Helen Perlstein Pollard
Biographic Data
| ID | 129127 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helen Perlstein Pollard |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helen Perlstein |
| FAMILY NAME | Pollard |
| SIGNATURE | POLLARD H P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 309 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Monitoring Cultural Change through Ceramics from the Prehispanic Tarascan Region: A Comparison of Typology, Sourcing of Pastes, and Symmetry Analysis
In Mesoamerica ceramics are used to define spatial and chronological units of past social, political, and economic activities. Here we compare results on ceramics subjected to type-variety classification, INAA and thin-section petrography, and symmetry analysis of design structure. The samples are primarily from sites in the Lake Pátzcuaro and Zacapu Basins in central and northern Michoacán from the Late Preclassic to the Late Postclassic periods…
Teotihuacan site 19: N1W5: Mortuary and oxygen isotope evidence for a Michoacan affiliation
Site E19 (19:N1W5), near Tlailotlacan, the “Zapotec Barrio” of Teotihuacan, contains evidence of both Tlailotlacan and Michoacan affiliation. To verify and better understand the Michoacan relationship, 22 enamel and 19 bone samples from five E19-affiliated burials were analyzed to determine their oxygen isotope compositions, which provide an indication of an individual's area of residence when that particular tissue was forming. Because prismatic…
Ceramics, Social Status, and the Tarascan State Economy
Specialization of ceramic production: A sherd assemblage based analytic perspective
A Model of the Emergence of the Tarascan State
Bya.d.1350, central-western Mexico was incorporated into the Tarascan state. Thisirechequa tzintzuntzani(kingdom of Tzintzuntzan) has been known primarily from sixteenth-century documents. With three decades of archaeological, ecological, and ethnohistoric research, it is now possible to propose a model of the emergence of the first archaic state in Michoacan. Critical issues to be addressed include (1) why state formation occurred (and why this …
Marx's Ghost: Conversations with Archaeologists
Tarascan
Rereading the Conquest: Power, Politics, and the History of Early Colonial Michoacán, Mexico, 1521-1565
This book is one of several recent studies of colonial Michoacán focusing on the process of evangelization, and the historiography of that process, using a form of postmodern or poststructuralist critical analysis. It has appeared at a time when a flourishing of more traditional historical studies is taking place at regional institutes of history in Michoacán, especially the Colegio de Michoacán (Zamora) and the Universidad Michoacana (Morelia). …
Mortuary Patterns of Regional Elites in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin of Western Mexico
Based primarily upon evidence from the site of Urichu in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin of Michoacán, we propose that changes in the burial practices of local elites document a transformation of these elites from highly ranked local chiefs into a socially stratified elite class associated with the emergence of the Tarascan state. Two distinctive mortuary patterns that represent the Classic-Epiclassic and Late Postclassic periods are presented. These pa…
Intensive agriculture and socio-political development in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico
Intensive agriculture played a pivotal role in the development of archaic states, but there is considerable debate concerning its relationship to population growth, climatic variability, and centralization
Recent research in west Mexican archaeology
The Anthropology of Technology: Mining and Metallurgy: In Quest of Mineral Wealth: Aboriginal and Colonial Mining and Metallurgy in Spanish America . Alan Craig and Robert West, eds.: The Sounds and C…
Latin American Horizons: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 11th and 12th October 1986
Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
Ethnicity and political control in a complex society: The Tarascan state of prehispanic Mexico
The interrelationship between ethnic units and a central political authority is known historically to have been crucial to the operation of complex societies. In the process of this interaction central authorities, particularly ruling elites, have created new ethnic groups, have altered the attributes which define ethnic identity, and have restructured relationships between ethnic groups (Enloe 1980:17ff.). Political authorities have two fundamen…
Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World
Factionalism is an important force of social transformation, and this volume examines how factional competition in the kinship and political structures in ancient New World societies led to the development of chiefdoms, states and empires. The case studies, from a range of New World societies, represent all levels of non-egalitarian societies and a wide variety of ecological settings in the New World. They document the effects of factionalism on …
Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
Prehispanic Archeology, Ethnohistory, and Soil Erosion: A Debate Over Modern Agricultural Sustainability
Archaeology and Public Policy
Taricuri's Legacy: The Prehistoric Tarascan State
Tarícuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
Prehispanic Archeology, Ethnohistory, and Soil Erosion: A Debate Over Modern Agricultural Sustainability
Society for Latin American Anthropology
Society for Latin American Anthropology
Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World
Factionalism is an important force of social transformation, and this volume examines how factional competition in the kinship and political structures in ancient New World societies led to the development of chiefdoms, states and empires. The case studies, from a range of New World societies, represent all levels of non-egalitarian societies and a wide variety of ecological settings in the New World. They document the effects of factionalism on …
Mortuary Patterns of Regional Elites in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin of Western Mexico
Based primarily upon evidence from the site of Urichu in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin of Michoacán, we propose that changes in the burial practices of local elites document a transformation of these elites from highly ranked local chiefs into a socially stratified elite class associated with the emergence of the Tarascan state. Two distinctive mortuary patterns that represent the Classic-Epiclassic and Late Postclassic periods are presented. These pa…
A Model of the Emergence of the Tarascan State
Bya.d.1350, central-western Mexico was incorporated into the Tarascan state. Thisirechequa tzintzuntzani(kingdom of Tzintzuntzan) has been known primarily from sixteenth-century documents. With three decades of archaeological, ecological, and ethnohistoric research, it is now possible to propose a model of the emergence of the first archaic state in Michoacan. Critical issues to be addressed include (1) why state formation occurred (and why this …
Recent research in west Mexican archaeology
The Political Economy of Prehispanic Tarascan Metallurgy
Tarascan metallurgy was not only a complex technology, but a significant marker of elite social status and a major source of wealth for the ruling dynasty. Reanalysis of ethnohistoric material, when coupled with new cartographic and archaeological data, provides insight into the structure and role of copper, silver, and gold production in the Protohistoric Tarascan State. The increasing political centralization of the Tarascan State in the last c…
Ecological variation and economic exchange in the Tarascan state
In this paper the relationship between population, resources, and economic exchange is delineated for the protohistoric Tarascan state. A model of the dynamic role of these variables in the state's evolution is presented that emphasizes resource shifts and differential adaptation of elite and commoners, including market intensification and militarism but excluding agricultural intensification and hydraulic works. The Tarascan state, then, represe…
Central Places and Cities: A Consideration of the Protohistoric Tarascan State
Systems of human settlement serve as primary sources of evidence for investigating variability in the evolution of complex societies. In particular, the existence of and nature of cities reveals much about the nature and direction of sociopolitical changes characteristic of prehistoric states. The present study places the analysis of prehistoric urbanism within the context of settlement system analyses and applies this approach to the protohistor…
Intensive agriculture and socio-political development in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico
Intensive agriculture played a pivotal role in the development of archaic states, but there is considerable debate concerning its relationship to population growth, climatic variability, and centralization
The Construction of Ideology in the Emergence of the Prehispanic Tarascan State
The creation of a state religion and ethnicity is both the product of fundamental changes occurring in the control of political and economic resources as states emerge, and an instrument by which rulers, still aggregating power, establish cosmic orders demanding obedience to the state. This article considers the means by which the Tarascan royal dynasty appropriated, altered, and redefined various historical traditions in the creation of their ne…
Teotihuacan site 19: N1W5: Mortuary and oxygen isotope evidence for a Michoacan affiliation
Site E19 (19:N1W5), near Tlailotlacan, the “Zapotec Barrio” of Teotihuacan, contains evidence of both Tlailotlacan and Michoacan affiliation. To verify and better understand the Michoacan relationship, 22 enamel and 19 bone samples from five E19-affiliated burials were analyzed to determine their oxygen isotope compositions, which provide an indication of an individual's area of residence when that particular tissue was forming. Because prismatic…
Merchant Colonies, Semi-Mesoamericans, and the Study of Cultural Contact: A Comment on Anawalt
Using evidence of dress modes, metallurgy, mortuary structures, and language, Anawalt (1992) presents a model of the impact of Ecuadorean trading colonies on West Mexican prehistory. But the model is built on inaccurate data about the Tarascans, and simplifies, to the point of distortion, the prehistory of the region. Furthermore, by linking the hypothesized Ecuadorean colonies to a semi-mesoamerican quality that is assumed to characterize West M…
Research standards and archaeological monographs: The case of cozumel
Jeremy A. Sabloff and William L. Rathje, eds. A Study of Changing Pre‐Columbian Commercial Systems: The 1972–1973 Seasons at Cozumel, Mexico. A Preliminary Report. Monographs of the Peabody Museum, Number 3. Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1975. xii + 138 pp. Maps, figures, illustrations, tables and references. $7.50
Central Places and Cities: A Consideration of the Protohistoric Tarascan State
Systems of human settlement serve as primary sources of evidence for investigating variability in the evolution of complex societies. In particular, the existence of and nature of cities reveals much about the nature and direction of sociopolitical changes characteristic of prehistoric states. The present study places the analysis of prehistoric urbanism within the context of settlement system analyses and applies this approach to the protohistor…
Ecological variation and economic exchange in the Tarascan state
In this paper the relationship between population, resources, and economic exchange is delineated for the protohistoric Tarascan state. A model of the dynamic role of these variables in the state's evolution is presented that emphasizes resource shifts and differential adaptation of elite and commoners, including market intensification and militarism but excluding agricultural intensification and hydraulic works. The Tarascan state, then, represe…
The Tarascan Civilization: A Late Prehispanic Cultural System
The Tarascan Civilization: A Late Prehispanic Cultural System
Acambaro: Frontier Settlement on the Tarascan-Aztec Border
The Political Economy of Prehispanic Tarascan Metallurgy
Tarascan metallurgy was not only a complex technology, but a significant marker of elite social status and a major source of wealth for the ruling dynasty. Reanalysis of ethnohistoric material, when coupled with new cartographic and archaeological data, provides insight into the structure and role of copper, silver, and gold production in the Protohistoric Tarascan State. The increasing political centralization of the Tarascan State in the last c…
The Construction of Ideology in the Emergence of the Prehispanic Tarascan State
The creation of a state religion and ethnicity is both the product of fundamental changes occurring in the control of political and economic resources as states emerge, and an instrument by which rulers, still aggregating power, establish cosmic orders demanding obedience to the state. This article considers the means by which the Tarascan royal dynasty appropriated, altered, and redefined various historical traditions in the creation of their ne…
Society for Latin American Anthropology
Vocabulario en lengua de Mechuacan compuesto por el reverendo padre Fray Maturino Gilberti
Maguey Utilization in Highland Central Mexico: An Archaeological Ethnography . Jeffrey R. Parsons and Mary H. Parsons
Society For Latin American Anthropology
Society for Latin American Anthropology
Society for Latin American Anthropology
Taríacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
In Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State, Helen Perlstein Pollard draws upon ethnohistoric documentation, ecological data, and archaeological research, including her own recent work in the region, to provide the first comprehensive overview of the Tarascan state, one of the two great political powers the Spanish encountered when they arrived in Mexico in the early sixteenth century. The Tarascans dominated western Mexico - in a state…
Merchant Colonies, Semi-Mesoamericans, and the Study of Cultural Contact: A Comment on Anawalt
Using evidence of dress modes, metallurgy, mortuary structures, and language, Anawalt (1992) presents a model of the impact of Ecuadorean trading colonies on West Mexican prehistory. But the model is built on inaccurate data about the Tarascans, and simplifies, to the point of distortion, the prehistory of the region. Furthermore, by linking the hypothesized Ecuadorean colonies to a semi-mesoamerican quality that is assumed to characterize West M…
Diccionario grande de la lengua de Michoacan, espanol-tarasco y tarasco espanol
Ethnicity and political control in a complex society: The Tarascan state of prehispanic Mexico
The interrelationship between ethnic units and a central political authority is known historically to have been crucial to the operation of complex societies. In the process of this interaction central authorities, particularly ruling elites, have created new ethnic groups, have altered the attributes which define ethnic identity, and have restructured relationships between ethnic groups (Enloe 1980:17ff.). Political authorities have two fundamen…
Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World
Factionalism is an important force of social transformation, and this volume examines how factional competition in the kinship and political structures in ancient New World societies led to the development of chiefdoms, states and empires. The case studies, from a range of New World societies, represent all levels of non-egalitarian societies and a wide variety of ecological settings in the New World. They document the effects of factionalism on …
Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
Prehispanic Archeology, Ethnohistory, and Soil Erosion: A Debate Over Modern Agricultural Sustainability
Archaeology and Public Policy
Taricuri's Legacy: The Prehistoric Tarascan State
Tarícuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State
Prehispanic Archeology, Ethnohistory, and Soil Erosion: A Debate Over Modern Agricultural Sustainability
Archaeology (26 works) · History (22 works) · Geography (21 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Computer Science (19 works) · Anthropology (16 works) · Latin American history and culture (16 works) · Political science (16 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (13 works) · Law (12 works)