Traci Ardren | University of Miami (original) (raw)

Books by Traci Ardren

Papers by Traci Ardren

Sustainability

The Florida Keys are currently experiencing unprecedented loss of lifeways, biodiversity, and cul... more The Florida Keys are currently experiencing unprecedented loss of lifeways, biodiversity, and cultural heritage due to sea-level rise, catastrophic storm events, unsustainable traditions of resource exploitation, and land development. Yet, these islands have a long history of human occupation and socioecological systems underlying their current sustainability crisis that date back at least 2500 years. Here we report early results of ongoing zooarchaeological research from Upper Matecumbe Key designed to explore anthropogenic engagement with vertebrate fauna between AD 800 and 1250, providing an approximately 500-year window on marine fisheries and terrestrial faunal harvesting for this small island archipelago. Focusing on one of the few remaining, nearly intact Native American archaeological sites in the region, our research contributes to critically needed long-term anthropogenic perspectives on harvest patterns relevant to regional biodiversity conservation and sustainability ini...

espanolLos estudios zooarqueologicos en el area maya complementan cada dia nuestro entendimiento ... more espanolLos estudios zooarqueologicos en el area maya complementan cada dia nuestro entendimiento de la conducta humana en relacion con su medio ambiente. El presente estudio explica la manera en que los habitantes preteritos del asentamiento prehispanico de Xuenkal, Yucatan, explotaron los recursos faunisticos durante el Clasico Tardio-Terminal. En este sentido, se analizan los posibles cambios en la dieta de esta poblacion como resultado de un incremento del poder politico y economico de Chichen Itza en la region. Por ultimo, se considera que Xuenkal fungio como un enclave comercial para Chichen y tambien se analiza la posibilidad de un intercambio de animales con otros asentamientos. EnglishZooarchaeological studies in the Maya area constatly complement our knowledge of human behavior as related to the environment. The present study explores the way how the ancient inhabitants of the prehispanic settlement of Xuenkal, Yucatan, exploited faunal resources during the Late and Termina...

The Archaeology of Human-Environmental Dynamics on the North American Atlantic Coast, 2019

The Florida Keys are a small island chain along the Atlantic coast that preserve unique data on h... more The Florida Keys are a small island chain along the Atlantic coast that preserve unique data on human-environmental interactions in prehistory, overlooked in earlier research but now the focus of new investigations. These investigations were spurred in part by the threat of sea level rise and the need to better understand human adaptations to changing ecosystems. This chapter presents a summary of previous research as well as preliminary results of new investigations into human adaptation in the Florida Keys during the pre-Columbian period.

Arqueología Mexicana, 2015

Research at the ancient Maya city of Yaxuna, located in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula, has p... more Research at the ancient Maya city of Yaxuna, located in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula, has provided sufficient data to suggesta preliminary chronological framework for the cultural development of this large polity. Primary ceramic and stratigraphic data arepresented to support a five-phase scheme of cultural history, encompassing the Middle Formative through Postclassic periods (500B.C.-A.D. 1250). In addition to chronological significance, the political ramifications of a pan-lowland ceramic trade are addressed.Yaxuna experienced an early florescence in the Late Formative-Early Classic periods, when it was the largest urban center in thecentral peninsula. A second renaissance in the Terminal Classic period was the result of Yaxuna's role in an alliance between thePuuc and Coba, in opposition to growing Itza militancy. This paper proposes a chronological framework for the culturaldevelopment of one northern Maya region in order to facilitate an understanding of this area as...

Abundance: The Archaeology of Plenitude, 2017

The struggle for working time reduction configures as one of the biggest laborist claims of all l... more The struggle for working time reduction configures as one of the biggest laborist claims of all laborer movement history. The pursuit of working time also enables the reflection about life and self-control towards labor time, which emerge as an important starting point for worker subject relation with their own time comprehension. After a latency period, arise in Brazil movements coming up from several professional categories aiming for workload reduction for thirty hour per week, maximum. One of those professional categories is Psychologists, objects of the present study. Among all exposed issues, reducing working time for conciliate more than one job is one of them. The need for multiple employment bonds is related to precarious conditions and low wages. In light of this, eight interviews with Psychologists about their labor time and fight for thirty-hour work week were arranged. The discourse sociological analysis has been chosen as a method to interpret the collected data, finding a comprehension and representation model for concrete text of their social and history context. Such interpretation highlighted a huge fragmentation in the professional category, which enables the individuation of those Psychologists whom did not take part in working time reduction discussion in a collective way. Besides that, precariousness naturalization and productivity discourse assimilation could be noticed, emerging, foremost, from neoliberal ideology widespread. According such ideology, professional pursuit, through themselves, punctual modifications to ease the precarious conditions. In Psychologists example, they get a second job and fight for labor time reduction. Such struggle seems to contribute to intensify exploration relationships more than to propitiate worker"s emancipation.

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2021

Heritage, 2020

In spring of 2017, celebrity chef René Redzepi opened a pop-up of his famed restaurant, Noma, on ... more In spring of 2017, celebrity chef René Redzepi opened a pop-up of his famed restaurant, Noma, on the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. During its run, Noma Mexico worked closely with the town of Yaxunah, a Yucatec-Mayan speaking community in the peninsula’s interior, hiring women to make tortillas and acquiring local ingredients for the restaurant. For us—two archaeologists interested in past and present Maya food and agriculture who have worked in the Yaxunah community for years—this made the 2017 field season a compelling time to engage in culinary heritage. We share on-the-ground perspectives from our work with Yaxunah community members during a decisive spring for rural Yucatán’s globalizing food system. These perspectives offer a candid contribution to this special issue’s archive of community-based and heritage-engaged archaeological work in the Maya area.

Heritage, 2020

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020

Abstract In this paper we present an analysis of lidar data along Sacbe 1, the longest causeway i... more Abstract In this paper we present an analysis of lidar data along Sacbe 1, the longest causeway in Mesoamerica, connecting the sites of Coba and Yaxuna. In addition to performing an analysis of the density of polygons (utilized as a proxy for structures), we calculate the density of basal area and construction volume of the raised features seen in the data set. The results indicate that Maya sites in this region were fairly discrete and that the causeway was built to incorporate previously existing settlements dating prior to the period 600–700 CE. Further, the causeway was an attractor of settlement in the area of state expansion.

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020

Sustainability

The Archaeology of Human-Environmental Dynamics on the North American Atlantic Coast, 2019

Arqueología Mexicana, 2015

Abundance: The Archaeology of Plenitude, 2017

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2021

Heritage, 2020

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2020

Food and Foodways, 2018

Despite centuries of colonialism, Yucatec Maya women and men retain a rich body of specialized cu... more Despite centuries of colonialism, Yucatec Maya women and men retain a rich body of specialized culinary practices with roots in the pre-Columbian past. Recently this intangible heritage has become the focus of a variety of forms of culinary tourism, some of which are local enterprises that bring much needed cash into small rural communities. This article presents details about how a small group of women in the Yucatec-Maya speaking village of Yaxunah formed a cooperative to prepare "Maya" meals for visitors. They debate the relative authenticity of the dishes they serve as they negotiate the interests of tourists, economic pressures, and competing claims to heritage. Foodways are a powerful means by which local Maya communities construct and maintain a social identity distinct from dominant national discourse and globalized dietary trends. Likewise household gardens provide a site for the contestation of globalizing forces and the preservation of Maya cultural values. By positioning landscape features and cultural knowledge related to the intangible heritage of Maya culinary traditions within the worldwide tourism industry, this small group of indigenous women present a powerful lesson in adaptation to modern global forces.

Ancient Maya Commerce: Multidisciplinary Research at Chunchucmil, 2017

The previous chapter used configurational, contextual, and distributional evidence to demonstrate... more The previous chapter used configurational, contextual, and distributional evidence to demonstrate the presence of a marketplace at Chunchucmil. The even distribution of obsidian presented in that chapter shows that at least a portion of the goods peddled at this market represent long-distance trade. For reasons that we discuss below, the distribution of obsidian on a regional scale (the "spatial approach"; Hirth 1998:454) suggests that Chunchucmil was a gateway site: a key node in the movement of longdistance goods (Hirth 1978). In this chapter, we provide a number of lines of evidence to strengthen the argument that Chunchucmil's marketplace was a center not just for local trade but for long-distance trade as well. In other words, this chapter highlights the macroeconomic scale of commerce at Chunchucmil (see Chase and Chase 2014:246; Feinman and garraty 2010:179). A deep involvement in long-distance trade should manifest itself in three general ways in the archaeological record. First, there should be compelling evidence that the city was positioned on an important long-distance trade route. Second, Chunchucmil should represent a critical juncture or "gateway" along this route. Third, the material culture at the site should show evidence for long-distance contacts. We begin with the first of these expectations. ChunChuCmIl's long-DIsTAnCe TrADe rouTe The most archaeologically visible long-distance good at Chunchucmil is obsidian from the El Chayal source in the guatemalan highlands. Two routes have been

Ancient Maya Commerce: Multidisciplinary Research at Chunchucmil, 2017

The previous chapter established that nearly all of what we mapped at Chunchucmil was occupied at... more The previous chapter established that nearly all of what we mapped at Chunchucmil was occupied at the end of the Early Classic period. This allows us to combine mapping and excavation to discuss the structure of the city at this critical time. As we explain below, settlement in and around Chunchucmil was not homogeneous. We lump this settlement into five zones each with different characteristics: (1) site center, (2) residential core, (3) residential periphery, (4) settlement fingers, and (5) hinterland. This chapter presents the characteristics (size, settlement density, kinds of occupation) of these zones and then supplies a population estimate. One of the most surprising characteristics of the first zone we discuss-the site center-is that it lacks the features of a regal-ritual center. In other words, unlike many other Maya sites, Chunchucmil was not built to host massive ceremonies celebrating the glory of a ruler. Whereas such ceremonies are said to have attracted people to other Maya cities, something else must have drawn people to Chunchucmil. The very high density of structures in the next zone-the residential core, with over 1,000 structures per square kilometer-suggests that quite a lot of people were indeed drawn to Chunchucmil. Settlement in the residential periphery is less than half as dense as settlement in the residential core, but still high compared to many Maya cities (Culbert and Rice 1990:table 1.2). We estimate Chunchucmil's population after completing two tasks. First, we need to get a better handle on the functions of the structures in these zones. We cannot assume that every building was a house (Haviland 1966). Therefore, in addition to discussing each zone

Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies: Archaeological Perspectives on Female and Male Work, 2016

Ancient Maya Commerce: Multidisciplinary Research at Chunchucmil, 2017

Despite well documented biases inherent in Spanish Colonial depictions, Bishop Diego de Landa’s R... more Despite well documented biases inherent in Spanish Colonial depictions, Bishop Diego de Landa’s Relacion has been read by generations of Mayanists as a relatively unproblematic ethnographic description of sixteenth century Yucatec Maya life. While filled with tantalizing details of daily practice from Landa’s memory and first hand observations, the portrayal of women and children in the Relacion is particularly deceptive. Landa’s work is better understood as Colonial era fantasy, a highly selective reconstruction of those elements of Yucatec Maya life burned into the friar’s memory. In his writing about Maya women and children, Landa’s anxieties and desires are fully exposed and these depictions reveal as much about Landa’s values as they do those of the Maya.
The Relacion was written late in Landa’s life when he had returned to Spain to defend himself against accusations of excessive force in the Christianization of Yucatan. The middle aged friar, like most Spanish ecclesiasticals, had little personal experience with women or children. In both Spain and indigenous Maya society, the daily activities of most women and men were largely segregated along gendered lines that would have allowed Landa very little access to the world of Yucatec women. The Maya domestic world where children, gardening and craft activities took place was a private space, administered by matriarchs and inhospitable to un-related men, much less foreign men. Franciscan attitudes toward women, who were seen as childlike and in need of governance under idealized codes of conduct, did not provide a suitable context for Landa to understand the complementarity of Maya gender roles, nor the power exercised by many Maya women.
When women appear in the Relacion, most frequently it is in the context of Landa’s anxiety over the spiritual authority of certain Maya women and their lack of adherence to Spanish codes of female behavior. Frank expressions of physical desire lurk behind his descriptions of the behavior of young Maya women and his condemnations of their licentiousness. The grossest misunderstanding may be Landa’s disgust and obsession with the participation of Maya women in the religious and ceremonial life of the villages, where women continued to perform long-standing ritual roles in more active and profound ways than allowed within strict Christian practice of the time. Landa looks more fondly upon the children of Colonial Maya society, who he describes as healthy and well loved, although he was utterly unable to explain the persistence of child sacrifice despite recording the Maya rationale in his writings.
The depiction of Maya women and children we read today in the Relacion is not purely imaginary but it is the product of Landa’s imagination, memory, and anxiety over his failed conversion of the Maya. Women and children were farthest from his reach and their lives proceeded with less impact from the Colonial enterprise than any others. For these reasons and others to be explored in this paper, the Relacion reveals Landa’s desires for power and control of an imagined Colonial Maya resistant to his message of salvation. In his hostile longing for dangerous Maya women we see the clearest expression of a fictionalized and selective memory at work.