Throughout this study, we have explored the iconography and writing that the precolonial peoples of western Oaxaca, Mexico, mainly the Mixteca region, used between 400 years before Christ (BC) and... Show moreThroughout this study, we have explored the iconography and writing that the precolonial peoples of western Oaxaca, Mexico, mainly the Mixteca region, used between 400 years before Christ (BC) and 900 years after Christ (AD), that is, from the Middle Preclassic period (400 BC) to the end of the Classic period (900 AD), which corresponds to the first phase of urbanism in the Oaxaca region. Identifying the themes and narratives that are preserved in different archaeological monuments and deciphering their meaning through iconographic, epigraphic analysis, and documentation of their context, this study focuses on recognizing and interpreting the materialized memory of communities through archaeological objects. The purpose is to show how it is possible to reconstruct part of the ancient history of the communities in time, the life of its protagonists, the religious thought of the community, as well as the social and political environment in which they were formed. Show less
"Grounding the Past" addresses archaeological field praxis and its role in the political present of Santiago Tilantongo and Santiago Apoala, two communities in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca,... Show more"Grounding the Past" addresses archaeological field praxis and its role in the political present of Santiago Tilantongo and Santiago Apoala, two communities in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Efforts to involve local stakeholder communities in archaeology have become an important issue worldwide. In this study, Alexander Geurds argues that projects of participatory archaeology, many of which go under the heading of ‘community archaeology’, cannot dispense with reflexive analysis of field praxis, if they are to avoid idealized and thus untenable narratives of harmonious local collaboration. Past and present archaeological praxis often carries negative connotations in the Mixteca Alta, because archaeological projects have failed to recognize conflicting interests and issues of representation of local and non-local parties. Geurds reviews the constitutive elements of their partnerships, such as official meetings, public presentations and conferences, where the involved local and non-local parties produce conflicting agendas by creating and transforming power relations. He identifies and analyzes the attendant influences on participatory elements through the application of qualitative techniques derived from ethnography and social geography. The first part of the book follows an approach consistent with consistent with the regional archaeological tradition focused on materialist analysis of surface artefacts. Information derived from surface surveying and mapping receives special emphasis. The second part explores alternative means for embedding the production of historical knowledge into local perceptions of landscape and monuments. For this purpose, oral history and in particular knowledge of local placenames is focused on. Show less