M.A.R.I. Lunch Talks

M.A.R.I. Lunch Talks invite guest speakers to host seminars at MARI on a wide variety of topics related to the archaeology, history, and ethnography of Mesoamerica and other world areas. The events typically take place on Fridays around noon and can be delivered in English and Spanish. Attendants are encouraged to bring lunch!

Academic Year 2022-2023

The Role of Women in the Conquest of Mexico

Pilar Regueiro Suárez
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
September 8, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

U.W. 105 Hominin Limb Skeletal Material: Application of Traditional and Digital Morphological Methods in Species Identification

Lukas Friedl
Department of Anthropology, University of West Bohemia
April 28, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

The Place of Sajal Title-holders in the Classic Maya Regime

Marc Zender & Mary Kate Kelly
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
April 14, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Death that Endures: A Bioarchaeological and Biochemical Study of Human Sacrifices from the Moche Valley, Peru

Rachel Witt
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
April 14, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Authorship and Practice in Guatemalan Archaeology through an Intersectional Lens

Jocelyne Ponce
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
April 14, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Reverse Engineering Intensive Agriculture in the Bolivian Amazon

John H. Walker
Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida
February 10, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Dating Wooden Buildings to Reconstruct the Ancient Maya Salt Industry

Heather McKillop
Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University
February 3, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Making Great Coffee: Third Wave Tastemakers, Maya Farmers, and the Creation of Value

Edward F. Fischer
Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
January 27, 2023
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

On Storytelling: How to Communicate History and Archaeology to the Public

Patrick Wyman
History Podcaster and Writer, Ph.D. University of Southern California
November 4, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

De Landa and Decipherment: Revisiting the 16th-century Relación Manuscript

Marc Zender
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
October 21, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Reshaping the Bajo Laberinto

Kathryn Reese-Taylor
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary
October 14, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Fine Threads: Reading Women’s Voices in Contemporary Mayan Literatures

Hannah Palmer
Stone Center for Latin American Studies, Tulane University
September 30, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Working on an Old Excavation and Its Fragmented Records: The Case of the House of the Frescoes at Knossos

Emilia Oddo
Department of Classical Studies, Tulane University
September 22, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

No Hieroglyphic Stairway but Some Great Archaeology: Recent Fieldwork on the North Coast of Peru

John Verano
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University
September 9, 2022
12:30 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Academic Year 2021-2022

A (Proposed) Residue Analysis of Blanco Levantado. A New World Amphora; Evidence for Its Use to Collect and Distribute Miel de Maguey in the Tula Region (AD 900-1150)

Dan Healan
Tulane University
April 29, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Early Monumentality in the Puuc Region, Yucatan

Melissa Galván-Bernal
Tulane University
April 29, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Reappraising the Chronology of the Initial Period in the Central Andes

Jason Nesbitt
Tulane University
April 29, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Shifting Practices and Institutions of Governance in Formative Central Mexico

Tatsuya Murakami & Alexander Jurado
Tulane University
April 15, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Diversity and Complexity across Settlement Densities at the Classic Maya Center of La Corona

Jocelyne Ponce & Marcello Canuto
Tulane University
April 15, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Reconstructing Ancient Diet: Stable Isotope Values from La Corona and El Peru-Waka

Erin Patterson
Tulane University
April 15, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Vaulting Technique in Ancient Maya Architecture

Laura Gilabert Sansalvador
Universitat Politècnica de València
March 25, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Preclassic Maya Communities in Yaxnocah and Aguada Fénix, Mexico (1000 BCE-200 CE)

Verónica Amellali Vázquez López
Doris Stone Post-Doctoral Fellow in Latin American Studies
March 18, 2022
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Academic Year 2019-2020

You Better Belize It: Missing Mayas, Misunderstood Maroons, a Made-Up Battle, and Other Myths & Mysteries of the Land of Make Belize

Matthew Restall
Director of Latin American Studies, Penn State
February 14, 2020
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Maya Blue and the Reception of Triune Theology in Sixteenth-Century Yucatan

Amara Solari
Penn State
February 7, 2020
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

"From Dusk Till Dawn," and Much More Mesoamerica in Movies and on Film Festivals

Viola König
Lateinamerika Institut, Freie Universität Berlin
January 31, 2020
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Remote Sensing for a Better Future

Žiga Kokalj
Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
December 6, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Automatic Orthorectification and True Orthoimage Generation from VHR

Aleš Marsetič
Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
December 6, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Chosen For Death: Preliminary Results from a Study of Human Sacrifices from the Moche Valley, Peru

Rachel Witt
Tulane Anthropology
November 15, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


The Encounter of Two Mesoamerican Cultures During the Early Classic Period (250-550 A.D.)

Edwin Román-Ramírez
Proyecto Arqueológico del Sur de Tikal
November 1, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


A Study of Word Associations in Kaqchikel

Rebecca Moore
Linguistics, Tulane University
October 25, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


The Latest Finds from Joara, Cuenca, and Fort San Juan

Chris Rodning
Anthropology, Tulane University
October 4, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


La bóveda en la arquitectura maya

Laura Gilabert Sansalvador
Instituto Universitario de Restauración del Patrimonio at the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
September 27, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


Técnicas de documentación para la investigación del patrimonio arquitectónico maya

Riccardo Montuori
Polytechnic University of Valencia
September 6, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Academic Year 2018-2019

Floors, Platforms, Earth Offerings? Excavations in the Actuncan E-Group Plaza

Borislava Simova
Anthropology, Tulane University
April 26, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


A Macroregional Perspective on Early Urbanism in Formative Central Mexico: A View from Tlalancaleca, Puebla

Dr. Tatsuya Murakami
Anthropology, Tulane University
April 5, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


Why Provenance Research Matters

Viola Königl
Freie Universität Berlin
March 29, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


The Sacred Cavity of the World: Cultural Survival in the Age of Extreme Mining

Dr. Shefa Siegel
Pearson College of the Pacific
March 22, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


Feast or No Feast? A Comparative Analysis of Maya Ceramic Assemblages

Caroline A. Parris
Anthropology, Tulane University
March 15, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


Gleaning the Most Information from Old Excavations: The Case of Regourdou

Trenton Holliday
Anthropology, Tulane University
February 8, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


How to Avoid Gerrymandering the Past: Characterizing Settlement Density and Boundaries in Landscape-Scale Data

Luke Auld-Thomas
Anthropology, Tulane University
February 1, 2019
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


Ancient Lowland Maya Complexity as Revealed by Airborne Laser Scanning of Northern Guatemala

Marcello A. Canuto, Francisco Estra-Belli, and Luke Auld-Thomas
Anthropology, Tulane University
October 5, 2018
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


The Tzimin Jades of Paso del Macho: Description and Analysis of a Middle Preclassic Maya Plaza Offering

Evan Parker, PhD Candidate
Anthropology, Tulane University
September 21, 2018
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute

Academic Year 2017-2018

Entangled Cultural Politics: Museum Artifacts, Heritage Regimes, and Narratives of National Identity in Honduras

Cordelia Frewen
Doctoral Candidate, University of British Columbia
May 4, 2018
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


Cochasqui, Ecuador: Recent Research & Future Directions

Ryan Hechler
Anthropology Doctoral Student, Tulane University
April 27, 2018
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


The Late Intermediate Period and the Late Horizon on the South Coast of Peru: a view from Tambo Colorado

Cléa Moulin
Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia
April 20, 2018
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute


Interpreting the Integrative Strategies of the Classic Period Copan Polity on its Southern Frontier in Western Honduras

Erlend Johnson
Anthropology, Tulane University
April 6, 2018
12:00 P.M.
305 Dinwiddie Hall, Middle American Research Institute