tension and conflict over ethnic and religious identity in the K’iche’ Maya community of San Andrés Xecul in the Guatemalan Highlands and considers how religious and ethnic attachments are sustained and transformed through the transnational experiences of locals who have migrated to the United States.

Author C. James MacKenzie explores the relationship among four coexisting religious communities within Highland Maya villages in contemporary Guatemala—costumbre, traditionalist religion with a shamanic substrate; “Enthusiastic Christianity,” versions of Charismaticism and Pentecostalism; an “inculturated” and Mayanized version of Catholicism; and a purified and antisyncretic Maya Spirituality—with attention to the modern and nonmodern worldviews that sustain them.

He introduces a sophisticated set of theories to interpret both traditional religion and its relationship to other contemporary religious options, analyzing the relation among these various worldviews in terms of the indigenization of modernity and the various ways modernity can be apprehended as an intellectual project or an embodied experience.

Indigenous Bodies, Maya Minds investigates the way an increasingly plural religious landscape intersects with ethnic and other identities. It will be of interest to Mesoamerican and Mayan ethnographers, as well as students and scholars of cultural anthropology, indigenous cultures, globalization, and religion.
 

Volume 8

Beware the Great Horned Serpent!: Chiapas under the Threat of Napoleon
By Robert M. Laughlin

ISBN 0-942041-19-4 — $31.95

"Dr. Robert M. Laughlin, one of the world's greatest students of native language and culture, has produced a "historical anthropology" that is both captivating and illuminating. Like a mystery novel, the reader is led from the accidental discovery of a Tzotzil-Maya nineteenth-century text, found in the very building where Laughlin works (the Smithsonian Institution), through the bizarre and dramatic history of events surrounding the 1812 Cortes in Spain and an obscure proclamation sent to the officials of the American colonies.

"Through Laughlin's detailed accounts of these historical events that took place in Spain, New Spain, Peru, Guatemala, and Chiapa, the reader learns the meaning of the proclamation for the Creoles and Indians to whom it was addressed. In the best tradition of the 'microhistorian,' the proclamation and its Tzotzil text are historically and culturally contextualized rather than explained.

"As Laughlin himself states in his introduction: 'The pages that follow present a theater of the absurd, a fabulous history with myriads of details as if set in the Milky Way. The reader will not be comforted with an historical 'argument.'

"The prose is wonderful, the characters alive, and the plot intriguing. And along the way, the reader is treated to an inside perspective on the vicissitudes and small triumphs of colonial Indians in one small corner of the Mesoamerican world." — Robert M. Carmack, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University at Albany
 

Volume 7

Identities on the Move: Transnational Processes in North America and the Caribbean Basin

Edited by Liliana R. Goldin
Contributors include: Edna Acosta-Belén, Allan F. Burns, Jorge Durand, Duncan Earle, Juan Flores, Liliana R. Goldin, Michael Kearney, Douglas S. Massey, Victor D. Montejo, Suzanne Oboler, Carlos E. Santiago, Azara L. Santiago-Rivera, Nina Glick Schiller, and Ilan Stavas

ISBN: 0-942041-18-6 — $26.95

This valuable collection assembles essays by leading experts in transnationalism, highlighting emerging trends in this newly developed field. The contributions focus on the construction of transnational identities and how these identities form and change in the context of processes of migration and displacement. The book addresses the ways in which nations and states frame identity formation through labels, politics of exception, and racialization through an interdisciplinary and multi-methodological perspective, which permits the student of transnational processes to access diverse constructs through multiple angles.

The volume includes concrete ethnographic examples of identities in the making, documentation of the effects of exile and displacement, reflexive accounts by writers who have direct experience with transnationalism, and incisive theoretical arguments that highlight the ways in which race, citizenship, nation-states, and neo-colonialism create images and actions of individuals and communities. The examples include discussions about Latinos in the United States, individuals and communities along the borders, indigenous peoples in migration, and identity construction in international workplaces.
 

Volume 6

Economies and Politics in the Aztec Realm
Edited by Mary G. Hodge and Michael E. Smith

ISBN: 0-942041-15-1 — $32.95

"The Seventeen papers in this collection deal with various aspects of the relationship between economics and the political units which constituted the Aztec state and its main competitor the Tarascan empire. ...

"Until recently Aztec studies were dominated by two rather narrow foci ... a preoccupation with the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan coupled with neglect of other cities and the rural countryside, and an over-emphasis on the best-known Native and Spanish chronicles which ignored the vast corpus of lesser known but equally important documentary sources. ...

"Fortunately a few archaeologists and ethnohistorians, including the contributors to this volume, insisted on expanding the geographical and conceptual parameters of Aztec studies. They also began to employ recent innovative approaches in archaeology, locational geography, economics, political theory, and history in their quest to understand what really happened in central Mexico during the Postclassic period. The result has been some very exciting new perspectives on this fascinating topic." — Richard A. Diehl, Professor of Anthropology, University of Alabama
 

Volume 5

With Our Heads Bowed: The Dynamics of Gender in a Maya Community
By Brenda Rosenbaum

ISBN: 0-942041-14-3 — $19.95

"Brenda Rosenbaum has succeeded in capturing the daily routines of San Juan Chamula men and women in such a way as to reveal the gender subordination implicit in the fabric of this society.

"Since few of the monographs on this much studied area have addressed the issue of gender relations, this volume is a welcome and valuable addition to the field. Few ethnographers have explored the ambiguous link between ideology and social role performance in as great a depth as Brenda Rosenbaum.

"With her long commitment to fieldwork in San Juan Chamula she is able to demonstrate how women have been able to overreach a constraining model of behavior defined by men." — June Nash, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, City University of New York
 

Volume 4

Casi Nada: A Study of Agrarian Reform in the Homeland of Cardenismo
By John Gledhill

ISBN: 0-942641-13-5 — $32.95

"Casi Nada is the result of many months that the author shared the lives of the ejidatarios of Guaracha, Michoacan and of his patient reconstruction of the collective memory concerning a half centry of violence and hope. Without a doubt, it will become obligatory reading for those interested in the themes of agrarian reform, peasant reproduction and political control at the local level.

"The book will also serve to remind us that, if it is true that Mexican peasants never have supported populist inefficiencies, neither will they become enthusiastic supporters of a neoliberal agenda which condemns them to disappear." — Guillermo de la Peña, Director, CIESAS-Occidente, Guadalajara, Mexico
 

Volume 3

Ethnographic Encounters in Southern Mesoamerica: Essays in Honor of Evon Zartman Vogt, Jr.
Edited by Victoria R. Bricker and Gary H. Gossen

ISBN: 0-942041-12-7 — $18

This volume celebrates the long and productive career of Evon Z. Vogt, through whom the Chiapas highlands of southern Mexico have become a landmark reference point in the world ethnographic record.

Comparable in significant ways to Franz Boas and his Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Evon Z. Vogt and his Harvard Chiapas Project students and collaborators have, over thirty years, produced and published an ethnographic and linguistic corpus that has made the Tzotzil-speaking area of Chiapas on of the most thoroughly and professionally documented regions of the Americas.
 

Volume 2

The Work of Bernardino de Sahagún: Pioneer Ethnographer of Sixteenth-Century Aztec Mexico
Edited by J. Jorge Klor de Alva, H. B. Nicholson, and Eloise Quiñones Keber

ISBN: 0-942041-11-9 — $18

1990 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún, the famous Franciscan missionary whose pioneering ethnographies of the Aztecs and their Nahuatl-speaking neighbors have earned him the title of "father of modern anthropology."

Thus it is fitting that the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies publish this landmark collection of studies by well-known scholars on the work of Sahagún and his native collaborators. The articles span from a review of Sahaguntine studies and the role played by Sahagún and his ethnographic project in the history of anthropology, to a series of novel inquiries into his encyclopedia of Aztec (Nahua) culture and its significance for art history and linguistics.
 

Volume 1

Symbol and Meaning Behind the Closed Community: Essays in Mesoamerican Ideas
Edited by Gary H. Gossen

ISBN: 0-942041-10-0. —$19.95

This innovative volume seeks to identify patterns in Mesoamerican symbolic representation that have persistence and coherence across the boundaries of time, space, culture, and language.

The collection also includes consideration of recent and powerful arrivals on the Mesoamerican stage, notably, European political, economic, and religious systems.

Occasional Publications can be purchased in hard copy for the price listed, plus an additional $4 for shipping and handling.

Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to purchase a hard copy. Many of these publications are also available for download at no cost.

Occasional Publication Number 1
The Belize Postclassic Project: Laguna de On Island Excavations 1996
Edited by Marilyn A. Masson and Robert M. Rosenswig
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 2
Belize Postclassic Project 1997: Laguna de On, Progresso Lagoon, Laguna Seca
Edited by Marilyn A. Masson and Robert M. Rosenswig
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 3
Belize Postclassic Project 1998: Investigations at Progresso Lagoon
Edited by Marilyn A. Masson and Robert M. Rosenswig
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 4
Ethnohistory of Early Colonial Nicaragua: Demographyand Encomiendas of the Indian Communities
By Patrick S. Werner
$22 hard copy.

"This important manuscript on early colonial Nicaragua has already proven to be of great value to scholars of Nicaraguan history, and its publication by IMS will make it available to scholars and public alike. There is no other book that treats the early demography and colonial social structure of Nicaragua in such detail and depth. Students of both prehispanic and colonial Nicaragua will find it invaluable for an understanding of the Nicaraguan aboriginal peoples. In time, it is likely that Werner's book will become a classic work in Mesoamerican and Central American studies." - Dr. Robert Carmack, UAlbany

Occasional Publication Number 5
Belize Postclassic Project 1999: Continued Investigations at Progresso Lagoon and Laguna Seca
Edited by Robert M. Rosenswig and Marilyn A. Masson
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 6
Belize Postclassic Project 2000: Investigations at Caye Coco and the Shore Settlements of Progresso Lagoon
Edited by Robert M. Rosenswig and Marilyn A. Masson
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 7
Belize Postclassic Project 2001: Investigations at Caye Coco and the Shore Settlements of Progresso Lagoon
Edited by Antonina M. Delu, Bradley W. Russell and Marilyn A.Masson
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 8
Sacred Landscape and Settlement in the Sibun River Valley, XARP (1999) Archaeological Survey and Excavation
By Patricia McAnany
$12 Hard Copy. A set of 13 maps are also available for Occasional Publication 8 for $39.
 
Occasional Publication Number 9
Belize Postclassic Project 2002: Investigations at the Shore Settlements of Progresso Lagoon and San Estevan
Edited by Josalyn M. Ferguson, Maxine H. Oland and Marilyn A. Masson
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 10
Belize Postclassic Project 2003: Investigations on the West Shore of Progresso Lagoon
Edited by Maxine Oland and Marilyn A. Masson
$12 Hard Copy.

Occasional Publication Number 11
Post Classic Figurines of Central Mexico
By Flora S. Kaplan
$12 Hardcopy.

Occasional Publication Number 12
The Ground Stone Tools of Caye Coco, Belize
By Antonina M. Delu
$12 Hardcopy.

Occasional Publication Number 13
Postclassic Maya Lithic Tool Maintenance, Recycling,and Consumption Patterns at Lagunade On Island
By Sheila M Galup
$12 Hardcopy.

Occasional Publication Number 14
San Estevan Archaeological Project 2005: Report to the Department of Archaeology, Belmopan, Belize
Edited by Robert M. Rosenswig
$12 Hardcopy.

Occasional Publication Number 15
San Estevan Archaeological Project 2008: Report to the Department of Archaeology, Belmopan, Belize
Edited by Robert M. Rosenswig
$12 Hardcopy.

Occasional Publication Number 16
Nana naguan' rihaan nij sii chihaan': Consejos para la gente Triqui : Words of counsel for the Triqui People
By Roman L. Vidal López. Edited and analyzed by George Aaron Broadwell, Ashley LaBoda, Sharone Horowit-Hendler, Gabriela Aquino-Dehesa.
$20 Hardcopy (includes CD).

Occasional Publication Number 17
Postclassic Pottery Censers in the Maya Lowlands: A Study of Form, Function, and Symbolism
By Bradley Russell
$12 Hardcopy.

Occasional Publication Number 18
Belize Archaic Project 2019: Survey and Initial Excavation Report to the Institute of Archeology, Belmopan Belize
By Robert M. Rosenswig

Occasional Publication Number 19
Belize Archaic Project 2022: Survey and Excavation Report to the Institute of Archeology, Belmopan Belize
By Robert M. Rosenswig

Occasional Publication Number 20
Belize Archaic Project 2023: Excavation at Eight Archaic Sites. Report to the Institute of Archeology, Belmopan Belize
By Robert M. Rosenswig

The Legacy of Mesoamerica is a textbook of the peoples and cultures of Mesoamerica, written by members of the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies.

Publisher: Prentice Hall
ISBN: 0-13-049292-2
Date: 2007. Second Edition

Table of Contents

• Introduction

• Unit I: Prehispanic Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 1: Origins and Developments of Mesoamerican Civilization

  • Chapter 2: Late Postclassic Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 3: The Mesoamerican World at Spanish Contact

• Unit II: Colonial Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 4: Mesoamerica and Spain: The Conquest

  • Chapter 5: The Colonial Period in Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 6: Indigenous Literature from Colonial Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 7: Mesoamericans in the Neocolonial Era

• Unit III: Modern Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 8: Native Mesoamericans in the Modern Era

  • Chapter 9: Transnationalism and the Political Economy of Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 10: The Mayan Zapatista Movement

• Unit IV: Mesoamerican Cultural Features

  • Chapter 11: Language and Languages of Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 12: Women and Gender in Mesoamerica

  • Chapter 13: The Indian Voice in Recent Mesoamerican Literature

  • Chapter 14: The Religious Traditions of Mesoamerica

The Institute for Mesoamerican Studies (IMS) also has several publications available upon demand. These can be purchased for download as PDFs or can be printed, bound and sent.

For ordering any of the following books, please contact us at [email protected]. Please note that prices do not include shipping charges. You will need to include an additional $4 to cover shipping and handling fees.
 

IMS Publication Number 1
Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the Central Quiche
Edited by Dwight T. Wallace and Robert M. Carmack
$13

IMS Publication Number 2
Basic Quiche Grammar
By James L. Mondloch
$18

IMS Publication Number 3
Bibliography of Mayan Languages and Linguistics
By Lyle Campbell with Pierre Ventur, Russell Stewart, and Brant Gardner
$15

IMS Publication Number 4
Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I: A Commentary
By Jill Leslie Furst (with a preface by Mary Elizabeth Smith)
$20

IMS Publication Number 5
Migration Across Frontiers: Mexico and the United States, Vol III
Edited by Fernando Camara and Robert Van Kemper
$14

IMS Publication Number 6
The Historical Demography of Highland Guatemala
Edited by Robert Carmack, John Early, and Christopher Lutz
$15

IMS Publication Number 7
Aztec Sorcerers in Seventeenth Century Mexico: The Treatise on Superstitions by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón
Edited and translated by Michael D. Coe and Gordon Whittaker
$20

IMS Publication Number 8
Maya Hieroglyphic Codices
By Yuri Knorosov, translated by Sophie Coe
$24

IMS Publication Number 10
A Consideration of the Early Classic Period in the Maya Lowlands
Edited by Gordon R. Willey and Peter Mathews
$15

2023 Newsletter

2020 Newsletter

2019 Newsletter

2018 Newsletter

2017 Newsletter

2015-2016 Newsletter

2014 Newsletter

Faculty Associate: Marilyn A. Masson

This project investigates the ancient urban economy of the capital city of the Postclassic Maya world.

• Documentary: Mayapan: Urban Life at the Last Maya Capital by Sarah Taylor and Sloan Tash

• National Geographic coverage: "Haunted" Maya Underwater Cave Holds Human Bones

This project is directed by M. Masson, C. Peraza, T. Hare, and B. Russell at the Colonial Maya sites of Yacman and Hunacti, Yucatan, Mexico.
 

Read two recently published articles:

Gradual Changes in Early Colonial-Period Maya Ceramics in Northern Yucatan. Hist Arch (2021) Lope, C.P., Alvarado, W.C., Masson, M.A. et al.

Hybridity and Mortuary Patterns at the Colonial Maya Visita Settlement of Yacman, Mexico. Int J Histor Archaeol 25, 905–930, Masson, M.A., Russell, B.W., Serafin, S. et al.

Faculty Associate: Verónica Pérez Rodríguez

Visit the Cerro Jazmin Archaeological Project website for detailed information.

Faculty Associate: Robert M. Rosenswig

Visit the San Estevan Archeological Project webpage for detailed information.

Faculty Associate: Robert M. Rosenswig

Visit the Soconusco Archaeological Project webpage for detailed information.

Under the auspices of the Belize Postclassic Project, eight preceramic sites were documented between 1997 and 2002 in the Freshwater Creek drainage of northern Belize (Rosenswig and Masson 2001; Rosenswig 2003a).

In 1997, the Belize Postclassic Project began its second season of excavation at Laguna de On Island, near the headwatters of the Freshwater Creek drainage. At the base of Suboperation 19, we encountered an aceramic, white clay that contained macroflake tools, including a large retouched macro-flake and a heavily resharpened constricted uniface (Rosenswig and Safford 1998).

Our excavations documented cultural deposits over 2 m in depth. This was the first time we encountered a preceramic deposit containing patinated unifacially worked lithic tools under a Maya site.

The majority of known Archaic sites from the Freshwater Creek drainage have been documented at Progresso Lagoon. In 1999, a distinctive orange aceramic soil stratum (approximately 15 cm thick) containing patinated lithic flakes was documented 80 cm below ground surface in Suboperation 26 at Caye Coco to the north side of Late Postclassic Structure 2 (Mazeau 2000; Rosenswig 2001).

In 2000, I pursued the aceramic deposits discovered the previous year under a Terminal classic cobble terrace.
 

A significantly resharpened and heavily patinated constricted uniface and numerous flakes were recovered from these excavations. In 2001, a concerted effort was made to document the extents of this aceramic component of the site. The aceramic component that we have documented at Caye Coco covers an area of approximately 150 sq m and it originates between 60 and 85 cm below the current ground surface. In 2001, more patinated, unifacial tools and flakes were recovered as well as two patinated hammer stones and evidence of worked oyster shell (Rosenswig 2002).

The excavations of Suboperations 26a, 26b and 26c provide fine-grained documentation of the stratigraphic position of the orange, preceramic horizon below Terminal Classic and Postclassic deposits.

In 2002, excavations were carried out at the base of the large central mound at the site core of the San Estevan site in what is now being used as the town dump (Rosenswig 2003b). Due to modern land disturbance, several hectares of what was previously the site core was excavated by heavy machinery down two meters below bedrock.

In 2001 the author, along with Dr. Marilyn Masson and twenty field school students, visited the site and noticed a distinctive orange soil horizon in a 30 m section of the profiles created by the quarrying activities. This orange horizon intrigued us as it resembled those containing Archaic materials at numerous sites around Progresso Lagoon (Rosenswig and Masson 2001).

In July 2002, we returned to the site and scrapped down the 30 m section of profile that contained the orange soil horizon. With the resulting increased visibility of the stratigraphy, a 9 m section was selected to be profiled.

This section was directly east of San Estevan´s large central mound, it also contained the most complex stratigraphy and the thickest section of the orange soil horizon. One meter west of the profile a 1 x 2 m unit was excavated as Suboperation 1 to provide a sample of materials from each stratigraphic level. Late Formative fill was documented above a Middle Formative cobble surface visible in the center of the profile. Below this we excavated the orange horizon matrix but did not recover any cultural material from this small test unit.

A second 1 x 2 m unit was excavated as Suboperation 2 in a bulldozer cut right at the eastern base of the large central mound. The orange horizon was documented here as well but also without any cultural material. Soil samples from all of these contexts were floated and the results are pending.
 

Ongoing work at these, and other, preceramic sites will hopefully contribute to an understanding of the conditions under which settled life and ceramic use developed and why this transition took so long to occur in the Maya lowlands relative to the rest of Mesoamerica.
 

References Cited

Mazeau, Daniel E.

2000  Excavations at Structure 2 and Structure 3, Caye Coco. In Belize Postclassic Project 1999: Continuing Investigations at Progresso Lagoon and Laguna Seca, edited by R. Rosenswig and M. Masson, pp. 7-20. Institute of Mesoamerican Studies Occasional Publication No. 5. The University at Albany – SUNY, Albany.

Rosenswig, Robert M.

2001  Preceramic Evidence from Northern Belize and Caye Coco. In Belize Postclassic Project 2000: Investigations at Caye Coco and the Shore Settlements of Progresso Lagoon, edited by R. Rosenswig and M. Masson, pp. 87-95. Institute of Mesoamerican Studies Occasional Publication No. 6. The University at Albany – SUNY, Albany.

2002   Excavation of Preceramic Components at Caye Coco and the Fred Smith Site. In The Belize Postclassic Project 2001: Investigations and Analysis at Progresso Lagoon, edited by B. Russell, A. Delu and M. Masson. Institute of Mesoamerican Studies Occasional Publication No. 7. The University at Albany – SUNY, Albany.

2003a  New Archaeological Excavation Data from the Late Archaic Occupation of Northern Belize. Paper Presented at the Belize Department of Archaeology Symposium Belize City, July 2-6. To be published in the forthcoming proceedings of this meeting.

2003b  Looking for Archaic deposits at the San Estevan Site, northern Belize. In The Belize Postclassic Project 2002, edited by J. Ferguson, M. Oland and M. Masson. Institute of Mesoamerican Studies Occasional Publication No. 8. The University at Albany – SUNY, Albany.

Rosenswig, Robert M. and Marilyn A. Masson

2001  Seven New Preceramic Sites Documented in Northern Belize. Mexicon 23: 138-140.

Rosenswig, Robert M. and Thomas W. Stafford, Jr.

1998  Archaic Component Beneath a Postclassic Terrace at Suboperationeration 19, Laguna de On Island. In Belize Postclassic Project 1997: Laguna de On, Progresso Lagoon, Laguna Seca, edited by M. Masson and R. Rosenswig, pp. 81-89. Institute of Mesoamerican Studies Occasional Publication No. 2. University at Albany – SUNY, Albany.

Faculty Associate: Robert M. Rosenswig

Visit the Izapa Regional Settlement Project webpage for detailed information.

Faculty Associate: Louise Burkhart

This project includes a book in progress, co-authored with Elizabeth Hill Boone (Tulane University) and David Tavárez (Vassar College), to be published by Dumbarton Oaks. The book will present a facsimile, reading, and analysis of Bibliothèque Nationale de France manuscrit mexicain 399, a pictorial manuscript made in Mexico City during the second half of the seventeenth century and connected with the Moteuczoma family.

Often called “Testerian” manuscripts after fray Jacobo de Testera, one of the early Franciscans in Mexico, pictographic catechisms present the texts of the Roman Catholic catechism, which indigenous people were expected to learn from memory, in the format of a series of pictograms, each representing a word or phrase. In a few cases, alphabetic glosses in Nahuatl or, in one case, Otomi accompany the images.

This new form of writing, though probably derived from sixteenth-century experiments in catechetical representation, may have emerged only in the later seventeenth century, as one of the textual strategies by which indigenous elites sought to represent themselves as good Christian subjects who adopted Christianity in the immediate wake of Spain’s military conquest.

Highly original and experimental, this writing was never fully systematized, nor was it ever divorced from its catechetical context to become a fully independent writing system. It was a mnemonic system supporting memorization and oral recitation of the catechism. As a political strategy, it recuperated the associations of picture writing with the pre-conquest and conquest-era elites, to whom later-colonial leaders hearkened back in order to legitimize their own lineages and their dynastic rights to lands and privileges. This archaizing strategy deliberately reversed the sixteenth-century trajectory that saw indigenous literacy abandon picture-writing for the roman alphabet.

My research questions the long-standing assumption that these manuscripts were developed by, or at least under the supervision of, the early Franciscan friars. The Franciscans and other preachers did use pictures, but there is no good evidence that they used small paper booklets of this kind, as opposed to larger paintings on cloth.

Nearly all extant pictographic catechism include a question-and-answer catechetical summary that did not develop until the 1630s, nor reach the form encoded in the pictographic texts until 1644. On this topic, see my article entitled “The ‘Little Doctrine’ and Indigenous Catechesis in New Spain,” Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 94, May issue, 2014.

Visit the Passion Plays of Eighteenth-Century Mexico website for detailed information.

Faculty Associates: Walter Little and George Aaron Broadwell

The Day of Triqui Culture is an annual occasion recognized San Juan Copala Triquis' distinct cultural contributions to the Albany area.

The event boasts traditional foods, dance performances and handicrafts.  IMS associates also present on research related to the Triqui language and textiles.

About the Award

The Scotchmer award recognizes outstanding professional writing by graduate students in the field of Mesoamerican studies. The award (subject to annual adjustment) will be $150, to be used as the awardee sees fit to further their research program.

The winner is usually announced in mid-April of each year and will be recognized in the published program at the Honors Convocation on Commencement weekend in May.

The award is named for the late Dr. David Scotchmer, an alum of our graduate program (PhD, 1991) who died in 1995 just as his career was flowering.

David, a pioneer in the study of the Protestant Evangelical Movement in Guatemala, published several significant essays on this subject while a graduate student here at UAlbany. This award, in his honor, celebrates and encourages the writing and publication efforts of graduate students.
 

Eligibility

All students enrolled in the MA or PhD program in the Department of Anthropology at UAlbany with research interests in Mesoamerican Studies are eligible for this competition. Student Associates of the IMS are given preference.
 

Essay Requirements

Unpublished essays on any aspect of Mesoamerican Studies are eligible for submission. The essay may be a revised seminar paper, MA paper, doctoral dissertation exam essay or an expanded version of a presentation at a professional meeting.

Co-authored student essays are eligible. Co-authored student-faculty essays are not eligible.

Papers submitted for consideration should be under 40 pages in length, double spaced, and should conform to the style of a major professional journal, such as American Antiquity or American Anthropologist.

Students should consult the style guide of the journal and make sure that bibliographic entries, subheadings and other elements conform to the correct style. All necessary tables and illustrations must be included, but they do not need to be in final, publishable format.
 

Procedures for Submission

A submission cover letter should include the following: context in which the essay took shape, i.e., the circumstances under which it was conceived and written, and plans, if any (not required), for submission for publication.
 

Criteria for Evaluation

Essays will be judged by a committee of IMS faculty for professional quality, following standard disciplinary criteria.

About the Award

This award recognizes outstanding undergraduate achievement in the field of Mesoamerican studies, as judged by a written essay. The award will be $100, to be used as the awardee sees fit.

The winner is usually announced in mid-April of each year and is recognized (in the published program and in person) at the Honors Convocation on Commencement weekend in May.
 

Eligibility

All undergraduate students at UAlbany are eligible for this award.

Essay Requirements

Unpublished essays on any aspect of Mesoamerican studies are eligible for submission. The essay may be a revised term paper, a senior honors thesis or any other essay.

Co-authored student essays are eligible. Co-authored student-faculty essays are not eligible.

Papers submitted for consideration should be under 30 pages in length, double-spaced, and should conform to the style of a major professional journal such as American Antiquity or American Anthropologist.

Students should consult the style guide of the journal and make sure that bibliographic entries, subheadings, and other elements conform to the correct style. All necessary tables and illustrations must be included, but the illustrations do not need to be in final, publishable format.
 

Procedure for Submission

Three copies of the essay should be submitted to the IMS office in Arts and Sciences (AS) 233 or the IMS mailbox (AS 236), including a digital copy in PDF to [email protected].

Students should arrange to have a faculty member write a letter of reference that discusses the context and importance of the paper.

A submission cover letter statement should include the following:

• Context in which the essay took shape, i. e., the circumstances under which it was conceived and written
• The name of the faculty reference
   

Criteria for Evaluation

Essays will be judged by a committee of IMS faculty for their professional quality, following standard disciplinary criteria.