Please join The Latin American Library for a talk by Dr. Verenice Heredia Espinoza, 2023-24 Richard E. Greenleaf Fellow at the Latin American Library, who will discuss her work in progress: A comparative approach to Mesoamerica´s early social complexity.

This presentation discusses advances towards a comparative chapter on the nature of social complexity in Mesoamerica during the Formative period. The research, carried out at the Latin American Library, incorporates recently published Mesoamerican cases to advance our understanding on the various ways in which social complexity developed. It also pays attention to current theoretical frameworks that put greater emphasis on bottom-up processes such as commoner participation and negotiation with elites and/or governing officials and how these were manifested archaeologically. The results of this comparative research, along with an alternative pathway towards complexity perspective, will be useful to better understand the Teuchitlan culture of western Mesoamerica, which is considered an unconventional case of social complexity.

Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza is Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Centro de Estudios Arqueológicos de El Colegio de Michoacán in México. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Purdue University in 2005. Her research focuses on alternative pathways to social complexity in Mesoamerica with a particular focus on central Jalisco. She has directed several archaeological projects funded by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, CONACyT, Stresser-Péan Foundation among other funding institutions.

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Meeting ID: 946 4463 8488