The goal of this symposium is to showcase some of the most recent research in the Maya region that helps us examine and understand an array of topics surrounding the political decline of the Maya Civilization. New texts, new analytical techniques, and new discoveries discussed in these presentations will help us appreciate how complex the cultural processes and environmental events in the Maya Lowlands that culminated in what has often been seen as a political collapse was.
Since 2002, Tulane University has hosted a weekend of talks and workshops dedicated to the study of the Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America. This yearly meeting has called upon scholars from a wide spectrum of specialties -- archaeology, art history, cultural anthropology, epigraphy, history, and linguistics -- to elucidate the many facets of this fascinating Mesoamerican culture. In developing a broad approach to the subject matter, we aim to draw the interest of a wide ranging audience -- from the expert to the beginner.
To that end, we have assembled a wonderful group of scholars in Maya archaeology whose different fields of expertise will allow us to muster as diverse an array of evidence as possible. Given how rare of an accomplishment such a consortium is, please JOIN US!
Speakers
Keynote Address
"Mapping Inequality: Lessons from Central Mexico" -- Barbara E. Mundy, Tulane University
Talk at the Mexican Consulate
"Pursuing Detail: 1930 Tulane's Expedition to Uxmal" -- Laura Gilabert Sansalvador, Universitat Politècnica de València
Symposium
"Preclassic Maya Societies and the Question of Inequality" -- Felix Kupprat, UNAM; Kathryn Reese-Taylor, University of Calgary; Debra Walker, Florida Museum of Natural History
"Political consolidation and Collapse in the Southeastern Maya Lowlands" -- Nicholas Carter, Texas State University
"Inequality of What? Multiple Paths to Good Life" -- Scott Hutson, University of Kentucky
"Quality of Life and Political Change in the Western Maya Lowlands: Classic Period Transitions at Altar de Sacrificios" -- Jessica L. Munson, Lycoming College
"2000 Years of Wealth Inequality in the Maya Lowlands: House Size, Settlement Patterns and Social Organization through Time" -- Amy Thompson, The University of Texas at Austin
"Human Plunder: The Role of Maya Slavery and Inequality in Postclassic and Early Conquest Era Yucatan, 1450-1550" -- John F. Chuchiak IV, Missouri State University
"Inequality and Suppression: Tracing Ritual Demise among the Ch'orti' Maya" -- Kerry Hull, Brigham University
"Otra Justicia: Maya Survivos' Struggle for Justice after the Acteal Massacre’" -- Claudia Chávez Argüelles, Tulane University
Workshops
"Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs" -- Emily Davis-Hale & Rubén Morales Forte, Tulane University
"Reawakening Tunica: A Recently 'Sleeping' Language of Louisiana" -- Judith Maxwell, Tulane University
"A Modeling Land and Water with Lidar-Derived Terrain Models" -- Luke Auld-Thomas, Tulane University
"Assesing Architecture and Inequality through Lidar in the Southern Maya Lowlands" -- Laura Gilabert Sansalvador, Universitat Politècnica de València; Francisco Estrada-Belli, Tulane University
Forum
"Reconsidering Classic Maya Captivity" -- Marc Zender, Tulane University
Lagniappe Talk
"Middle Preclassic Interactions in the Middle Usumacinta Region: A View from Aguada Fénix" -- Veronica Amellali Vázquez López, Middle American Research Institute