“Our Mother the Sea: The Pacific Trans-Regional Network of Postclassic Mexico”

with John M.D. Pohl, PhD, California State University – Los Angeles

In 1945, the Sociedad Mexicana de Antropología officially recognized George Vaillant’s “Mixteca-Puebla” as the fourth and last major cultural tradition of ancient Mesoamerica. However by 1960, renowned Aztec scholar H.B. Nicholson had reduced this international culture to an inconsequential provincial Aztec art style. I will show how Nicholson’ proposal created more problems than it solved over the last half-century by grossly simplifying the critical role played by the peoples of the Pacific Coast extending from Oaxaca, through West Mexico to northern Mexico and the Greater American Southwest, in establishing the trans-regional network on which the wealth of the Aztec empire was actually predicated. I will demonstrate that the Aztec Empire was only part of the story of Mexican civilizational development between 1150-1600 CE by examining how this time period represented a major societal transformation that preceded the Aztec Empire, resisted its subjugation, and then, resurrected itself on a new colonial foundation to dominate Indigenous Mesoamerica through the present day.

John M.D. Pohl is an archaeologist who specializes in the ancient art and writing of the Zapotec, Mixtec and Nahua civilizations of southern Mexico. He is noted for bringing the ancient past to life using a wide variety of innovative skills while teaching with the departments of Anthropology, Art History, and Chicana(o) Studies at Cal State LA. His background in archaeology, art history, and media production have taken him from feature film and television production to museum exhibition development with the Getty Villa Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Princeton University Museum of Art, and the Museum of the Cherokee People among other institutions. He has published numerous books and articles including Exploring Mesoamerica and The Legend of Lord Eight Deer, both with Oxford University Press. Together with Michael Mathiowetz, he is co-editor of the acclaimed volume: Reassessing The Aztatlán World for the University of Utah Press.

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