Research
My research explores the entanglement of religion, politics, and inequality in prehispanic Mesoamerica. While traditional models of political organization in the Americas focus on elites’ “top-down” control over wealth, labor, and resources, less attention has been paid to the agency of commoners and rural populations. Fewer studies have focused on religion as an institution that could enable or constrain political integration. I approach these topics from a variety of methodological and theoretical perspectives, particularly through remote sensing, Indigenous ontology, and materiality theory.
The Río Verde Hinterland Project
My doctoral research at the University of Colorado approached political integration from the “bottom-up” by examining the earliest complex polity to develop in coastal Oaxaca during the later Formative period (400 BCE‒250 CE). The region’s political seat emerged at the urban center of Río Viejo at ca. 100 CE, and secondary communities dotted the surrounding hinterland. The region witnessed substantial increases in population and political complexity during this time, but the incipient polity was unstable and collapsed at 250 CE. To address this rapid dissolution, I began the Río Verde Hinterland Project (RVHP) to examine the social and material relations that constituted meaningful collectivities throughout the valley, focusing on the rural site of Cerro de la Virgen.
Phase 1 of the RVHP has demonstrated that the community of Cerro de la Virgen retained autonomy over large-scale rituals that were instrumental in crafting a collective identity. For example, religious offerings placed in public buildings, including a deposit of 260 complete vessels and a “sacred bundle” containing the region’s only known carved stone mask, were cached in patterns that starkly contrasted to those seen at other sites in the valley, including Río Viejo. Sourcing analyses of obsidian tools and ceramic serving wares also suggested that small communities had access to interregional trade routes and control over craft production. These results are published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Latin American Antiquity, and chapters in edited volumes published by the University Presses of Colorado and Florida.
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Future Research:
Phase 2 of the RVHP by conducting excavations at Paradero la Tortuga and Monte La Soledad—essential rural complements to Cerro de la Virgen. Phase 2 will also incorporate paleobotanical and chemical analyses of ceramic offering vessels from Cerro de la Virgen that will examine trace evidence of the materials that accompanied the site’s unique ritual deposits.
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Phase 3 of the RVHP will involve collecting and analyzing LiDAR data from the Lagunas de Chacahua National Park, a densely forested and understudied area of coastal Oaxaca.
Publications
*Please feel free to email me if there is a publication listed below that is unavailable and you would like access to it.
PEER-REVIEWED
In prep Brzezinski, J. S., Scott Macrae, Melvin Rodrigo Guzman Piedrasanta, Daniel Pierce, Karla Julieta Cardona, George Micheletti, Brigitte Kovacevich, and Michael Callaghan. “Sacred Sights and Sounds: GIS Modeling of Ritual Landscapes at El Mirador, Guatemala.” Unpublished manuscript in possession of the authors, to be submitted to American Anthropologist.
In prep Melvin Rodrigo Guzman Piedrasanta, Scott Macrae, Jeffrey Brzezinski, Daniel Pierce, Karla Julieta Cardona, George Micheletti, Brigitte Kovacevich, and Michael Callaghan. “Understanding settlement adaptation and densities in the landscape of El Mirador, Guatemala.” Unpublished manuscript in possession of the authors, to be submitted to Ancient Mesoamerica.
In prep Macrae, Scott, Jeffrey S. Brzezinski, Melvin Rodrigo Guzman Piedrasanta, Daniel Pierce, Karla Julieta Cardona, Brigitte Kovacevich, and Michael Callaghan. “Ground-Truthing LiDAR in the Mirador Landscape: An Efficacy Test of LiDAR.” Unpublished manuscript in possession of the authors, to be submitted to Journal of Archaeological Science.
In prep Brzezinski, J. S. “Hinterland Craft Production and Exchange in Terminal Formative Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico.” Unpublished manuscript in possession of the author, to be submitted to Journal of Field Archaeology.
In press Brzezinski, J. S. and G. D. Hepp. “Ritual Transformation in Formative Period Oaxaca: A Comparative Analysis of Deity Embodiment, Nagualism, and Hybrid Beings.” Unpublished manuscript in possession of the authors, submitted for inclusion in special issue of Latin American Antiquity.
2024 Brzezinski, J. S. “People of Clay and Stone: Indexing Other-Than-Human Animacy and Collective Identity in Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico.” Latin American Antiquity. Published online 2024:1-19. doi:10.1017/laq.2024.12
2022 Brzezinski, J. S., V. Monson, A. A. Joyce, and S. B. Barber. “The Offerings of Cerro de la Virgen: Politics, Religion, and Identity on the Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico.” In Identities, Experience, and Change in Early Mexican Villages, eds. C. E. Santasilia, G. D. Hepp, and R. Diehl. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
2022 Brzezinski, J. S., S. B. Barber, and A.A. Joyce. “The Emergence of Complex Imagery on Late Terminal Formative Gray Ware Pottery from the Lower Río Verde Valley.” In Crafting Complexity: Material Culture and Agency in Mesoamerica, Lisa L. DeLance and G. Feinman, eds. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
2020 Hepp, G. D., S. B. Barber, J. S. Brzezinski, A. A. Joyce, and R. Wedemeyer. “The Symbolism, Use, and Archaeological Context of Masks in Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 30(2): 257-274.
2017 Brzezinski, J. S., A. A. Joyce, and S. B. Barber. “Constituting Animacy and Community in a Terminal Formative Bundled Offering from Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 27(3): 511-531.
2016 Joyce, A. A., S. B. Barber, J. S. Brzezinski, C. J. Lucido, and V. Salazar Chávez. “Negotiating Political Authority and Community in Terminal Formative Coastal Oaxaca.” In Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, S. Kurnick and J. Baron, eds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
DISSERTATION, THESES, AND REPORTS
2019 Brzezinski, J. S. Terminal Formative Religion and Political Organization on the Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico: The Perspective from Cerro de la Virgen. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado Boulder.
2015 Brzezinski, J. S. “Excavaciones en Cerro de la Virgen.” In El Proyecto Río Verde: Informe Técnico de la Temporada de 2013. Sarah B. Barber and Arthur A. Joyce, eds. Final report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Mexico City, Mexico.
2013 Brzezinski, J. S. and A. A. Joyce. “Excavaciones de la Operación A.” In El Proyecto Río Verde: Informe Técnico de la Temporada de 2012. Sarah B. Barber and Arthur A. Joyce, eds. Final report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Mexico City, Mexico.
2012 Brzezinski, J. S. and J. Aguilar. “Excavaciones de la Operación A.” In El Proyecto Río Verde: Informe Técnico de la Temporada de 2009. Final report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Mexico City, Mexico.
2012 Brzezinski, J. S. “Excavaciones de la Operación B.” In El Proyecto Río Verde: Informe Técnico de la Temporada de 2009. Final report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Mexico City, Mexico.
2012 Hedgepeth, J., J. S. Brzezinski, D. T. Williams, and H. Baillie. “Excavaciones de la Operación D.” In El Proyecto Río Verde: Informe Técnico de la Temporada de 2009. Final report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Mexico City, Mexico.
2011 Brzezinski, J. S. Worldview, Ideology, and Ceramic Iconography: A Study of Late Terminal Formative Gray Wares from the Lower Río Verde Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of Central Florida.