Exploring the Sacred Landscapes of Peru

Speaker of the Month
March 31, 2019
Dr. Jo Ellen Burkholder 

In this talk by Dr. Jo Ellen Burkholder we will be transported to the majestic Andes Mountains of southern Peru and the impressive deserts and valleys that flank them on the Pacific Coast. We will get a chance to consider what defines sacred places and how they can be recognized by the special ways in which they use space. Using examples from her field work in Arequipa, Peru she will illustrate how we can begin to understand ancient sacred geographies and landscapes through archaeological and geographical analyses. Special attention will be given to two small temples she  excavated at the site of Pisanay and how these two locations play a role in the sacred landscape surrounding the site.

About Our Speaker:
Jo Ellen Burkholder, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Women's and Gender Studies, and the Coordinator for Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater. Over the last 20 years she has been conducting research in the Southern Andes of Peru and Bolivia. Her work has concentrated on the expressions of social identity (particularly gender and ethnicity) in the ancient Andes using pottery and funerary art, architecture, and uses of the landscape as markers of social cohesion and differences. She has recently identified new images of child birth and mothering in ancient Peruvian arts and begun to explore the ways in which complex societies used architecture and infrastructure to disseminate and manipulate ideas about where and what is sacred.  In addition to her academic work, she is a recently published fiction author (Red Phoenix: An Olivia Crane Novel), an accomplished yogi, and budding aerialist.

The CAS will meet at 3:00pm for a social period, with the lecture beginning at 3:30pm at the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington. Meetings are open to the public and free of charge.

Looking Ahead to April

Join us on April 28, 2019 at 3:00 pm for a lecture by Dr. Mark Wagner

The Discovery of Lewis and Clark’s
Long-Lost Outpost of Fort Kaskaskia

Evanston Public Library • Community Meeting •  1703 Orrington Ave

Bound to the Western Waters:

Palimpsest Notes

From Bob Stelton

IAAA Annual Meeting
IAAA advises that the date of the Annual Meeting is May 18-19. This conflicts with our CAS May meeting of May 19. Rescheduling in May is a problem even if possible. But I believe members will decide individually.

Summer Safaris
A decision was made was made by the CAS Board scheduling a Summer Safari to the Chicago History Museum. The tentative date and time is 10:00 am June 15.  Any thoughts?
The board discussed the possibility for a 2nd metropolitan safari in late summer. The Newberry Library was mentioned because the Popol Vuh is among ancient and important books in the Newberry collection.

Holiday Luncheon
December 8 is the holiday date for the traditional holiday. During the past two years the occasion was celebrated as a pizza party. After two years the Board indicated desire for a change and the CAS will be checking out possibilities for a catered affair. Now we want to hear from you. Out there in a cloud is a member anxious to become our holiday chair—you know what a chair does—the chair gets someone else to do the work! Please step forward. We need your help finding a caterer and deciding upon dishes to be featured.

A Meeting with the Speaking Stones of La Mojarra Monument 1

Arnold Talk in February Escorts Members into the Ancient Political Past of Mexico 

~ report by Bob Stelton ~

Loyola Professor Philip Arnold spends his summers and some holidays in Veracruz pursuing connections between several archaeological sites such as Matacanela, Totocapan, and Piedra Librada. And he is finding connections between these sites more interesting than influences from other Mayan or Teotihuacan sites. One example that he taught us about was the connections between the Tuxtla Statuette and Stela 1 at Mojarra. The Tuxtla Statuette of a bird beaked (or masked) figure has several glyphs and a Maya-looking long count date of March 162 AD. The Mojarra Stela 1 has two dates: one is 143 and the other 156, both within 20 years of each other. Other features can be compared.

The Mojarra Stela has a lengthy text, but the glyphs and the dates on both sculptures seem to validate each other. The text is Epi-Olmec or Isthmian and is related to the MixeZoque.  The elders of a local family remembered much of a similar language that was helpful to epigraphers. It is about Harvest Mountain Lord, blood-letting and decapitation when taken captive. Certain mountains are in view of both sites. To learn more about the text, you can find online Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writing by Terrance Kaufman and John Juteson. It is fascinating, but you will need about a year to understand it. https:// www.albany.edu/pdlma/ EOTEXTS.pdf

One can also look at the image of a ruler on the stela and try to figure out the accompanying imagery.  A “Fish-Monster” head seems to adorn the ruler’s head and the body trails down beside him. What has been identified as a fin at the top has suggested a large serrated knife to Prof. Arnold. While at another site he and another archaeologist witnessed a farmer plowing his field, who turned up a twosided flat piece of rock. They found two more pieces that fit together forming the image of a large serrated knife!

Dr. Arnold thinks that sometimes what we think is wrong, but it leads to more investigation. It turns out to be good. He explained so much that we would need several more pages to cover everything we learned from his informative and witty presentation.

The CAS thanks you, Dr. Arnold, and hopes to follow your progress as your history of conversations with La Mojarra Monument is expanded.

Keeping It Coastal: Classic Period Politics Along Mexico’s Southern Gulf Lowlands

Speaker: Dr. Philip J. Arnold III

On February 24, we welcome back Dr. Philip “Flip” Arnold, to discuss Classic Period politics in the Southern Veracruz region.

Tuxtlas Statuette

The Southern Gulf Coast of Mexico is best known as home to the Formative Period (1500-500 BC) Olmecs, a precocious culture celebrated for its megalithic artwork. Less established, but no less important, are the political ebbsandflows that marked this region during the heyday of the subsequent Classic Period (AD 300-1000).This presentation charts these Classic Period developments through archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic data. Previously identified linkages between La Mojarra Monument #1 and the Tuxtlas Statuette are further supported via more recent data from Totocapan and Matacanela, while fieldwork at Teotepec and La Perla del Golfo suggests interaction with other Classic Veracruz cultures up and down the southern Mexican Gulf Lowlands.This new understanding demonstrates that the region’s cultural character, often

La Mojarra Monument #1

Dr. Philip Arnold

attributed to outside forces such as the Lowland Maya or Teotihuacan in Highland Mexico, results instead from an autochthonous (indigenous) development. This appreciation, in turn, offers a more nuanced understanding of the unique expressions that together constitute Classic Veracruz culture.

Our speaker, Philip J. Arnold III, is a Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago. His archaeological research focuses on the political and economic development of southern Veracruz, Mexico, spanning a period of approximately 3000 years. Dr. Arnold is the author and editor of numerous publications. His most recent volume, coedited with Lourdes Budar, is Arqueología de Los Tuxtlas: Antiguos Paisajes, Nuevas Miradas (2016: Universidad Veracruzana). His faculty webpage is https://www.luc.edu/anthropology/faculty/arnold.shtml .

The CAS will meet at 3:00pm for a social period, with the lecture beginning at 3:30pm at the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington. Meetings are open to the public and free of charge.

Members' Day

The January CAS meeting was also officially Members Day which involves the election of officers and the election of 1/3 of the Board of Directors. The slate was elected with the status appellation of Emeritus awarded to Jacqueline Leipold.

Mesoamerican/Ancient Southwestern Trade

Mike Ruggeri Talk in January Explored Evidence of Trade Over Modern Borders

The weather outside was frightful but the company inside was delightful. Twenty three doughty armchair travelers shrugged off Chicagoland subzero temperatures. (The record for Chicago happened to be 27°!) Bad weather would get worse but the CAS carried on with a room filled with members.

Trade ln Ancient Mesoamerica
Michael Ruggeri, retired Professor of History from City Colleges of Chicago, engaged us with a detailed slide show in an area of his expertise in Mesoamerican trade routes.

The various archaeological sites of the U.S. Southwest are always a source of intense interest. Current events may have intensified interest. Mike Ruggeri explained how theobromine, a component remnant of cacao, found in special drinking vessels from various sites in Pueblo Bonito was evidence of usage of chocolate.

Chocolate was the drink of Mesoamerican royalty and cacao beans were also used as currency by Mesoamericans. As such, why would the Mesoamericans want to use it as a trade item? The suggestion is that the desire for turquoise was strong enough to allow cacao use as a trade item. Seems like a sweet deal.

Archaeological exploration has uncovered extensive evidence of trade at Paquime (a/k/a Casas Grande) and also aviculture with evidence of more than 800 macaws and parrots. The acquisition of exotic birds, e.g. “scarlet macaws”, seems to have been for sacrificial rituals. Such ceremonies must have consumed a considerable portion of the economy as evidenced by macaw and parrot aviculture and the sacrifice of hundreds of birds at Paquime.

The excellence of Mike’s presentation was absolutely rewarding, as was our first postmeeting informal dinner at Prairie Moon Restaurant.

Escaping the Cold

If you took one of those advertised Mayan Riviera vacation deals, offered to escape the Chicago vortex, you might have found yourself bored at about midweek. If it happens to you, do what a few relaxing CAS members did recently. Hire a taxi or a van for a day trip to the important Maya site, Coba (including a Yucatecan lunch). With a local guide and a chauffeur pumping the pedals of your tricycle/carriage, it is more fun than a theme park. You could take an aerial wire flight over a patch of jungle, too. Joe & Marilyn Shidle, Deb & Bob Stelton, Beverly Bucur and Alan Brew shared the cost of a van. Five of us sat on a log and timed Joe Shidle climbing the highest pyramid in the Yucatan; it was 7 minutes up and 7 minutes down. Congratulations Joe!

“Keeping it Coastal:

Classic Period Politics Along Mexico’s Southern Gulf Lowlands”

IS TOPIC ON February 24 IN EVANSTON

Professor Philip J. Arnold, PhD will present “Keeping it Coastal: Classic Period Politics Along Mexico’s Southern Gulf Lowlands” on Sunday, February 24 in the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Avenue, Evanston.  This month’s lecture for the Chicago Archaeological Society/CAS begins at 3:30pm, with refreshments and socializing starting earlier, at 3:00pm.  All CAS meetings are free and open to the public.

Philip J. Arnold III is a Professor of Anthropology at Loyola University Chicago. His archaeological research focuses on the political and economic development of southern Veracruz, Mexico, spanning a period of approximately 3000 years. He is the author and editor of numerous publications; his most recent volume, co-edited with Lourdes Budar, is Arqueología de Los Tuxtlas: Antiguos Paisajes, Nuevas Miradas (2016: Universidad Veracruzana).

Dr. Arnold’s talk will chart Classic Period developments through archaeological, iconographic, and epigraphic data of the Veracruz, Mexico area.  His fieldwork at Teotepec and La Perla del Golfo suggests interaction with other Classic Veracruz cultures up and down the southern Mexican Gulf Lowlands. This new understanding demonstrates that the region’s cultural character, often attributed to outside forces such as the Lowland Maya or Teotihuacan in Highland Mexico, results instead from  indigenous development. To learn more, join us on February 24 at an open meeting of the Chicago Archaeological Society at the Evanston Public Library beginning at 3:00pm.

For more information, go to: http://www.chicagoarchaeologicalsociety.com/p/events.html.

Invitation to Members

Our December meeting and luncheon featured member Claire Yashar who presented an account of her journey to Exploring Cappadocia, Turkey to a receptive audience.

Your fellow CAS members are anxious to hear about your ventures into the world of archaeology. Extensive prepping is unnecessary. A few slides will suffice. Make it a show and tell project with a brief Q & A opportunity. For a member’s 2019 presentation Bob Stelton will document A Mule Safari to El Mirador in Guatemala.

His presentation captures the excitement and spirit that confronted such travel only a few years ago.