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6047 Silsby Hall
Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: 603-646-3033
Fax: 603-646-1140
deborah.l.nichols@dartmouth.edu
My current research on the development of early cities and states in
Mesoamerica focuses on the nature of Teotihuacan's relations with its
hinterlands and the change from the regional Teotihuacan state system to the
very different city-states of the Postclassic, the subject of my earlier
investigations.
The great ancient city of Teotihuacan, in highland central Mexico, has been
extensively studied, but even today surprisingly little is known about other
Teotihuacan-related settlements in and near the Basin of Mexico. Cerro
Portezuelo, about 40 km from Teotihuacan, in the eastern Basin, is one of only
two major Teotihuacan regional centers in the Basin (the other is Azcapotzalco,
in the western Basin.) After Teotihuacan's fall, occupation continued in
the Epiclassic and Early Postclassic periods, when Cerro Portezuelo became the
capital of one of the city-states into which the Basin was then divided.
It is exceptionally strategic because it offers data on how Teotihuacan
interacted at its height with subordinate centers within its core area, and
because it provides a record of the cultural, political, economic, religious,
and possibly ethnic changes involved in the decline and collapse of the
Teotihuacan state and ensuing developments in the Basin of Mexico. This
transition is still poorly understood and is the subject of much
controversy.
With support from the National Science Foundation, and the Rockefeller
Center for the Social Sciences, and Goodman Fund at Dartmouth, George Cowgill
(Arizona State University) and I, along with a team of archaeologists and other
scientists from Canada, Mexico, and the US, are analyzing the artifacts and
excavation and survey data from Cerro
Portezuelo.
Christina Elson (American Museum of Natural History/National Geographic
Society) and I are collaborating on another project, "Aztec Elites and the
Postclassic Economy: Neutron Activation Analysis of Museum Collections
from Chiconautla, Mexico" supported by the Foundation for the Advancement of
Mesoamerica Studies, Inc. Patty Crown (University of New Mexico and I are
editing a volume, "Social Violence in the Prehispanic American Southwest,"to be
published in spring 2008 by the University of Arizona Press. I am a member of
the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association and Chair of
the Association’s Operations Committee. I also serve as the AAA's
representative to the American Council of Learned Societies and I am a member
of the editorial boards for the American Anthropologist and
Ancient Mesoamerica.
Selected Recent Publications
- 2007 Crider, D., D. L. Nichols, H. Neff, and M. D. Glascock: In the
Aftermath of Teotihuacan: Epiclassic Pottery Production and Distribution in the
Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 18: 123–143.
- 2006 Nichols, D. L., C. D. Frederick, L. Morett Alatorre, and F. Sánchez
Martínez: 2006 Water Management and Political Economy in Formative Period
Central Mexico. In Ritual Water Management, edited by Lisa Lucero and
Barbara Fash, pp. 51–66. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
- 2006 Nichols, D. L.: 2006 Preindustrial Cities: Demographic Shining Stars
or Black Holes? In Urbanism in the Preindustrial World: Cross-Cultural
Approaches, edited by Glenn R. Storey, pp. 330–340. University of Alabama
Press, Tuscaloosa.
- 2006 Archaeology on Foot: Jeffrey Parsons and Anthropology at the
University of Michigan. In Retrospectives: Works and Lives of Michigan
Anthropologists, edited by Derek Brereton. Michigan Discussions in Anthropology
Vol. 16. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
- 2005 Settlement Pattern Archaeology in the Teotihuacan Valley and the
Northeastern Basin of Mexico A. P. (After Parsons). In Settlement and
Subsistence in Early Civilizations: Essays Reflecting the Contributions of
Jeffrey R. Parsons, edited by Richard E. Blanton, pp. 43-62, UCLA Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology, Los Angeles. (T H. Charlton and D. L. Nichols)
- 2005 Tenochtitlan, Chinampas. Calliope 16 (4): 8-13.
- 2004 Rural and Urban Landscapes of the Aztec State. In
Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice, edited by Rosemary Joyce
and Julia Hendon, pp. 265-295. Blackwell, Oxford.
- 2003 Archaeology is Anthropology. Archaeological Papers of the
American Anthropological Association No. 13, Arlington. (S. D. Gillespie
and D. L. Nichols, eds.)
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