New Evidence of Early Maize Domestication in the Balsas River Valley
6/1/07 - Science Daily - New charcoal and plant microfossil evidence from Mexico's Central Balsas valley links a pivotal cultural shift, crop domestication in the New World, to local and regional environmental history. Agriculture in the Balsas valley originated and diversified during the warm, wet, postglacial period following the much cooler and drier climate in the final phases of the last ice age. A significant dry period appears to have occurred at the same time as the major dry episode associated with the collapse of Mayan civilization, Smithsonian researchers and colleagues report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online.
Olmec Sculptures Discovered in Morelos
1/24/07 - Excavations at Zazacatla, just south of Cuernavaca, have revealed significant Olmec remains, including two major figural sculptures dating to about 800 B.C. INAH archaeologists Giselle Canto Aguilar and Eduardo López Calzada announced their discoveries today, after many months racing against rampant development in the area. Much of the archaeological site is now destroyed.
Huge Aztec Monolith Revealed
11/17/06 - A team led by INAH archaeologist Álvaro Barrera has now fully unearthed the large sculpture discovered several weeks ago under the site of the Casa de las Ajaracas, in central Mexico City near the intersection of Calles de Guatemala and Argentina. This is directly in front and to the west of the Templo Mayor. The slab shows a beautiful depiction of the female aspect of the Earth Lord (Tlalteuctli), and it has been hailed as one of the most important Aztec discoveries of the last generation. The massive stone, roughly 4 x 4 meters in size, is broken but well preserved. Archaeologists believe it may cover a substantial cache offering, or perhaps even the funerary chamber of the Mexica emperor Ahuitzotl who died in 1502. An excellent summary article by Eduardo Matos Moctezuma and Leonardo López Luján will appear in the upcoming issue of Arqueología Mexicana (no. 83, January-February 2007).
Discovery of Olmec Writing
09/15/06 - The journal Science (Vol. 313. no. 5793, pp. 1610 - 1614) reports on recent analysis of an incised stone brought to light in 1999 by lead authors and archaeologists María del Carmen Rodríguez Martínez (INAH, Veracruz) and Ponciano Ortíz Ceballos (Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa) near the site of Cascajal, Veracruz, Mexico. The researchers, who include distinguished Mesoamericanists Michael D. Coe (emeritus, Yale University), Richard A. Diehl (University of Alabama), Stephen D. Houston (Brown University), Karl A. Taube (University of California-Riverside), Alfredo Delgado Calderón (INAH, Veracruz), conclude from a wide range of evidence and examination that the 62 signs do conform "to all expectations of writing."
Other Olmec writing links:
Writing on Stone May Be Oldest in the Americas by John Noble Wilford, The New York Times, Science Section, September 14, 2006
ARCHAEOLOGY: Claim of Oldest New World Writing Excites Archaeologists by Andrew Lawler, Science, vol. 313, no. 5793, p. 1551
Archaeologists discover tablet in Mexico with Olmec text thought to be 3,000 years old by Manasee Wagh and Tom Avril, The Philadelphia Inquirer (reprinted in Austin American-Statesman, 09/15/06)
"This is centuries before anything we've had. People have debated whether the Olmecs had any writing. This clears it up," David Stuart, a University of Texas expert in Mesoamerican writing, said of the find. Stuart wasn't involved in the discovery but reviewed it for Science."
Oldest Writing in New World Discovered, Scientists Say by Mason Inman, National Geographic News
Veiled Brightness: A History of Ancient Maya Color by Stephen Houston, Claudia Brittenham, Cassandra Mesick, Alexandre Tokovinine, and Christina Warinner. 168pp. Hardcover. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Sacred Bundles: Ritual Acts of Wrapping and Binding in Mesoamerica Eds. Julia Guernsey and F. Kent Reilly, III. Perfect bound. Ancient America, Center for Ancient American Studies, Barnardsville, NC.
Ritual and Power in Stone: The Performance of Rulership in Mesoamerican Izapan Style Art by Julia Guernsey. 256 pp. Hardcover. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Sex, Death, and Sacrifice in Moche Religion and Visual Culture by Steve Bourget. 272 pp. Hardcover. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Sixth Annual Tulane Maya Symposium and Conference
Through a series of lectures, workshops, and a roundtable discussion, specialists at next year’s symposium will discuss our current understanding of the intricacies of Maya calendars and the relevance of the completion in December of 2012 of the final baktun of the current era of the Long Count within the worldview of the ancient and contemporary Maya. Divinatory almanacs and references to Maya creation mythology in the texts and iconography of pre-Columbian codices and the Colonial Books of Chilam Balam are among the topics that will be considered, with discussions centered on the role of creation stories and foundation events in Classic, Postclassic, and contemporary Maya rituals.
Featuring guest speakers from the fields of archaeology, art history, epigraphy, ethnohistory, linguistics, and archaeoastronomy, the 2009 symposium promises to be a memorable weekend spent exploring and discussing Maya creation mythology, divination and prophecy, and calendar systems.
2009 Maya Meetings
Austin, February 23 - March 1, 2009
The annual Maya Meetings at the University of Texas at Austin feature lectures and workshops on the latest advances in Maya archaeology, iconography, and hieroglyphic decipherment.
Please join us February 23 - March 1 for the 33rd annual Maya Meetings (History and Politics of the Snake Kingdom), held at the AT&T Conference Center on the UT Campus.
Viva Mexico – Festival of Mexican Culture
Ljubiljana, March 3 - June 18, 2009
This spring, "Remote Cultures at the Cankarjev Dom" will be dedicated to Mexican culture. The Festival of Mexican Culture will include, among other things, the arhaeological exhibition The Pre-colombian Mexico, two photographic exhibitions, theatre and musical performances, concerts, film screenings, literary readings by Mexican authors and lectures. Among others: Ivan Šprajc: The Maya Culture - Archaeological explorations in the southeastern part of the Mexican State of Campeche - photographs, 25 March 2009 - 10 May 2009.
27th Annual Maya Weekend:
Maya Crossroads - Classic Ideas and Goods in Motion Across the Verapaz
Philadelphia, April 3 - 5, 2009
The 2009 SECOLAS (South Eastern Council of Latin American Studies) Annual Meeting: Crisis and Recovery in the Americas
New Orleans, April 16 - 18, 2009
SECOLAS holds one annual meeting each spring, at which scholarly papers and other activities are presented.
Society of American Archaeologists' 74th Annual Meeting
Atlanta, April 22 - 26, 2009
SECOLAS holds one annual meeting each spring, at which scholarly papers and other activities are presented.
2009 Conference on Mesoamerica
"Continuity and Change in Mesoamerican History From the Pre-Classic to the Colonial Era" —
An Homage to Tatiana A. Proskouriakoff
Los Angeles, May 16 - 22, 2009
California State University
This conference on Mesoamerica commemorates the first centennial of Tatiana A. Proskouriakoff’s birth.
The deadline for a one-page abstract of conference papers is April 17, 2009. Please send your abstract as an electronic attachment to rcantu@calstatela.edu or mail to the following address:
Prof. Roberto Cantú
Department of Chicano Studies
California State University, Los Angeles
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90032
Telephone: (323) 343-2195
Conference Program forthcoming in the Spring 2009. This event will be free and open to the public.
Crongreso Nacional de Estudiantes de Arqueología: Mesoamérica: Avances y Perspectivas
June 16 - 19, 2009
53rd International Congress of Americanists: Los pueblos americanos: cambios y continuidades. La construcció de lo propio en un mundo globalizado.
México, D.F., July 19 - 24, 2009
14th European Maya Conference
Cracow, November 9 - 14, 2009
The conference will combine a three-and-a-half day long Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop (November 9 – 12) and a symposium (November, 13 - 14). The theme of the EMC will be Maya Political Relations and Strategies. Papers delivered at the symposium will focus on interactions between Maya sociopolitical entities through time and across landscapes. The analysis will cover epigraphic, iconographic, archaeological, ethnohistorical and linguistic evidence.
SAA's 75th Anniversary Meeting
St. Louis, April 14 - 18, 2010
