Here is the preliminary schedule for the Midwest Mesos conference. Please check back for the final schedule, and for news about the post-conference reception.
Midwest Conference on Mesoamerican Archaeology and Ethnohistory
University of Chicago, March 16-17, 2018
Friday, March 16, Keynote address
5-6 pm Lowland Maya Archaeology in a Gilded Age: The University of Pennsylvania Museum’s Tikal Project
Hattula Moholy-Nagy, Consulting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Saturday, March 17
9-9:30 Formative pottery types in Tayata site, Mixteca Alta: A regional and macro-regional perspective
Maria Teresa Palomares Rodriguez, Doctoral Student, Southern Illinois University
9:30-10 The Tale of the Maya Urns from Lake Petha, Chiapas: Context, Iconography, Sourcing, Surprises
Joel Palka, University of Illinois at Chicago
10-10:30 I Threw it All Away; Consumer goods at the 19th century Maya refugee site at Tikal, Guatemala
James Meierhoff, University of Illinois at Chicago
10:30-11 Coffee Break
11-11:30 Dressing: Essence and Transformation in Maya Iconography
Karon Winzenz, Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay
11:30-12 Vitality Materialized: On the Piercing and Adornment of the Body in Mesoamerica
Andrew Finegold, University of Illinois at Chicago
12-12:30 Comparative Analysis of Copper Artifacts from Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico
Jackson Krause, Joel Palka, Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago
12:30-2 Lunch break
2-2:30 Stones of Sight: Ethnographic and Ethnohistorical Analogies for Interpreting Classic Maya Effigy Flints and Obsidians
Zachary Hruby, Northern Kentucky University
2:30-3 The invention of an ancient object for the art market: a case study of Greater Nicoya style metates
Alanna S. Radlo-Dzur, Graduate student, The Ohio State University
3-3:30 Postclassic Quetzalcoatl in the American Southeast
Alice B. Kehoe, Professor Emeritus, Marquette University
3:30-4 Break
4-4:30 Storm God Chasing in the Valley of Oaxaca
Andrew Kracinski, University of Illinois at Chicago
4:30-5 ‘It’s Our Tradition to Maintain the Forest:’ Indigenous Water Management in San Miguel Totonicapán
Matthew Krystal, North Central College
5-5:30 Calling the Rain, Cutting the Storm: Cultural Models Research as a Pathway to Understanding the Relationship Between Nature and Humans in a Semi-Rural Central Mexican Community
Charles Stapleton, Northern Illinois University and College of DuPage; Maria Stapleton, Northern Illinois University