Rosemary Joyce | University of California, Berkeley (original) (raw)

Books by Rosemary Joyce

Focusing on marriage figurines—double human figurines that represent relations formed through soc... more Focusing on marriage figurines—double human figurines that represent relations formed through social alliances—Hendon, Joyce, and Lopiparo examine the material relations created in Honduras between AD 500 and 1000, a period of time when a network of social houses linked settlements of a variety of sizes in the region. The authors analyze these small, seemingly insignificant artifacts using the theory of materiality to understand broader social processes.

They examine the production, use, and disposal of marriage figurines from six sites—Campo Dos, Cerro Palenque, Copán, Currusté, Tenampua, and Travesia—and explore their role in rituals and ceremonies, as well as in the forming of social bonds and the celebration of relationships among communities. They find evidence of historical traditions reproduced over generations through material media in social relations among individuals, families, and communities, as well as social differences within this network of connected yet independent settlements.

Material Relations provides a new and dynamic understanding of how social houses functioned via networks of production and reciprocal exchange of material objects and will be of interest to Mesoamerican archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians.

Edited by Rosemary A. Joyce, the book includes essays by top scholars interpreting the material c... more Edited by Rosemary A. Joyce, the book includes essays by top scholars interpreting the material culture of the region’s ancestral peoples, including John Hoopes, Payson Sheets, Christina Luke, and Patricia Fernández, in addition to the exhibition’s lead curator, Ann McMullen (National Museum of the American Indian), and guest curator, Alexander Benítez (George Mason University). Revealing Ancestral Central America features almost 120 illustrations, mostly representing objects from the archeological collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian—one of the most complete collections of pre-Hispanic Central American ceramics in the world. This publication, developed in collaboration between the National Museum of the American Indian and the Smithsonian Latino Center is available for free download as a PDF, epub file (compatible with iBooks/iPad), and mobi file (compatible with Kindle).

Examining a wide range of archaeological data, and using it to explore issues such as the sexual ... more Examining a wide range of archaeological data, and using it to explore issues such as the sexual body, mind/body dualism, body modification, and magical practices, Lynn Meskell and Rosemary Joyce offer a new approach to the Ancient Egyptian and Mayan understanding of embodiment.

Drawing on insights from feminist theory, art history, phenomenology, anthropology and psychoanalysis, the book takes bodily materiality as a crucial starting point to the understanding and formation of self in any society, and sheds new light on Ancient Egyptian and Maya cultures.

The book shows how a comparative project can open up new lines of inquiry by raising questions about accepted assumptions as the authors draw attention to the long-term histories and specificities of embodiment, and make the case for the importance of ancient materials for contemporary theorization of the body.

For students new to the subject, and scholars already familiar with it, this will offer fresh and exciting insights into these ancient cultures.

With contributions by Robert W. Preucel, Jeanne Lopiparo, Michael Joyce, and Carolyn Guyer

Sister Stories is a hypertext juxtaposing radically different voices, and is conceived by its aut... more Sister Stories is a hypertext juxtaposing radically different voices, and is conceived by its authors as a story rather than a history. Therefore, while you will find many ways of navigating the work across link sets, no sitemap is available. Traversing the work, making your own path, is the best way of understanding what is here.

Out of print since 1999, "Cerro Palenque" may be available on request to the author.

Papers by Rosemary Joyce

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2007

Through the medium of two hypertext works, Ruth Tringham's Chimera Web and Rosemary Joyce's Siste... more Through the medium of two hypertext works, Ruth Tringham's Chimera Web and Rosemary Joyce's Sister Stories, we present the argument that the new digital media offer unique opportunities for feminist archaeology to realize some of its deepest values. Through the medium of hypermedia and hypertext (nonlinear) narratives the complexities of the feminist practice of archaeology (including its multivocal and multi-linear interpretive process) can be grasped, enjoyed, and participated in by a non-archaeological audience more fluidly than in traditional linear texts. We draw attention to the way in which the recent developments in digital technology, especially through the Internet, have transformed our ability to share freely the fruits of our creative thought with an ever-expanding audience.

Archaeology of Communities, 2012

Excavations in northern Honduras have produced evidence of initial village life that is among the... more Excavations in northern Honduras have produced evidence of initial village life that is among the earliest cases documented in Mesoamerica. Settlement beginning prior to 1600 B.C., the production of sophisticated pottery by 1600 B.C., and integration in economic exchange networks extending into Guatemala and México by 1100-900 B.C. (calendar ages), are all consistent with patterns recorded in the Gulf Coast, Central Highlands, and Pacific Coast of México. Supported by a suite of 11 radiocarbon dates, these findings overturn traditional models that viewed Honduras as an underdeveloped periphery receiving delayed influences from Mexican centers.

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2019

In recent years, researchers in pre-Hispanic Central America have used new approaches that greatl... more In recent years, researchers in pre-Hispanic Central America have used new approaches that greatly amplify and enhance evidence of plants and their uses. This paper presents a case study from Puerto Escondido, located in the lower Ulúa River valley of Caribbean coastal Honduras. We demonstrate the effectiveness of using multiple methods in concert to interpret ethnobotanical practice in the past. By examining chipped-stone tools, ceramics, sediments from artifact contexts, and macrobotanical remains, we advance complementary inquiries. Here, we address botanical practices “in the home,” such as foodways, medicinal practices, fiber crafting, and ritual activities, and those “close to home,” such as agricultural and horticultural practices, forest management, and other engagements with local and distant ecologies. This presents an opportunity to begin to develop an understanding of ethnoecology at Puerto Escondido, here defined as the dynamic relationship between affordances provided ...

Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America, 2014

For students new to the subject, and scholars already familiar with it, this will offer fresh and exciting insights into these ancient cultures.

With contributions by Robert W. Preucel, Jeanne Lopiparo, Michael Joyce, and Carolyn Guyer

Out of print since 1999, "Cerro Palenque" may be available on request to the author.

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2007

Archaeology of Communities, 2012

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2019

Wearing Culture: Dress and Regalia in Early Mesoamerica and Central America, 2014

Perspective, 2014

DÉBAT 181 Questions on "world art history" A discussion between Zainab Bahrani, Jaś Elsner and Ro... more DÉBAT 181 Questions on "world art history" A discussion between Zainab Bahrani, Jaś Elsner and Rosemary Joyce moderated by Jeremy Tanner, with a comment by Wu Hung The choice of this theme for debate has been stimulated by recent discussions of the globalization of art history, and the increasing emphasis placed in the discipline on the notion of "world art history," perhaps best exemplified by the books of James Elkins and David Summers: James Elkins, Is Art History Global? and David Summers, Real Spaces: World Art History and the Rise of Western Modernism. 1 Most of the discussion has focused on Renaissance and later art, but the purpose of this debate is to reflect on the relevance of these debates in particular in relation to the art of "ancient worlds. " Jeremy Tanner. What do you regard as the major factors that lie behind the rise of "world art history," and what factors would you see as driving developing patterns of interest in world art history today and in the next decade or two? What would you see as the relationship between world art history and broader social-cultural transformations such as "globalization"? Jaś Elsner. When I began in the game of art history (my first junior job was at the Courtauld Institute in 1991), the subject, as taught in Europe and America, was largely about Western art. In many ways it was a cultural apologetics for European culture and education, presented as the canonical selection of the noblest masterpieces in the visual field, with after the 1980s an edge of cultural critique (sexuality politics, ideological analysis, deconstruction, postcolonialism) among the young, that could be vicious and polarizing in relation to the older generation. This has changed. The impact of globalization on the discipline-not only a vastly more interconnected world as well as the rise of the Far East (China, Japan, Korea), the Indian subcontinent and Latin America as major economic forces, but also the political pressures of crisis in central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe and the Balkans-has gone hand in hand with the rise of world art history, especially in the United States. What this means institutionally is not a unified field or a single discipline, but the pressure of educated ethnic groups in the US demanding and receiving a voice for the arts of their ancestral cultures within the university system-Chinese, Indian, Afro-American, African, Meso-American, Iranian, Jewish and so forth. This has led to a wholesale reinvention of the discipline in the country of its strongest professional presence and its largest body of teachers, researchers and students. Instead of having an expert in every century of European and North American art, the numbers in these traditional fields went down and posts went instead to the variety of areas of world art (meaning essentially non-European). The old "art history survey"-a venerable form of lecture series that focused chronologically almost entirely on Western art-was scrapped in favor of all kinds of methodological, historiographic, theoretical and multicultural experiments.

This volume examines human sexuality as an intrinsic element in the interpretation of complex col... more This volume examines human sexuality as an intrinsic element in the interpretation of complex colonial societies. While archaeological studies of the historic past have explored the dynamics of European colonialism, such work has largely ignored broader issues of sexuality, embodiment, commemoration, reproduction, and sensuality. Recently, however, scholars have begun to recognize these issues as essential components of colonization and imperialism. This book explores a variety of case studies, revealing the multifaceted intersections of colonialism and sexuality. Incorporating work that ranges from Phoenician diasporic communities of the eighth century to Britain's nineteenth-century Australian penal colonies to the contemporary maroon community of Brazil, this volume changes the way we understand the relationship between sexuality and colonial history

Join the Smithsonian Latino Center and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) for a sy... more Join the Smithsonian Latino Center and the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) for a symposium to celebrate the current landmark exhibition Cerámica de los Ancestros: Central America's Past Revealed. This program features leading voices in the interpretation and recovery of the region's rich indigenous heritage. A book signing of the new Smithsonian publication, Revealing Ancestral Central America, edited by Rosemary A. Joyce, follows the symposium. The symposium, exhibition, and book have their genesis in the Central American Ceramics Research Project, an initiative launched when visiting researchers from the Smithsonian Latino Center realized that the NMAI was quietly caring for one of the largest and most significant collections of Central American archaeology in existence, with approximately 17,000 objects from the region. Astonishingly, this includes more than 10,000 intact vessels, embodying countless untold stories. From figurines depicting powerful women in the Greater Nicoya region to finely decorated vessels of wealthy farming hamlets of the Ulúa Valley and the fantastical designs on Coclé, we can see that the peoples of pre-Hispanic Central America developed uniquely local identities and cultural traditions while also engaging in vital exchanges of ideas, goods, and technologies with their neighbors in all directions.

Our focus is on the relational coproduction of the colonial order, which is a long-term historica... more Our focus is on the relational coproduction of the colonial order, which is a long-term historical process. For us, there was no singular Indian or Spanish experience, but rather a fracturing and multiplying of positions that could be occupied by the entire spectrum of actors. Reducing the scope of agency in this ongoing history to domination and resistance places a higher value on certain forms of action than on others, elevating aggressive, violent, oppositional, activities to a more significant position than the repeated actions of everyday life. It is arguable that many of the indigenous societies of the Americas persisted as historically continuous descendant peoples not just, or even primarily, because they actively opposed European colonization, but rather because they shaped the colonial situation into a context for perpetuating their own lives and communities through countless small acts, some even seeming to be acts of compliance.

The Languages of Archaeology

... the exclusion of women is to examine the metaphors we use when we talk about fieldwork.3 Alon... more ... the exclusion of women is to examine the metaphors we use when we talk about fieldwork.3 Along with two research assistants (Meredith Chesson and Erika Evasdottir), I have ... The earliest example is Sir Flinders Petrie (1904), who talks about methods of attacking a large site. ...

Anthropology News, 2003

AN commentaries are designed to explore diverse views of the discipline from an anthropological p... more AN commentaries are designed to explore diverse views of the discipline from an anthropological perspective Commentaries reflect the views of the authors. their publication does not signify endorsement by AN or the AAA Authors are expected to verify all factual information included in the text Manuxnpts should be less than 1,OOO words in length and must be submitted both electronically and in double-spaced hard rnnu D I A L O G U E thropologists studying contempo-new; they have characterized prorary peoples. A logical development fessional anthropology since its would be to abandon this obsolete inception both within as well as arrangement and create depart-sut,fields. Many conternments uniting archaeologists from porary research topics do crosscut the discipline, including materiali-An alternative is to join colleagues ty, the body, landscape, ethnicity,

AJA, 2006

Anyone interested in the visual culture of prehispanic Central America who has the chance to view... more Anyone interested in the visual culture of prehispanic Central America who has the chance to view this exhibition should take the opportunity to do so. Those without such access will find the catalogue an extraordinary document of the objects included, enhanced by the addition of 14 interpretive essays by leading scholars from North America, Europe, Mexico, and Central America. What distinguishes this exhibition most are the extraordinary objects included, many of them with excellent archaeological provenience. These objects are arranged to support an exploration of the origins of "divine kingship," a concept that has long been a staple of Maya studies. The emphasis on origins of kingship leads to a focus on the earliest periods of Maya society, differentiating this exhibition from others emphasizing Late Classic Maya art that have preceded and paved the way for it. The focus on earlier Classic and Late Preclassic Maya society would not have been possible without the extensive archaeological exploration of early sites undertaken in recent

Pre-Columbian Foodways, 2010

... still in progress, with Patrick McGovern of the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology... more ... still in progress, with Patrick McGovern of the Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology, University of ... Forming Mesoamerican Taste: Cacao Consumption in Formative Period Contexts provided by residue analyses to actually know without fear of contradiction that some ...

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2003

Judith Butler's proposal that embodiment is a process of repeated citation of precedents lead... more Judith Butler's proposal that embodiment is a process of repeated citation of precedents leads us to consider the experiential effects of Mesoamerican practices of ornamenting space with images of the human body. At Late Classic Maya Copáan, life-size human sculptures were attached to residences, intimate settings in which body knowledge was produced and body practices institutionalized. Moving through the space of these house compounds, persons would have been insistently presented with measures of their bodily decorum. These insights are used to consider the possible effects on people of movement around Formative period Olmec human sculptures, which are not routinely recovered in such well-defined contexts as those of the much later Maya sites.

Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 2008

A rchaeology is anthropology? A difficulty that arises from parsing this declaration is the polyv... more A rchaeology is anthropology? A difficulty that arises from parsing this declaration is the polyvalencies of both "archaeology" and "anthropology," as well as the multiple possibilities for constructing a relationship among them. Most often this phrase has connoted the meaning of archaeology as a subfiekl or specialty, one part of the multi-subfield discipline of anthropology. A related construal therefore derives more simply from the resulting institutional arrangement: many archaeologists are housed in anthropology departments and hold advanced degrees in anthropology. However, the relationship has also historically been treated as archaeology trying to be something it cannot or should not be, another discipline with different objectives and methods or, if not another discipline entirely, archaeology in a wholly dependent and inferior relationship with anthropology. Finally, there is an ideal of anthropology as a field of study whose practitioners address questions that touch on all aspects of humankind-cultural and biological, social and material, past and presentand thus must incorporate archaeology as an integral component.

Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 2008

Archeology is anthropology...save that the people archeology studies happen to be dead.-Braidwood... more Archeology is anthropology...save that the people archeology studies happen to be dead.-Braidwood (1959:79) I n a famous phrase, Philip Phillips (1955:246-247) stated that "New World archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing." A few years later, Robert Braidwood made a similar characterization for the Old World (see epigraph). That these well-established archaeologists were motivated to make such pronouncements indicates a sense of uncertainty even then of the relationship between archaeology and anthropology. This uncertainty has not abated, and nearly 50 years later the relationship has become more strained. Archaeology in the United States, as in many other countries, is viable outside of anthropology. Academically it is housed in nonanthropology departments, institutes, and interdisciplinary programs at a number of universities. Most professional archaeologists are employed outside the academy where their identity as anthropologists (if it exists) is often muted (see Bender and Smith 2000; Zeder 1997:46). The notion that American departments of anthropology should necessarily include archaeology as a major subfield of the discipline and that all anthropology students should be required to take classes in archaeology (e.g., Strong 1952) is being questioned. Within anthropology departments, formal or informal divisions separating archaeology, biological anthropology, and sociocultural/ linguistic anthropology are becoming more common. Now, however, there are increasingly strident calls for archaeology to be recognized as a discrete intellectual discipline in autonomous academic departments, leaving many archaeology professionals and students pondering the future of their identity as anthropologists and the enormous changes in the discipline that this move would portend. While there have been previous attempts by a few archaeologists to organize separate departments of archaeology, some of them quite successful (notably at Boston University and Calgary University; Ferrie 2001; Wiseman 1980, 1983), recent events have brought this issue greater attention and garnered more broad-based support for separation. They have also provoked equally passionate arguments from the other side. Most visible among the recent proposals for an autonomous archaeology was the forum "Archaeology Is Archaeology" organized by T.

Ancient Mesoamerica, 1998

The study of deity images in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artworks and pictographic texts has been ... more The study of deity images in pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artworks and pictographic texts has been dominated by a concern to classify them for identification of the individual gods. The usual approach has been taxonomic classification, emphasizing the attributes consistently shared by various images to distinguish them as members of a single class (i.e., a single deity). However, identifying criteria are shared by more than one deity class, and the desired consistency in a set of traits for class membership has never been realized, such that scholars still disagree as to the proper identification of these images. This study takes a different approach, by examining the relationships among gods manifested in both imagery and text. It focuses on the Maya God L, who shares some identifying features with God M and also shares certain contexts with the God Bolon Yokte. These associations reflect their spatiotemporal alignments, with God L representing the stability of the primordial cosmic ...

Ancient Mesoamerica, 2010

Practices and features that many researchers have identified as “Olmec,” even when found outside ... more Practices and features that many researchers have identified as “Olmec,” even when found outside of the Gulf Coast of Mexico, supposed by some to be the heartland of an Olmec culture, are often a minority within local assemblages with vast differences in style and form. This is the case in Honduras, where objects identified as “Olmec” were clearly locally made. Thus they cannot be explained simply in terms of the import to Honduras of “Olmec” objects made elsewhere. This paper seeks to address the question, “what did it mean to the inhabitants of Formative period Mesoamerican villages to make and use objects whose stylistic features made them stand out as different from others in their own communities?” Drawing on data from original fieldwork at multiple sites in Honduras and reanalysis of museum collections, this paper proposes a model for understanding this phenomenon rooted in social theories of materiality, the phenomenological experience of personhood, and the creation of ident...

American Anthropologist, 2007

Research at the site of Puerto Escondido in northern Honduras produced evidence of foodways in on... more Research at the site of Puerto Escondido in northern Honduras produced evidence of foodways in one of the earliest known villages in Central America. Much of the material recovered is related directly or indirectly to the production, preparation, and consumption of food. In everyday practice, the organization of food consumption in villages like this would have been central to the reproduction of social relations. In other early villages in Central America, the use of food for political ends has been given a causal role in the development of social stratification. Drawing on evidence for one particular food practice, the preparation and consumption of fermented and unfermented cacao beverages, we argue that it is through the elaboration of cuisine-regimes of taste and presentation-that food production, serving, and consumption played both of these roles.

Figurines from northern Honduras dating from 1000 BC to 200 AD represent garments whose details s... more Figurines from northern Honduras dating from 1000 BC to 200 AD represent garments whose details strongly suggest they were woven, twined, or braided textiles. This paper presents results of a detailed study of these microscale icons of garments, based on documentation of four major curated collections in the US and Honduras. Drawing on theorists who have discussed how cloth often serves as a medium to negotiate social relations and thus as an index of social "ties that bind", I explore the active role played by the now irrecoverable textiles of Formative Honduras and their manufacture in early villages and towns.

Two seasons of fieldwork at the fort and town of San Fernando de Omoa, provide the basis for anal... more Two seasons of fieldwork at the fort and town of San Fernando de Omoa, provide the basis for analyzing relationships between material, discursive, and spatial practices and emerging identities in colonial and republican Honduras. The indigenous town of Omoa was abandoned in the sixteenth century. By 1750 the Spanish colony initiated construction of a fort to defend against British invasion. The initial construction force included enslaved Africans and indigenous people from nearby and distant towns. As the town grew around the fort, free Blacks who had fled slavery, a Honduran Spanish community of majority mixed-race descent, and colonial Spanish officials, and indigenous laborers from the closest pueblos de indios shaped new identities through their use of space, discursive practices represented in archival documents, and material practices of production and consumption. Consumption practices drew differentially on licit trade with Guatemala and Mexico, and contraband with British and French Caribbean sources.

In this course we will explore the history of anthropological thought from the late nineteenth ce... more In this course we will explore the history of anthropological thought from the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth-century, incorporating discussion of the major branches of anthropology (sociocultural, linguistic, biological, and archaeological anthropology). We will examine how major issues and debates play out in different branches of the field over this time span, and consider how developments in anthropology might be related to other historical and academic developments.

As bodies are revealed, so are hidden and often incommensurate understandings of the body after d... more As bodies are revealed, so are hidden and often incommensurate understandings of the body after death. The theme of "disturbing bodies" has a double valence, evoking both the work that anthropologists do and also the ways in which the dead can, in turn, disturb the living through their material qualities, through dreams and other forms of presence, and through the political claims often articulated around them. These may include national or ethnic narratives that lay claims to bodies, personal memories and histories maintained by relatives, or the constitution of the corpse through performative acts of exhumation, display, and analysis. At the center of this work are forensic anthropologists. Although often considered narrowly in terms of its technical and methodological aspects, forensic practice draws upon multiple dimensions of anthropology, and this volume offers a range of anthropological perspectives on the work of exhumation and the attendant issues.