Description: The first century BC in central Mexico witnessed the emergence of Teotihuacan, a city that rapidly developed into the capital of an urban state of unprecedented size, monumentality, ethnic diversity, and political power in North America. Teotihuacan’s monumental center has benefited from more than a century of archaeological study. Investigations of Teotihuacan’s rural communities are rare by comparison, partly due to the rapid destruction of archaeological sites as Mexico City continues to grow. To understand Teotihuacan’s growth and organization as one of the earliest and largest indigenous states in the Americas, archaeologists are looking beyond the ancient city to study its regional environmental and social landscape. This talk will focus on reconstructing everyday life in Teotihuacan’s countryside, the regional process of state collapse, and the challenges of excavating Mexico City’s vanishing archaeological landscape.

Dr. Sarah C. Clayton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the development, organization, and dissolution of early urban states in Mesoamerica. Her recent work explores rural-urban dynamics, intrasocietal diversity, and processes of political collapse and reorganization in the Basin of Mexico. She currently directs an archaeological field project at Chicoloapan Viejo, a settlement that grew in association with the decline of the ancient metropolis of Teotihuacan. This research represents a multiscalar approach in which regional political changes are examined from the perspective of the everyday practices of local households.

For more about Dr. Sarah C. Clayton:http://www.anthropology.wisc.edu/people_clayton.php

General Information:
All lectures are held on Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. in Sabin Hall Room G90 on the UWM Campus (3413 North Downer, corner of Newport and Downer Avenues). On Sundays, parking is available in the Klotsche Center surface lot directly north of Sabin or on nearby streets.

All lectures are free and open to the public and followed by refreshments. They are co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology, Foreign Languages and Literature-Classics, and Art History at UW-Milwaukee.