Prehispanic and Colonial Chontal Communities on the Eastern Oaxaca Coast on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest (original) (raw)
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Zborover_2014_Dissertation_Decolonizing_Historical_Archaeology_in_Southern_Oaxaca_Mexico
The cultural area roughly corresponding to the modern state of Oaxaca, Mexico, was a dynamic cultural arena which saw the rise and development of multiple complex societies and their respective historiographic traditions. This dissertation focuses on the development and application of integrative approaches to the archaeological, documentary, and oral records from the Chontal highlands in southern Oaxaca, with a particular emphasis on the Chontal community of Santa María Zapotitlán. Following a critique and reconfiguration of the methodological and theoretical tenets of 'historical archaeology', I propose to acknowledge and incorporate Mesoamerican indigenous literate societies within a more inclusive paradigm. Based on data collected in the 'Chontalpa Historical Archaeology Project', I draw my data from a rich documentary corpus of indigenous 'territorialnarratives', archaeological surveys and excavations, visual and archaeometric analysis of artifacts, ethnoarchaeology, and a systematic collection of oral traditions. By subjecting these epistemically independent sources to corroborative, complementary, and contrastive modes of inquiry, I explore low-level spatial and temporal correlates followed by high-level correlates of interregional interaction, colonialism, factionalism, and resistance. These integrative correlates are examined through five diachronic case-studies: 1) Monte Albán's imperialism in the Formative period and interregional interactions in the Classic period; 2) Mixtec, Zapotec, and Pochutec conquests and domination of the Chontalpa in the Early-Late Postclassic; 3) The Aztec incursion and multipolity/inter-ethnic factionalism in the Late-Terminal Postclassic; 4) Chontal and Spanish interregional competition, colonialism, and resistance in the Colonial Period; and 5) The Chontal historical image, from the Colonial through the Modern Period.
Zborover_Kroefges_2015_Bridging the Gaps: Integrating Archaeology and History in Oaxaca, Mexico
Bridging the Gaps: Integrating Archaeology and History in Oaxaca, Mexico does just that: it bridges the gap between archaeology and history of the Precolumbian, Colonial, and Republican eras of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, a cultural area encompassing several of the longest-enduring literate societies in the world. Fourteen case studies from an interdisciplinary group of archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnohistorians, and art historians consciously compare and contrast changes and continuities in material culture before and after the Spanish conquest, in Prehispanic and Colonial documents, and in oral traditions rooted in the present but reflecting upon the deep past. Contributors consider both indigenous and European perspectives while exposing and addressing the difficulties that arise from the application of this conjunctive approach. Inspired by the late Dr. Bruce E. Byland’s work in the Mixteca, which exemplified the union of archaeological and historical evidence and inspired new generations of scholars, Bridging the Gaps promotes the practice of integrative studies to explore the complex intersections between social organization and political alliances, religion and sacred landscape, ethnic identity and mobility, colonialism and resistance, and territoriality and economic resources. Contributors: Bruce E. Byland, Bas van Doesburg, Viola König, Peter Kroefges, Michael Lind, Carlos Rincón Mautner, Geoffrey G. McCafferty, Sharisse D. McCafferty, Liana I. Jiménez Osorio, John M. D. Pohl, Emmanuel Posselt Santoyo, Adam Sellen, Ronald Spores, Stephen L. Whittington, Andrew Workinger, Danny Zborover, Judith F. Zeitlin
2015
A major problem has been to bridge the gap between the peoples who are identified by Spanish and Indian documentary records and those who are known to us only through the ruins of their buildings and the broken elements of their material culture which have survived.-Vaillant 1937:324 The would-be correlator faces the problem of a genuine "gap" between the emphasis in the native traditions on political and dynastic history and the sequent modifications in artifact form which are the chief concern of the excavator. .. The problem is to bridge this gap, to tie the two kinds of history together at key points, to integrate the two sets of data in a meaningful synthesis.-Nicholson 1955:596 Los avances que se han hecho y los que están por hacerse, descansan en la confluencia conciente y coordinadora de dos disciplinas. .. esta recreación del acercamiento antropológico unificado, que llena la brecha entre disciplinas, es la ola del futuro. En la medida en que nuestras tareas estén coordinadas, en esa medida podremos aprender.-Byland and Pohl 1990:385-386 sCoPe and definitions
Hidden Transcripts, Contested Landscapes, and Long-Term Indigenous History in Oaxaca, Mexico
In, Decolonizing Indigenous Histories: Exploring Prehistoric/ Colonial Transitions in Archaeology, edited by Maxine Oland, Siobhan M. Hart, and Liam Frink, pp. 230-263. University of Arizona Press, Tucson., 2012
The Postclassic Period in the Valley of Oaxaca: The Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Records
2008
The correlation of archaeological and ethnohistorical information should be one of the key methods in the determination of historical processes and events in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Postclassic period. The mere existence of alphabetical and pictorial historical documentation in a region that has received extensive archaeological investigations over the last half a century creates possibilities that scholars in many other Mesoamerican regions envy. It is consequently disturbing and disappointing that historians and archaeologists alike have not taken full advantage of this opportunity. There are two principal reasons for this failure. On the one hand, ethnohistorical studies using pictorials and documents written in Tíchazàa, or the Zapotec language, have only recently begun and the results are still undergoing considerable changes when new material is found or studied. On the other hand, the chronology of the Postclassic period has largely been ignored by archaeologists, leaving an unacceptably long period without any significant subdivisions and making it almost useless for the correlation with short-period historical processes (Chapters 1 and 2). An additional problem is that the archaeological and ethnohistorical discourses are handicapped by the existence of opposing "camps" of scholars, making the exchange of ideas and a constructive discussion virtually impossible.
The Convergence of History and Archaeology in Mesoamerica
Bridging the Gaps: Integrating Archaeology and History in Oaxaca, Mexico; A Volume in Memory of Bruce E. Byland, 2015
A major problem has been to bridge the gap between the peoples who are identified by Spanish and Indian documentary records and those who are known to us only through the ruins of their buildings and the broken elements of their material culture which have survived.-Vaillant 1937:324 The would-be correlator faces the problem of a genuine "gap" between the emphasis in the native traditions on political and dynastic history and the sequent modifications in artifact form which are the chief concern of the excavator. .. The problem is to bridge this gap, to tie the two kinds of history together at key points, to integrate the two sets of data in a meaningful synthesis.-Nicholson 1955:596 Los avances que se han hecho y los que están por hacerse, descansan en la confluencia conciente y coordinadora de dos disciplinas. .. esta recreación del acercamiento antropológico unificado, que llena la brecha entre disciplinas, es la ola del futuro. En la medida en que nuestras tareas estén coordinadas, en esa medida podremos aprender.-Byland and Pohl 1990:385-386 sCoPe and definitions