Not Afraid of Conflict: The Feisty Rulers, Communities, and Scholars of Ancient Southern Mesoamerica—Retrospective of a Lived Tradition of Rivalry

Summary

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 Danzantes, Quetzalcoatls, and Eight Deers share with the Diego Durans, Alfonso Casos, John Pohls, and his contemporaries? This somewhat adventurous thesis is the introduction to John Pohl's field of operation. How does it differ from the better-known studies on Mesoamerica such as that of the Maya and Aztec? How did academic schools come to be? Is the criticism justified that important results for the overall Mesoamerican picture are being ignored outside the regional focus? Are we content with small-scale slice-and-dice research? Given the long history of studying Mixtec pictorial manuscripts, how should we deal with the fact that this graphic communication system is rarely mentioned in the general literature? What about the powerful interpretive sovereignties, even misleading attributions, that influence not only international research, but lull the communities concerned into false certainties? A critical balance sheet and a cautionary outlook.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bringing the Past to Life, Part 2: Papers in Honor of John M. D. Pohl   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38049.0