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Although I have done archaeological research in Mississippi
and the Southwest (New Mexico and Utah), my primary area of
archaeological research is in Mesoamerica. Except for a summer at
Tikal in Guatemala, my work has been in Mexico at sites in Chiapas
(Palenque and smaller surrounding sites), Tabasco (various small Olmec
sites), and Puebla (Late Postclassic (A.D. 1250-1521) sites in the
Tehuacan Valley).
In the Palenque area, I worked with Bob Rands on his ceramic studies
of the Palenque sustaining area.
My dissertation was based on a survey of the western Chontalpa of
Tabasco. This area was part of the support area for La Venta. Numerous
buried sites were discovered along abandoned channels of Rio Grijalva
distributaries.
Since the early 1970s, I have worked in the Tehuacan Valley, Puebla,
Mexico. This valley is famous for its long archaeolgical sequence which
documents the domestication of maize and other Mesoamerican cultigens. My
reseach, however, has focused on the time period immediately prior to and
after the conquests of the valley by the Triple Alliance (Aztec Empire)
and the Spanish. I am interested in the impact of these two conquests on
local polities.
An interesting discovery during the 1991 field season was a painted
mural at the site of Tehuacan Viejo. Tehuacan Viejo was the largest
and dominant of four small city states which controlled the Tehuacan
Valley in 1521. The mural depicts seven and a half shields (One and a
half were destroyed in the prehispanic period.) on a burnt sienna
background. Painted behind each shield were crossed lances. The only
exception was the central shield which has an atlatl and darts painted
behind it. Our interpretation of the room with the mural was that it was
a vesting room for warriors.
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