Mesoamerica and the Caribbean
program description
Mesoamerica and the Caribbean is one of several regions of the ancient world where a complete sequence is found from an early foraging way of life to the origins of agriculture through the development of ancient complex society. Mesoamerica is unique in the ancient world for its independent development of complex social, political, and economic systems in the absence of animal domestication, metal tools, and complex machines. The region thus provides a unique anthropological laboratory in which to study the varied ways ancient human societies met the challenges of their natural and cultural environments.
research emphasis
Geographical: Mesoamerica and the Caribbean: from Central Mexico to Honduras and Amazonia
Cultural: Hunters-gatherers and village agriculturalists to the development of complex societies in the form of chiefdoms, states, and empires.
Topical: The department emphasizes a cultural ecological and evolutionary approaches to the study of complex society in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean and its corresponding subsistence, political, and economic systems. Topics of research include, among others, subsistence systems (paleoethnobotany), ancient economy, spatial archaeology and settlement patterns, political systems (including warfare), and urbanism.
Training: Emphasis is placed on an integrated study of human populations and their cultural remains. It includes an ecological approach to the study of ancient landscapes using geospatial information systems (GIS) and settlement patterns. Faculty provide intensive training in archaeobotany, lithic technology, and ceramic analysis in fully equipped labs, and students have access to state-of-the-art computer facilities including GIS.
Current Research: Ongoing and recent faculty research projects include obsidian craft production in Central Mexico and the Basin of Mexico GIS Survey (Hirth), archaeological survey at Piedras Negras, Guatemala, and mapping and excavation of the earthwork at Tikal, Guatemala (Webster), the Penn State-INAH urbanism project (Sanders), and the political economies of two Taino Caribbean chiefdoms and long-term human-environment dynamics in the Amazon (Newsom).
department anthropologists
Susan T. Evans, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of Anthropology (ste@psu.edu) Aztecs
Kenneth G. Hirth, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology (kgh2@psu.edu): Ancient Economy, Rise of Complex Society, Central Mexico, Honduras
George R. Milner, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology (ost@psu.edu): Eastern North America (Midwest and Southeast, Archaic, Mississippian), settlement patterns, land use, human osteology (paleodemography, paleopathology)
Claire McHale Milner, Ph.D., Director of Exhibits and Museum Curator (cmm8@psu.edu): Eastern North America (Great Lakes and Northeast); ceramic studies; museum studies
Lee Newsom, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology (lan12@psu.edu): Paleoethnobotany, long-term change in coupled human-environmental systems, Caribbean
William Sanders, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Anthropology Cultural Ecology, Mesoamerica
Dean R. Snow, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology (drs17@psu.edu): Ethnohistory, Tlaxcala
David L. Webster, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology (dxw16@psu.edu): Warfare, Political Organization, Rise of Complex Society, The Maya
Mesoamerican Faculty in Other Departments
Timothy Murtha, Asst Professor, Landscape Architecture, GIS visualization, The Maya
Matthew Restall, Associate Professor, Dept of History, Ethnohistory, The Maya
Departmental facilities and field school
Students regularly participate in laboratory and field-based research on individual projects and in shared facilities such as the department's Geographic Information System (GIS) facility.
Bioarchaeology: For analyses of human skeletal remains and archaeological materials from the American Midwest and Southeast.
GIS Facility: For computer-based spatial analyses of cultural and ecological data.
Mesoamerica: For analyses of lithic technology, use wear, petrographics, and spatial analysis (GIS)
Copan archaeology: For analysis of a huge spatial data base acquired since 1980.
North America: For analyses of archaeological materials from the American Northeast.
Paleoethnobotany: For analyses of plant remains in various preservation states and forms, with emphasis on the Neotropics and southeastern North America
Matson Museum: For training in collections management and exhibit design
Other University Facilities and Programs
Breazeale Nuclear Reactor
Center for Quantitative Imaging
Forensic Science Program
Institutes of the Environment
Materials Research Institute
courses
Anth 422 Mesoamerican archaeology
Anth 545 Seminar in Archaeology: Mesoamerican Urbanism
Anth 545 Seminar in Archaeology: Mesoamerican Warfare
Anth 596 Caribbean archaeology
graduate application and undergraduate registration information
Links
Population Research Institute
Anthropology/Demography Dual-Degree Program
