Dr. John Hoopes (University of Kansas) will present "Indigenous Peoples of Precolonial Costa Rica and Their Place within the 'American Mediterranean'" exploring Costa Rica's crucial role in pre-Columbian networks of exchange and interaction. In her book, Pre-Columbian Man Finds Costa Rica (1977), pioneering archaeologist Doris Zemurray Stone characterized Costa Rica as a bridge between Mesoamerica and the Andes. However, it has also been much more. The Indigenous peoples of precolonial Costa Rica not only played a central role in the dynamics of the Isthmo-Colombian area, but also in those of the larger circum-Caribbean world. The interaction sphere of the “American Mediterranean” is one for which the Mediterranean Sea serves as a model for invigorating our consideration of the art and archaeology of the Americas. This presentation will discuss the archaeological record of Costa Rica, its centrality in relationships among Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica, the Antilles, Amazonia, and the Andes, and the distinctive features that give it a unique character in this diverse cultural landscape.
John Hoopes is an archaeologist on the faculty of the University of Kansas, where he has been teaching and undertaking research for 35 years. He received his B.A. in Archaeology from Yale in 1980 and his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard in 1987. Prof. Hoopes first went to Costa Rica as an undergraduate in 1978 and has undertaken fieldwork in several different parts of the country, including Guanacaste, the southern Pacific coast, and the Caribbean lowlands. Prof. Hoopes has co-edited several books on topics ranging from ceramics to jadeite and gold metallurgy: The Emergence of Pottery: Technology and Innovation in Ancient Societies (with William Barnett, 1995), Gold and Power in Ancient Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia (with Jeffrey Quilter, 2003), and most recently Pre-Columbian Art from Central America and Colombia at Dumbarton Oaks and Pre-Columbian Central America, Colombia, and Ecuador: Toward an Integrated Approach (both with Colin McEwan, 2021). In 2003, he coined the term “Isthmo-Colombian Area” to identify the world of Indigenous peoples speaking languages primarily in the Chibchan language family in southern Central America and northern Colombia. He has served as chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kansas and in 2017 was the Greenleaf Distinguished Chair of Latin American Studies and Visiting Professor at Tulane. He has had a longstanding interest in the origins and forms of social complexity in Indigenous societies of the Americas.
All events are free and open to the public. For more information about MARI's Centennial Speaker Series, please contact mari@tulane.edu.
**Reception at Woodward Way immediately following from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm.
