John E Clark
Biographic Data
| ID | 91095 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John E Clark |
| GIVEN NAMES | John E |
| FAMILY NAME | Clark |
| SIGNATURE | CLARK J E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Brigham Young University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3846-9926 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 61 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 392 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 61 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Folsom Technology and Lifeways
A World to Be at Home In
Mesoamerica’s Tribal Foundations
The Architecture of Early Kingship
This chapter examines one aspect of the early Maya royal court—its residential compounds—and compare them to earlier developments in the Olmec heartland, Chiapas, and Oaxaca. Courtly life, royal residence, and ritual architecture can be traced back even centuries earlier to San Lorenzo, but evidence of royal residences and compounds there is not yet fully published. The chapter addresses implications of the spatial and temporal patterns in the da…
Japanese Modern and Contemporary Art
A Touch of Teotihuacan at Izapa
Two burials excavated at Izapa in 1963 have special green obsidian artifacts made at Teotihuacan. We describe the contexts and contents of these burials and consider the significance of their contents in light of Spence's (1996) model of Teotihuacan exchange of obsidian objects. We interpret the Izapa artifacts as gifted objects indicative of the political independence of Izapa in Middle Classic times
The Ch'ol Maya of Chiapas
The eight chapters in this edited volume deal sequentially with historical, archaeological, and ethnographic topics pertaining to the ancient and modern Ch’ol Maya of Chiapas, Mexico. It is not a synthetic work, but its collected essays synergistically provide a deep history of the Ch’ol as well as sketches of some of their rituals and beliefs. The modern Ch’ol of the northern tropical lowlands of Chiapas are thought to be direct descendants of t…
Travel, collecting, and museums of Asian Art in Nineteenth-Century Paris
After a concise survey of recent writing on Western Collections and Museums, Chang divides her inquiry into four main parts: The Historical Terms of Euro-Asian Object Acquisition; Gold, Silver, and Bronze: Cernuschi’s Collection and Reappraisals of Europe and Asia; The Labour of Travel: Guimet and Régamey in Asia; and Equivalence and Inversions: France, Japan, and China in Goncourt’s Cabinet. Chang basically wishes to update and re-position art h…
A Behavioral Model for the Obsidian Industry of Chiapa de Corzo
This paper discusses the reanalysis of the obsidian artifacts from the site of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico. The artifacts were recovered during 6 years of excavation and investigation of the site by the New World Archaeological Foundation. The artifacts have been described previously (Lee, 1969); however, since the time of their description a new system for classifying chipped stone artifacts has come into being. This new system is the behav…
The Early Preclassic Obsidian Industry of Paso de la Amada, Chiapas, México
This paper differs from previous descriptions of Mesoamerican obsidian in that a simple flake industry rather than a blade industry is reported. Flake industries have been noted in many parts of Mesoamerica for the Early Preclassic period (Boksenbaum, 1978: Cobean et al., 1971; Coe, 1961; Coe and Flannery, 1967; Ceja, 1978; Grove, 1971: 40; Green and Lowe, 1967; Lowe, 1975; :MasNeish et al., 1967; Niederberger, 1976; Pires-Ferreira, 1976: 309; Ze…
Olmec Things and Identity
Our study of offerings and elite burials at the Olmec site of La Venta attempts to distinguish primitive valuables from inalienable goods. According to Annette Weiner, inalienable objects are those that can circulate in exchange systems without changing ownership, or more importantly, can be withheld from exchange altogether. Key differences between inalienable goods and other valuables is group ownership through generations. Analysis of objects …
The Domestication of Stone in Mesoamerica
Mesoamericans mastered stone and made cutting, killing, and pounding tools capable of accomplishing all the tasks performed by hard metals in other preindustrial civilizations. The general evolution of stone use conforms to the worldwide progression from paleolithic technologies of chipped flint and quartzite implements to neolithic technologies of ground and polished tools. This technological shift corresponded to the invention of new tool types…
Modern Japanese Art and th Meiji State
DŌSHIN SATŌ. Modern Japanese Art and the Meiji State: The Politics of Beauty . Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute, 2011. 365 pp. US$75.00, hardcover. Japanese original: Meiji kokka to kindai
Enduring Motives
examines tradition and religious beliefs as they are expressed in landscape, the built environment, visual symbols, stories, and ritual.Bringing together archaeologists and Native American experts, this volume focuses on long-lived religious traditions of the native peoples of the Americas and how religion codifies, justifies, and reinforces these traditions by placing a high value on continuity of beliefs and practice.Using clues from the archae…
Doing world art history with modern and contemporary Asian art
Three approaches to world art history are outlined: top down (transnational); bottom up (national); and interstitial. The constructed category of ‘Modern Asian Art’ relativizes all other modernities, including the Euramerican, and is first of all differentiated by a new corpus of reference works and the criteria for canonizing these. The implied audience for national studies may challenge the validity of these criteria
Archaic Societies
First Towns in the Americas
Mesoamerican Figurines
Time Reckoning and Memorials in Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica was the time-place in the New World where the memory arts of writing and calendrical notation achieved their highest forms. Both had long histories going back at least to the first millennium bc and were part of an even longer and wider history of memorials and commemorations dating millennia earlier. In this essay we consider time and memorials as social constructs and forms of practice and provide data for sequential changes in both…
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Metaphor
The Revenge of Gaia 1 is the latest work by scientist and futurologist James Lovelock (with a foreword by his colleague, environmentalist and diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell). The book is the culminat
El alba de Mesoamérica
Este artículo trata acerca de los inicios de la civilización en Mesoamérica, es decir, los orígenes de la complejidad social, las desigualdades hereditarias institucionalizadas, las sociedades diferenciadas por rangos y las jefaturas durante el Periodo Formativo Temprano (c. 1900-100 a.C.). Antes de que se puedan discernir los procesos de evolución sociopolítica, primero es necesario identificar ejemplos concretos de sociedades, y sus atributos c…
On “Rethinking” Craft Specialization
In Craft Specialization's Penumbra
Objective approaches to craft specialization founded in systems theory are obsolete and should be replaced by more fine-grained approaches capable of dealing with human agents, social practice, and meaning. All craft production, not just specialized production, is equally interesting and important for understanding the operation and change of past societies. Agents made, exchanged, and used a variety of objects in daily practice, and these had di…
Los orígenes del privilegio en el Soconusco, 1650 a.c
En este trabajo presentamos los resultados más sobresalientes de las investigaciones arqueológicas practicadas desde 1985 en el Soconusco, Chiapas, México
Palaces and Power in the Americas
Introduction - Jessica Joyce Christie Part 1. Identification of Palaces 1. Looking for Moche Palaces in the Elite Residences of the Huacas of Moche Site - Claude Chapdelaine 2. Landscape of Power: A Network of Palaces in Middle Horizon Peru - William H. Isbell 3. Lords of the Great House: Pueblo Bonito as a Palace - Stephen H. Lekson Part 2. Palaces as Active Stage Sets of Political Ideology 4. Sacred and Profane Mountains of the Pasion: Contrast…
Determining the Geological Provenance of Obsidian Artifacts from the Maya Region
During the last four decades, mesoamerican archaeologists regularly have employed various chemical assay techniques to determine the geological sources of obsidian artifacts. In recent years, the reliability of these analytical procedures has increased and their costs have declined, encouraging the assay of ever larger samples. Nonetheless, several constraints make it unlikely that compositional data will be used routinely to attribute entire col…
Prehistoric Subsistence in the Soconusco Region
A Technological Typology of Prismatic Blades and Debitage From Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico
A technological typology for the description and analysis of Mesoamerican obsidian industries is proposed, and its relative merits vis-à-vis Sheets's (1975a) “behavioral” typology are briefly explored. The typology is used to classify and describe a pristine deposit of obsidian-blade refuse recovered from the Early Classic Maya site of Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico. Analysis of this deposit revealed that the obsidian artifacts were manufacturing r…
Sports, Gambling, and Government
The presence of a 3,600-year-old ballcourt in the Mazatan region of Southern Mexico implies that a significant connection existed between ballcourts, competitive sport, and the emergence of the first ascriptive societies in Mesoamerica. We explore four likely connections between the Mesoamerican ballgame, rank society, and early government. These include gambling, playing the game, sponsorship of the game and its associated activities, and the ef…
Radiocarbon Chronology for the Late Archaic and Formative Periods on the Pacific Coast of Southeastern Mesoamerica
Archaeological excavations carried out during the past five years along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador have recovered 79 new14C dates for the Late Archaic and Early to Middle Formative periods. We analyze these new dates along with 25 previously published dates to refine a sequence of 10 archaeological phases spanning almost three and a half millennia, from ca. 4000 to 650 B.C. The phases are summarized with a brief descr…
Manufacture of Mesoamerican Prismatic Blades
Recent analyses of primary documentary sources have demonstrated that Don Crabtree's technique of prismatic blade manufacture differs significantly from that of the ancient Mexicans. The most widely known of these ethnohistoric descriptions of blademaking, as well as several previously not considered, are reevaluated and compared to the Crabtree technique. Major discrepancies between the Aztec technique and that described by Crabtree then became …
In Craft Specialization's Penumbra
Objective approaches to craft specialization founded in systems theory are obsolete and should be replaced by more fine-grained approaches capable of dealing with human agents, social practice, and meaning. All craft production, not just specialized production, is equally interesting and important for understanding the operation and change of past societies. Agents made, exchanged, and used a variety of objects in daily practice, and these had di…
Prismatic Blademaking, Craftsmanship, and Production
Artifacts from an obsidian-blade workshop dump from Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico, are analyzed to determine levels of craftsmanship and craft specialization. Detailed consideration of knapping errors and rejuvenation flakes reveals that the blademaker at Ojo de Agua was moderately skilled at his craft, which he practiced on a part-time basis. The maximum level of output from his workshop was 26,000, or fewer, fine blades per year, or the equivale…
Craft Specialization, Gender, and Personhood among the Postconquest Maya of Yucatan, Mexico
The early ethnohistoric sources from Yucatan contain a wealth of information concerning Maya artisans, their craft activities, and the special goods they produced. We examine the principal sources for information on the sexual division of labor, engendered craft activities, and the influence of crafts and related domestic arts on Maya perceptions of self. Lexical data from the dictionary sources demonstrate a clear gender complementarity in the o…
A Specialized Obsidian Quarry at Otumba, Mexico
Compte rendu d'une visite, effectuee avec un groupe d'etudiants en archeologie de Mexico, a la carriere d'obsidienne d'Otumba. Comparaison avec d'autres sources d'obsidienne d'Amerique centrale. L'etude simultanee de la technologie de l'obsidienne et des carrieres d'obsidienne interesse le probleme des routes commerciales, de la specialisation artisanale et de l'organisation socio-politique de la region entourant la source d'obsidienne
Another Look at Small Debitage and Microdebitage
After a brief review of recent studies of small debitage and microdebitage it is suggested that such studies would be most useful in identifying primary knapping areas. In particular, Behm's (1983) study of primary and secondary deposits of knapping refuse is evaluated in light of ethnographic evidence, mostly from Mesoamerica. These data indicate that neither o f Behm 's criteria hold in all situations. A major factor determining the nature of w…
Platforms, Bits, Punches and Vises
Several unresolved issues of Mesoamerican prismatic blade manufacture concern the bit used in the Aztec pressure tool, the importance of indirect percussion in blade production (Clark 1982:373), and the possible use of vises in pre-Columbian times. Relying on data from recent studies of archaeological assemblages, replication experiments, and contemporary ethnographic practices, I argue that the bit of the Aztec tool was probably hard wood, that …
Olmec Things and Identity
Our study of offerings and elite burials at the Olmec site of La Venta attempts to distinguish primitive valuables from inalienable goods. According to Annette Weiner, inalienable objects are those that can circulate in exchange systems without changing ownership, or more importantly, can be withheld from exchange altogether. Key differences between inalienable goods and other valuables is group ownership through generations. Analysis of objects …
Archeology and Volcanism in Central America
An experimental investigation into the perception of slips of the tongue
Counterflaking and the Manufacture of Mesoamerican Prismatic Blades
Experimental and archaeological examples of counterflaking damage are presented and discussed. It is argued that the non-random occurrence of this type of damage is indicative of different blade-making techniques. The pattern of counterflaking noted for archaeological prismatic blades is convincing evidence that pre-Columbian, Mesoamerican knappers held cores with their feet rather than with vises
A Behavioral Model for the Obsidian Industry of Chiapa de Corzo
This paper discusses the reanalysis of the obsidian artifacts from the site of Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico. The artifacts were recovered during 6 years of excavation and investigation of the site by the New World Archaeological Foundation. The artifacts have been described previously (Lee, 1969); however, since the time of their description a new system for classifying chipped stone artifacts has come into being. This new system is the behav…
The Early Preclassic Obsidian Industry of Paso de la Amada, Chiapas, México
This paper differs from previous descriptions of Mesoamerican obsidian in that a simple flake industry rather than a blade industry is reported. Flake industries have been noted in many parts of Mesoamerica for the Early Preclassic period (Boksenbaum, 1978: Cobean et al., 1971; Coe, 1961; Coe and Flannery, 1967; Ceja, 1978; Grove, 1971: 40; Green and Lowe, 1967; Lowe, 1975; :MasNeish et al., 1967; Niederberger, 1976; Pires-Ferreira, 1976: 309; Ze…
Time Reckoning and Memorials in Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica was the time-place in the New World where the memory arts of writing and calendrical notation achieved their highest forms. Both had long histories going back at least to the first millennium bc and were part of an even longer and wider history of memorials and commemorations dating millennia earlier. In this essay we consider time and memorials as social constructs and forms of practice and provide data for sequential changes in both…
A Touch of Teotihuacan at Izapa
Two burials excavated at Izapa in 1963 have special green obsidian artifacts made at Teotihuacan. We describe the contexts and contents of these burials and consider the significance of their contents in light of Spence's (1996) model of Teotihuacan exchange of obsidian objects. We interpret the Izapa artifacts as gifted objects indicative of the political independence of Izapa in Middle Classic times
What Mean These Stones
A low-level speech synthesis by rule system
Intelligibility comparisons for two synthetic and one natural speech source
"An Ethnographic Note on "Water Treatment of Flint
Contemporary Obsidian use at Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico
A Macrocore in the Regional Museum in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico
NotesI would like to thank the directors and personnel of the Regional Museum in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas who allowed me to examine their stored artifacts and also made available their museum files. I am also appreciative of the assistance provided by the New World Archaeological Foundation, Dr. Gareth Lowe, director, who provided transportation, letters of introduction and photographic services
Contemporary Obsidian use at Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico
A Specialized Obsidian Quarry at Otumba, Mexico
Compte rendu d'une visite, effectuee avec un groupe d'etudiants en archeologie de Mexico, a la carriere d'obsidienne d'Otumba. Comparaison avec d'autres sources d'obsidienne d'Amerique centrale. L'etude simultanee de la technologie de l'obsidienne et des carrieres d'obsidienne interesse le probleme des routes commerciales, de la specialisation artisanale et de l'organisation socio-politique de la region entourant la source d'obsidienne
An experimental investigation into the perception of slips of the tongue
Conferences on Mesoamerican Chipped Stone
A low-level speech synthesis by rule system
Lithic Studies in Mesoamerica
"An Ethnographic Note on "Water Treatment of Flint
Manufacture of Mesoamerican Prismatic Blades
Recent analyses of primary documentary sources have demonstrated that Don Crabtree's technique of prismatic blade manufacture differs significantly from that of the ancient Mexicans. The most widely known of these ethnohistoric descriptions of blademaking, as well as several previously not considered, are reevaluated and compared to the Crabtree technique. Major discrepancies between the Aztec technique and that described by Crabtree then became …
Intelligibility comparisons for two synthetic and one natural speech source
Counterflaking and the Manufacture of Mesoamerican Prismatic Blades
Experimental and archaeological examples of counterflaking damage are presented and discussed. It is argued that the non-random occurrence of this type of damage is indicative of different blade-making techniques. The pattern of counterflaking noted for archaeological prismatic blades is convincing evidence that pre-Columbian, Mesoamerican knappers held cores with their feet rather than with vises
Platforms, Bits, Punches and Vises
Several unresolved issues of Mesoamerican prismatic blade manufacture concern the bit used in the Aztec pressure tool, the importance of indirect percussion in blade production (Clark 1982:373), and the possible use of vises in pre-Columbian times. Relying on data from recent studies of archaeological assemblages, replication experiments, and contemporary ethnographic practices, I argue that the bit of the Aztec tool was probably hard wood, that …
Archeology and Volcanism in Central America
Modernity in Japanese Painting
Another Look at Small Debitage and Microdebitage
After a brief review of recent studies of small debitage and microdebitage it is suggested that such studies would be most useful in identifying primary knapping areas. In particular, Behm's (1983) study of primary and secondary deposits of knapping refuse is evaluated in light of ethnographic evidence, mostly from Mesoamerica. These data indicate that neither o f Behm 's criteria hold in all situations. A major factor determining the nature of w…
Modernism and traditional Japanese-style painting
Development of categorical identification of native and non-native bilabial stops
Using an infant speech identification (ISI) procedure, English language environment infants, two- and six-year-old children, and adults were tested for their identification of sounds on a native (voiced/voiceless bilabial stop) and a non-native (prevoiced/voiced bilabial stop) speech continuum. Categorical perception of the two contrasts diverged as a function of age, increasing for the native contrast and decreasing for the non-native between tw…
Prehistoric Subsistence in the Soconusco Region
The power of prestige
Introduction Explanations of the origins of institutionalized social inequality and political privilege must resolve the central paradox of political life – why people cooperate with their own subordination and exploitation in noncoercive circumstances (Godelier 1986:13). In the following pages we address this paradox for an archaeological case from Mesoamerica. The first chiefdoms in lowland Mesoamerica, the focus of this discussion, appear to h…
Yôga in Japan
Radiocarbon Chronology for the Late Archaic and Formative Periods on the Pacific Coast of Southeastern Mesoamerica
Archaeological excavations carried out during the past five years along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador have recovered 79 new14C dates for the Late Archaic and Early to Middle Formative periods. We analyze these new dates along with 25 previously published dates to refine a sequence of 10 archaeological phases spanning almost three and a half millennia, from ca. 4000 to 650 B.C. The phases are summarized with a brief descr…
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What Mean These Stones
The Arts of Government in Early Mesoamerica
This review addresses issues of governmentality for Mesoamerica's earliest kingdoms. About 3200 years ago the Olmecs instituted stratified society based upon sacred kingship. Supervision of public works projects, the creation and deployment of monumental art, and control of ritual and ideology were the kings' principal means of governance within their kingdoms. Evidence for Olmec governance outside their region is equivocal. Olmecs may have conqu…
A Technological Typology of Prismatic Blades and Debitage From Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico
A technological typology for the description and analysis of Mesoamerican obsidian industries is proposed, and its relative merits vis-à-vis Sheets's (1975a) “behavioral” typology are briefly explored. The typology is used to classify and describe a pristine deposit of obsidian-blade refuse recovered from the Early Classic Maya site of Ojo de Agua, Chiapas, Mexico. Analysis of this deposit revealed that the obsidian artifacts were manufacturing r…
History (42 works) · Archaeology (34 works) · Geography (25 works) · Art (22 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (21 works) · Latin American history and culture (21 works) · Sociology (17 works) · History (16 works) · Political science (16 works) · Computer Science (15 works)