Maya archaeologists visit Bergen
Katherine Miller-Wolf and Marc Wolf present their work on Mayan archaeology.
Hovedinnhold
On Wednesday March 15, the Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen hosts American archaeologists Marc Wolf and Katherine Miller-Wolf, who will both give lectures on different perspectives of the Mayan civilization.
Katherine Miller-Wolf is Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at Indiana University East. She completed her PhD from Arizona State University in 2014.
Marc Wolf is a GIS specialist and has done extensive survey and excavation work in Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala. He is currently completing his PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center.
The guest lectures are hosted by the research group Humans and materiality.
The lectures
Landscape perspectives and complexities of Maya civilization
By: Marc Wolf
Landscape perspective is one of the most enduring aspects of human culture—past, present, and into the future. It is of a specialized view, such as the archaeological/anthropological tint of discussion here, but at the same time embraces—demands—a multi-disciplinarian milieu that calls upon the sciences of geography, statistics, architectural planning, mythology, world-views, environmental studies, and human interaction (among countless others).
In the Maya realms of Central America, archaeologists have long realized that architecture, settlement patterns, and the environment—idealized, mythologized, and appreciated on a daily basis by the ancient inhabitants—are continuous nodes on a sliding scale of spatial proclivities. The discussion will focus on continuing research at the important archaeological site of Cancuen in west-central Guatemala, though particularly salient examples from throughout Mesoamerica and beyond are considered. The understanding of important social phenomena through an analysis of the built and conceptual environment is not simply an intriguing and productive line of inquiry into the complexities of Maya civilization, but is also apropos to archaeological studies anywhere.
Perspectives of Life and Death among the Ancient Maya from Skeletal Remains
By: Katherine Miller-Wolf
The human skeleton is a unique component of the archaeological record in that it documents one’s life history. From the skeleton, we can potentially tell where a person was born, what they chose to eat, their general health, if they were ever seriously ill or injured, to whom they were related, their social status, if they were subject to violence or warfare, their profession, and possibly, how they died. All of these facets of a person’s life are found in the chemical, biological, and physical parts of the remains and provide a rare window into the past. As such, the lines of evidence drawn from the human body can inform us about the social, political, and economic structures of the expansive and complex ancient Maya society of Central America (AD 250-900) in ways that can add to what we know from material culture. Yet, one major challenge associated with studying human remains endures. Despite the plethora of information in the skeleton, the tropical jungles of the Maya region quickly deteriorates delicate bones resulting in poor preservation thereby making analysis difficult. As such, innovative analytical techniques have been necessitated and increasingly employed. Most notably, bioarchaeological approaches have combined methods from archaeology, physical anthropology, chemistry, and biology to access new sources of data that add to our understanding of ancient Maya civilization. This talk will highlight some of these techniques as they have been applied to understand the people that once lived in the kingdom of Copan, Honduras.
