Geographical Areas of Specialization: Mexico (Oaxaca), Mesoamerica
Topical Interests: Ancient & Colonial Mexico, household archaeology, identity, food practices, soil chemistry and microscale methods in archaeology, soundscapes, social theory, culture contact
Current Courses: P200 Introduction to Archaeology, P399/P600 Archaeologies of Identity
Profile:
My research focuses on the peoples of Oaxaca, Mexico between 1500 B.C. to the present. I am particularly interested in how people in the past negotiated their place in the social, political, and economic world around them. I am interested in the ways that people figure out and creatively construct who they are, how they materially mark themselves in different social settings, and how they experience life as people with multiple overlapping and intersecting social identities.
My research at Río Viejo explores the economic specialization in cotton cloth and thread production, the organization of space in residential areas, mortuary practices and burial beneath houses, reuse and social memory, musical instruments and soundscapes, and the relationship between commensality and household membership. I also used soil chemistry, paleoethnobotany, and micromorphology as methods to address daily practices of food preparation, cooking, and food sharing at Río Viejo. In this research, I showed that age was a more strongly materially marked vector of identity in coastal Oaxaca (A.D. 900-1100) than gender. At the site of Río Viejo in coastal Oaxaca, male and female adult household members were treated similarly in death, buried beneath the house floors as important ancestors for those still living.
My new research in Nejapa de Madero and Santa Ana Tavela in southeastern Oaxaca, Mexico is in its preliminary stages, but holds much promise. This region lies at the crossroads between the highland Valley of Oaxaca and the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec, which experienced multiple small and large-scale movements of people from as early as the Olmec period through the Colonial period. My research will explore these shifting multi-ethnic landscapes, with a specific focus on Olmec, Mixe, Chontal, Zapotec, Aztec, and Spanish presence. For the earlier sites, I will examine how people living along trade routes interacted with more "complex" societies - how the economies, politics, and social identities of people in intermediate zones were (or were not) intertwined with those in more urban areas. Another component of the project is to study the “contact” period in the Nejapa region between A.D. 1400 and 1600 when Nejaperos experienced the intrusion of Valley Zapotecs, Aztecs, and Spanish in rapid succession. By studying early archival documents and Late Postclassic/Early Colonial period archaeological sites, I hope to produce a more nuanced and historically accurate account of colonial period cultural entanglements in Oaxaca.
An important part of this project will focus on the impressive casa principal of a now-abandoned hacienda, which was once one of the largest haciendas in the state of Oaxaca. In 2008, I visited archives in Oaxaca and Mexico City, and located documents showing that the hacienda was established in the 1600s, changing ownership many times throughout the next three centuries. My best sources of information about the hacienda, however, are not the archives, but the many older residents of the region with whom I talked. In June 2008, I recorded the oral history of three community elders, who kindly let me into their homes and shared their inspiring and humbling stories of their childhood years on the hacienda with me. In addition to creating archival quality DVDs of these interviews for local archives, I plan to write about the hacienda experience in Colonial and Post-colonial Oaxaca.
My ultimate goal with this new project is to build a collaborative community-based long-term anthropological field program in the Nejapa region. The next phase of the work will include the documentation of archaeological sites, the construction of a ceramic chronology, and a study of existing artifact collections and exposed features.
At IU, I teach undergraduates and graduate students in the following courses: COLL E104 Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations, P200 Introduction to Archaeology, P365 Archaeology of Ancient Mexico, P399/P600 Archaeologies of Identity, P600 Household Archaeology, and P399/600 Food in the Ancient World (with Prof. Sonya Atalay). In Summer 2008 I was the lead director of the inaugural Overseas Study Summer Field Program in Oaxaca, Mexico which I co-taught with Profs. Anya Royce, Dan Suslak, and Catherine Tucker.
Selected Publications:
| 2008 |
Stacie M. King. Interregional Networks of the Oaxacan Early Postclassic. In After Monte Albán: Transformation and Negotiation in Late Classic/Postclassic Oaxaca, Mexico, edited by Jeffrey A. Blomster, pp. 255 - 291. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. |
| 2007 |
Stacie M. King. Spatial Organization of Food Sharing in Early Postclassic Households: An Application of Soil Chemistry in Ancient Oaxaca, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Science. 35(5): 1224 - 1239. |
| 2006 |
Stacie M. King. The Marking of Age in Ancient Coastal Oaxaca. In The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica, edited by Traci Ardren and Scott R. Hutson, pp. 169-200. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. |
| 2004 |
Arthur A. Joyce, Andrew G Workinger, Byron Hamann, Peter Kroefges, Maxine Oland, and Stacie M. King. Lord 8 Deer "Jaguar Claw" and the Land of the Sky: The Archaeology and Histor of Tututepc. Latin American Antiquity 15(3):273-297. |
| 2003 |
Stacie M. King. Social Practices and Social Organization in Ancient Coastal Oaxacan Households. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California Berkeley. ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE A COPY OF THIS DOCUMENT, PLEASE CONTACT DR. KING DIRECTLY. |
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