The aim of this presentation is to show how applying different methods in anthropology, such as oral histories and documenting ancient human remains, make it possible to extend the history of Zapotec people, an indigenous society from Oaxaca, southern Mexico. Furthermore, working and collaborating alongside with local communities, enrich and contribute to the broader indigenous history to current Mexican society.
Ricardo Higelin Ponce de León is a graduate student in the Anthropology Department and the 2018-2019 Graduate Fellow at the American Indian Studied Research Institute. He received his Bachelor in Art’s degree in Physical Anthropology at Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH), Mexico in 2010 and his Master of Arts degree in Biological Anthropology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) in 2012. His dissertation field research, Engaging Descendant Communities with the Ancient Past: Zapotec Cultural Heritage from Oaxaca, Southern Mexico, was conducted over 15 months in 2016-2017, with support from the Office of the Vice President for International Affairs of Indiana University and the Fellowship IU-Exchange Graduate Program at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Preliminary results were presenting at the Mexican Association of Biological Anthropology at Morelia, Michoacán, in October 2017. He also participated at the 10th Conference of Children in the Past organized by the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past at the Templo Mayor, México City, in November 2017. Currently, Higelin Ponce de León is co-director of the Bioarchaeology of Oaxaca Project (BoP), with contributions published in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences: Reports in June 2017. Additional articles will be submitted in Spanish for the journal Anales de Antropologia, UNAM in 2020. Higelin was also the co-PI of the project “Microevolutionary History through Ancient DNA: Ancestral Zapotec Population Movement in the Tlacolula Valley” through UNAM, México.
Part of Reports from the Field Speaker series
Bioarchaeology of Oaxaca: An Approach to Zapotec Cultural Heritage - Ricardo Higelin Ponce de León
Thursday, February 07, 2019, 3:00 PM – ,
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