Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This double symposium brings together a select group of archaeologists, ethnohistorians, museum professionals, and social justice advocates who have either collaborated with John M. D. Pohl directly or took inspiration from his remarkable half-century career. A trailblazer in the study of Mixtec, Nahua, and Zapotec civilizations of southern Mexico, Dr. Pohl is equally noted for bringing the ancient Indigenous past of the Americas to life through his numerous publications, collaborative field research, codical studies, blockbuster exhibitions, film and media production, dazzling artwork, and not least his inspired teaching at various universities across the United States. The panels are organized around two fundamental areas that reflect John Pohl’s interdisciplinary endeavors, the first in scholarship and the second in media and advocacy. The speakers are both current and former students together with emerging and senior scholars who are currently engaged in innovative research ranging from investigations into the Classic, Postclassic, and colonial cultural transformations across Mexico, Guatemala, and the United States; the use of cutting-edge technologies in the field and lab; digital media in museums and architectural reconstructions; and Indigenous representation in the public interpretation of their cultural histories.

Other Keywords
Highland Mesoamerica: Postclassic • Ethnohistory/History • Material Culture and Technology • Iconography and Art • Aztec • Architecture • Art • Collections • Art History • Museums

Geographic Keywords
United Mexican States (Country) • North America (Continent) • Mesoamerica • Republic of El Salvador (Country) • Belize (Country) • Republic of Guatemala (Country) • Oaxaca (State / Territory) • Mesoamerica: Oaxaca or Southern Highlands • Hidalgo (State / Territory) • Colima (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-10 of 10)

  • Documents (10)
Documents
  • Anthropologist in Exile: Navigating Loss and Pursuing Justice (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Pilar Escontrias.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Making space for us to love archaeology in its prismatic wholeness is John Pohl’s greatest contribution to the field. We first met when I was an undergraduate taking his course on precolumbian art and archaeology of Mexico. He was my only college professor who encouraged me to connect archaeology with my own family...

  • Codices, Purpura, and Pirates: The Enduring Legacy of Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Danny Zborover. John Pohl.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Trailblazer, dirt archaeologist, influencer, historian, disrupter, curator, socialite, ethnographer, polyglot. Most of us are familiar with Zelia Nuttall mostly through her brilliant research on the Mixtec codex that, until recently, carried her name on the catalogue of the British Museum where it is currently kept....

  • Mesoamerican Transitions: Social, Psychological, and Symbolic (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Knab.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We use metaphors for the human mind just as we do for religious, mythic and symbolic systems. These metaphoric systems reproduce the same social phenomena in ritual process and social organization. It should thus be clear that we find reintegration of social, symbolic, and metaphoric systems as a society is...

  • MITLA 3D : A Digital Reconstruction of the Most Important Postclassic Zapotec City (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ludovic Celle.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Illustrating the past in a faithful and immersive way requires finding the right balance between the available archaeological data and the imagination that fills in the many blanks. This presentation is about such an experience, from a background in architecture and digital arts. The Zapotecs are one of the most...

  • Not Afraid of Conflict: The Feisty Rulers, Communities, and Scholars of Ancient Southern Mesoamerica—Retrospective of a Lived Tradition of Rivalry (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Viola Koenig.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Can we compare the power, decline, and survival of Mesoamerican sociopolitical and religious systems with contemporary academic schools? Are there characteristic relationships between researchers and research subjects? Does this apply at least to the Mixteca-Puebla and Oaxaca regions? In other words, what do the...

  • The “On Colors” Chapter in the Historia General de Sahagún: Its Structure, Contents, and Contribution to the Knowledge of Technology and Artistic Practices in Ancient Nahua Society (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elodie Dupey.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper revisits the structure and contents of the greatest source—the only one of its kind—concerning the knowledge of color technology and, consequently, artistic practices of the ancient Nahua: the chapter on colors in Sahagún’s “Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España,” which contains a description in...

  • Precolumbian Art History at the University of California: Teaching, Mentorship, and Disciplinary Contention (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Mazariegos.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this presentation, I will recount my trajectory influenced by John Pohl during the formative undergraduate years of my art history training at UCLA, taking into account his teaching, the connections between the University of California (UC) and the California Community Colleges (CCC), and the disciplinary tensions...

  • Reconstructing the Codex Colombino-Becker (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lee Ann Monaghan. John Pohl. Manuel Hermann. John Monaghan.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Precolumbian manuscripts provide a view of indigenous life that is largely unmediated by Spanish colonialism. The Colombino-Becker is one of the masterpieces of the Mixtec Codices, but poor preservation, missing pages, and an effort to make the manuscript more palatable in a Christian context by erasing not only...

  • A Study of the Materiality of Codex Tonindeye: Some Preliminary Results (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Buti. Joanne Dyer. Davide Domenici. Danny Zborover.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Codex Tonindeye, also known as the Codex Zouche-Nuttall, is one of the most striking examples of prehispanic Mixtec historiography and artistry. Brought from Mexico to Italy, it was preserved for centuries in the Dominican convent of San Marco, Florence, until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was sold...

  • Yankwik Mexiko: Contributions of Mesoamerican People to New Mexican History (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kurly Tlapoyawa.

    This is an abstract from the "Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mesoamerican contributions to the state of New Mexico are often overlooked within mainstream “hispano” historical narratives. What little information is shared is usually relegated to trade routes and modes of exchange during the prehistoric period. The European invasion and subsequent colonization of New Mexico saw...