Friday, April 7th, at 12:00 P.M. A joint Maya Series and Archaeology Brown Bag Lecture. The lecture will take place in 51 Hillhouse Ave., Rm 101, Yale University.
Robert Rosenswig,
Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University at Albany–SUNY, will present
“The Rise and Fall of the Izapa Kingdom.”
(See description and short biography below.)
Abstract:
Mesoamerica is one of the cradles of civilization where the first kingdoms and states emerged during the latter part of the first millennium BCE. Recent lidar mapping and pedestrian survey documents the extent and internal political structure of the Izapa kingdom from its emergence at 700 BCE through its collapse after 100 BCE. At its peak, a four-tiered political hierarchy maintained internal cohesion and the distribution of large centers around the kingdom’s perimeter established external sovereignty. The largest of a network of early kingdoms on the Pacific coast of southern Mesoamerica, the Izapa polity provides insight to the origins of urban life and hierarchical political relations.
Short Bio:
Dr. Rosenswig is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University at Albany – SUNY and currently Director of the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies. He has directed research in Mexico, Belize and Costa Rica investigating the origins of agriculture and the development of political complexity. His publications include over three dozen journal articles as well as the book The Beginnings of Mesoamerican Civilization: Inter-Regional Interaction and the Olmec (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and two co-authored books published with the University Press of Florida: Early New World Monumentality (with Richard Burger in 2012) and Modes of Production and Archaeology (with Jerimy Cunningham in 2017).
Refreshments and food will be served.
The Yale Maya Series is supported through the MacMillan Center’s Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund, the Council on Latin American & Iberian Studies, and the Department of Anthropology.
We look forward to seeing you there.