Amy Hirshman | West Virginia University (original) (raw)

Papers by Amy Hirshman

Innovative Approaches and Explorations in Ceramic Studies

Cultural Dynamics and Production Activities in Ancient Western Mexico

Latin American Antiquity

A core region is the first place for expected shifts in archaeological materials before, during, ... more A core region is the first place for expected shifts in archaeological materials before, during, and after political changes like state emergence and imperial consolidation. Yet, studies of ceramic production have shown that there are sometimes limited or more subtle changes in the ceramic economy throughout such political fluctuations. This article synthesizes recent efforts to address political economic changes via geochemical characterization (neutron activation analysis; NAA) in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin in western Mexico. This region was home to the Purépecha state and then empire (Tarascan; ca. AD 1350–1530), one of the most powerful kingdoms in the Americas before European arrival. The combined ceramic dataset from four sites in the region result in eight geochemical groups. Our analysis indicates that the region experienced long-term and relatively stable ceramic production that was not substantially altered by the emergence of the state and empire. In addition, we find evide...

ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Anthropology, 2003. Includes biblio... more ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Anthropology, 2003. Includes bibliographical references.

Ceramics of Ancient America, 2018

Theories regarding craft specialization and state emergence have long posited a relationship betw... more Theories regarding craft specialization and state emergence have long posited a relationship between the two, with state intervention expected in the production of elite culture. The Late Postclassic West Mexican Tarascan state (AD 1350–1525) seemed to be a perfect case in point, as fine wares are highly identifiable and provide a strong temporal marker for the emergence and duration of the state. Yet ethnographic data from the descendants of the Tarascan state (called the P’urépecha), along with archaeological and chemical evidence for the region indicates that ceramic production did not undergo a significant reorganization with state emergence and that even Tarascan fine wares were apparently made and used within commoner households. As household ceramic production is commonly characterized as technically and stylistically conservative, the “how” and “why” of the production of new ceramic Tarascan state markers indicates that the relationships between households and the state were...

Crossing Borders, Making Connections, 2021

West Virginia History: A Journal of Regional Studies, 2017

of York County, Pennsylvania, during the campaign, a history of how the US Army has interacted wi... more of York County, Pennsylvania, during the campaign, a history of how the US Army has interacted with the battlefield, and a guest blog featured on the popu lar Civil War Memory website attest to the range of topics Snell has tackled.1 Each article is, in its own way, a kind of gem. Of par tic u lar note is Snell’s examination of the herculean efforts of the logisticians in the Army of the Potomac during the Gettysburg Campaign. The depth of his research here is emblematic of the rest of his work. In chronicling the enormous challenges faced by the quartermaster, subsistence, and ordinance departments of the Union Army, he has delved into source material the likes of which are not normally mined in a typical campaign study. The conclusions drawn shed new insight into not only the manner in which the campaign was conducted, but also the tactical decisions made by the Union high command during the battle itself. The true strength of My Gettysburg is in the totality of the work. It is, in a certain way, a kind of deeply personal love letter, an ode to a lifelong obsession. Snell’s work reminds us that our understanding of Amer i ca’s epic battle is, like the battlefield itself, constantly evolving, and that Snell’s own career, as highlighted by the work contained herein, can be seen as a kind of signpost along the way. Students of military history, legions of Civil War enthusiasts and battlefield buffs, and future military personal and staffride attendees will find essays that challenge and illuminate impor tant aspects of the battle. Students of human nature and of memory will discover unique insights into why Americans continue to be fascinated by Gettysburg and the many ways in which Americans have engaged with this defining chapter of history.

Latin American Antiquity, 2017

and political transitions. In comparing Mesoamerican practices with hunting among other Native Am... more and political transitions. In comparing Mesoamerican practices with hunting among other Native American groups, particularly groups in the Amazon, he indicates that through the hunt, hunters take on the identity of their prey. On the one hand, this transforms the hunters into virile beings and makes the group more powerful, while on the other hand their quarry becomes in some sense the hunter’s substitute at the climax of the hunt, when the animal’s life ends. At the same time this reminds them that substitutions are temporary, and that one day the hunter will also be sacrificed. More generally (and again, if I understand him correctly), hunting is a paradigmatic process whereby new kinds of people, that is, new kinds of identities, are created. It thus gets deployed to frame and understand transitions across a variety of contexts, from pregnancy and childbirth to puberty and entry to high office. Hunting is also a process that is fundamentally reflexive. While it is generally true that our sense of who and what we are is created and sustained through interactions with others, this interaction, as Irving Hallowell pointed out long ago, is mediated by particular languages, values, beliefs, and symbols. Olivier shows that in Mesoamerica, discourse, values, beliefs, and symbols related to hunting are fundamental to the interactions that create warriors, mothers, productive adults, and other essential identities. He makes this very clear when he returns to the question with which he began, arguing that Mexica rulers define themselves through the mirror of Mexica enemies. These enemies are a source of sacrificial victims, are associated with prey—captured with the same techniques used to take deer in the hunt—and become, like deer, intimately associated with their captors who, upon sacrificing them, take on new identities but know that someday they may well be victims too.

General Anthropology, 2015

At the time of European contact, western Mesoamerica was politically dominated by the Tarascan Em... more At the time of European contact, western Mesoamerica was politically dominated by the Tarascan Empire. The emergence of this empire appears to have taken place during the Postclassic period (A.D. 900-1520) among populations of the central highlands of Michoacan in West Mexico. By A.D. 1300 previously autonomous communities were politically unified into a state, which expanded into an empire after 1350, and the Lake Patzcuaro Basin was transformed into its geopolitical core (Figure 1). In 1990 a pilot project of excavation was carried out at one of these centers, Urichu, de-signed to test the model of state formation derived from the ethnohistoric Relation de Michoacan (1541). The excavations at Urichu were expanded in 1994-1995, and in 1995-1996 the study was expanded into an intensive analysis of the pre-state Urichu polity and two adjacent, contemporary polities of Xaracuaro and Pareo by means of a 100 percent surface survey (Figures 2 and 3) of the territories (143 sq km) held by...

Ethnoarchaeology, 2013

ABSTRACT The transportation of pots to market in the Prehispanic Tarascan State was not merely tr... more ABSTRACT The transportation of pots to market in the Prehispanic Tarascan State was not merely transference of these goods, but part of the logistics of marketing, an act embedded within a local cultural context and comprised of physical and cultural limits upon the participants. This paper addresses two concerns and draws heavily upon geographic information systems and the ethnohistoric and ethnographic record from the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, in Michoacán, Mexico and the highlands of Western Mexico. First, we model the practicality of household potters controlling the transportation of their products within the Tarascan market system. To construct this model we address issues of transport technology, the topography of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, and information regarding the cultural and political rules governing transportation access within the Late Postclassic Lake Pátzcuaro Basin. Second, we consider the relative stability of the household organization of ceramic production during the emergence of the Tarascan state in light of the significant recent changes in the Basin’s transport technology and networks. We conclude that, despite changes associated with state emergence, basic walking and water transportation networks did not significantly change, and household potters within the Tarascan state retained control over both the transportation of their ceramics and their distribution within the marketplace.

Journal of Archaeological Science, 2012

This study presents compositional data from ceramics drawn from surface survey and controlled exc... more This study presents compositional data from ceramics drawn from surface survey and controlled excavations from three prehispanic sites within the relatively small Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, representing a ceramic sequence stretching nearly 1500 years, from the Preclassic to Late Postclassic Tarascan state (ca. 50 B.C.e1525 A.D.). Using neutron activation analysis, we identify compositional groups and model the importance of volcanic materials as temper in the construction of prehispanic ceramics by matching mathematical simulations of clayeash mixes to the compositional groups. Rather than discreet clay resources and spatially circumscribed production, we argue for a broadly dispersed and highly varied organization of pre-Tarascan and Tarascan state ceramic production in which the potters' distribution and use of specific volcanic ashy additives, not clays, structured the organization of production.

North American Archaeologist, 2020

The archaeology of the eastern West Virginia uplands remains significantly understudied compared ... more The archaeology of the eastern West Virginia uplands remains significantly understudied compared to other areas of the Appalachian Plateau. Bettye Broyles’ excavations at the Hyre Mound site (46RD1) in 1963 recovered a variety of artifacts within and directly adjacent to a burial mound but the excavations remain largely unpublished. We provide a report of Broyles’ excavations, new radiocarbon dates, and an analysis of the lithic raw material frequencies at the site. Material culture and ceremonial practices suggest the initial mound construction dates to the Middle Woodland period. Radiocarbon dating of cultural features confirms that people also used the locality during the Late Woodland period. Lithic raw material frequencies indicate a preference for non-local, Hillsdale chert found ∼100 km from the site throughout both time periods. The directionality of toolstone conveyance supports existing models that emphasize the quality and location of raw material sources and the orientat...

Memorias del Primer Coloquio de Tecnología Cerámica

Cultural Dynamics and Production Activities in Ancient Western Mexico, 2015

Journal of Archaeological Sciences, 2012