Connections and Impacts of Northern and West Mexican Cultures
Description
Scholars and students from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are working on an ASU-based project to understand connectivity between developments in northwest Mexico and surrounding regions, especially the American Southwest, ca. A.D. 200-1500. Most research about how regions become globalized is conducted in contemporary contexts, but the ancient world was replete with cycles of interconnection. Peoples in different regions engaged in technology transfers and ideological shifts long before there was a Pony Express or a worldwide web.
We are investigating the practices, symbols, and objects that were transmitted across the deserts of Zacatecas, Durango, Chihuahua, Arizona, and New Mexico, and along the coasts of Colima, Nayarit, Sinaloa, and Sonora. Practices as diverse as warfare and ball playing were important parts of this interaction process. We are reconstructing the temporal, spatial, and social contexts of crafted objects such as copper bells, turquoise, and shell trumpets.
To understand these exchanges, we must examine the patterns of artifact occurrence as well as regional political histories and environmental conditions. We hypothesize that political leaders, priests, merchants, shamans, warriors, metallurgists and other craft specialists built distant relations to construct power, especially during local political transformations. In characterizing these actors, cycles, and systems, we seek to understand their systems of symbolic and economic interaction and to relate them the realities of today’s indigenous world.
This project includes regular field and laboratory sessions during which participants live in Zacatecas, Mexico and San Blas, Mexico. The project has established literature repositories in Tempe, Arizona, and Zacatecas, Mexico. It also provides support to a number of scholars who are resurrecting information and making new interpretations based early, unpublished studies in the region.
Berney, Christine (2002)
Trade on the Mesoamerican Frontier: Evaluating the Significance of Blue-green Stones at La Quemada, Zacatecas, Mexico. M.A. Thesis, University of British Columbia.
Chamberlin, Matthew (2002)
Warfare and Ritual in Northwest Mexico. Archaeology Southwest 16(1):11.
Elliott, Michelle (2000)
Prehispanic Wood Procurement in the Malpaso Valley, Zacatecas, Mexico, A.D. 500-900. Unpublished M.A. Paper, Arizona State University.
Nelson, Ben A. (2000)
Aggregation, Warfare, and the Spread of the Mesoamerican Tradition. In The Archaeology of Regional Interaction: Religion, Warfare, and Exchange Across the American Southwest and Beyond, edited by M. Hegmon, pp. 317-337. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Nelson, Ben A. (2001)
Northwestern Mexico. In Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America, edited by D. Carrasco, A. Aveni, E. H. Boone, J. K. Chance, L. Manzanilla and W. B. Taylor, pp. 385-388. Oxford University Press, New York.
Nelson, Ben A. (2004)
Elite Residences in West Mexico. In Ancient Palaces of the New World: Form, Function, and Meaning, edited by J. Pillsbury and S. T. Evans, pp. 60-81. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.
Nelson, Ben A. (2004)
Current and Future Directions in the Archaeology of Northwest Mexico. In Surveying the Archaeology of Northwest Mexico, edited by G. E. Newell and E. Gallaga, pp. 289-296. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Nelson, Ben A. (2003)
Monumentality, Identity, and the House: An Example from Ancient Zacatecas, Mexico (Construction identitaire et " monumentalisation " de la maison: L'exemple de l'ancienne Zacatecas, Mexique). Colloquium presented to the Maison de l'Archéologie et de l'ethnologie, Université de Paris, Nanterre, October 7, 2003.
Nelson, Ben A. (2005)
Evidencia Arqueológica de las Prácticas de Almacenamiento en La Quemada, Zacatecas, Ponencia preparada para la conferencia, "La arqueología del almacenamiento, del norte de México al Altiplano, durante la época prehispánica," patrocinada por el Centro Francés de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, México, D. F, del 8 al 10 de junio de 2005.
Nelson, Ben A. (2005)
Mesoamerican Objects and Symbols in Chaco Canyon Contexts. In The Archaeology of Chaco Canyon: An 11th Century Pueblo Regional Center, edited by S. H. Lekson. SAR Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico, in press.
Nelson, Ben A. and Michael Ohnersorgen (2005)
Archaeology of Social Power: Distant Interaction in Northwest Mexico, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
Ohnersorgen, Michael (2004)
Informe Técnico Final del Proyecto “Investigación Arqueológico Preliminar de Chacalilla,” Nayarit, Mexico. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe.
Turkon, Paula (2004)
Los Símbolos Extranjeros, los Recursos Locales, y la Alfarería Epiclásica del Valle de Malpaso, Zacatecas. Paper presented at the Producción e Intercambio de Recursos Estratégico en el Antiguo Occidente, Colegio de Michoacán. Zamora.
Wells, E. Christian and Ben A. Nelson (2004)
La Cerámica y la Concha del Período Clásico en el Valle del Malpaso, Zacatecas. In Bienes Estragéticos del Antiguo Occidente de México: Producción e Intercambio,edited by E. Williams, pp. 283-309. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, Michoacán, Mexico.
- Ben A. Nelson, Principal Investigator
- Michael Ohnersorgen, Postdoctoral Research Scholar
- Christine Berney
- David Bild
- Oralia Cabrera
- Matthew Chamberlain
- Andrew Darling
- Sara Dvorak
- Michelle Elliott
- Michael Foster
- Jaime Holthuysen
- Maren Hopkins
- Loni Kantor
- Debra Martin
- Humberto Medina
- John Millhauser
- Rebekah Parks
- Ventura Perez
- Pablo Sereno
- Vincent Schiavitti
- Stuart Scott
- Denise To
- Paula Turkon
- Christian Wells
Participants:
Anonymous donor
Centro Regional INAH, Zacatecas, Mexico
Centro Regional INAH, Nayarit, Mexico