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Posts by Jessica MacLellan

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Postdoctoral Fellow in Pre-Columbian Art/Archaeology at Dumbarton Oaks/Harvard University Dumbarton Oaks is a research institute affiliated with Harvard University that supports research internationally in the field of Pre-Columbian Studies. In addition to world-renowned library and museum collections, Dumbarton Oaks’ Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) holds more than a million unique items in a variety of media, including extensive material relating to the language and ceramics of the ancient Maya elite. Dumbarton Oaks invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow to join a team working to create comprehensive access to Justin Kerr’s systematic photographic documentation of ancient Maya painted ceramics.  The Postdoctoral Fellow in Pre-Columbian Art/Archaeology will receive training in archival processing and digital curation and will support digitization initiatives to increase access to ICFA collections for scholars and the public. The Fellow will be fully integrated into the Library and Pre-Columbian Studies Program and will work closely with  the staff of the Image Collection and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) to process the Justin Kerr Collection, which consists of photographs of approximately 6,000 unique Mesoamerican objects. To date, the majority of the photographs previously available on Justin Kerr’s website  have been migrated to Harvard’s HOLLIS Images platform, but only about 50% of the vessels with hieroglyphic texts have been fully cataloged. The goal of the Fellowship will be to complete the cataloging of vessels with legible inscriptions and to describe iconography on all uncatalogued Maya objects. The Kerr Collection complements further documentation of ancient Maya ceramics and exhaustive documentation of Moche and Nasca ceramics in other ICFA collections. Outcomes of the fellowship may include scholarly publications on ancient Maya epigraphy and iconography as well as contributions to open access digital platforms and further expansion of a gateway to Justin Kerr’s photographs of Maya ceramics to be published alongside Dumbarton Oaks’ Moche Iconography site. This fellowship offers unique opportunities to build career skills with special collections and digital technologies while benefiting from the unique resources of Dumbarton Oaks. The Fellow will participate fully in Dumbarton Oaks’ dynamic community of scholars and programming in Pre-Columbian Studies and will devote 20% of the fellowship time to personal research. This is a one-year fellowship appointment, with the possibility of renewal for two additional years. Applicants must have fulfilled all the requirements for the PhD by the time of application. The Postdoctoral Fellow will report to the Director of the Library.  The Postdoctoral Fellow will have access to the outstanding resources of the institute and become part of the larger research community at Dumbarton Oaks. The Fellowship carries a stipend of $67,600 per year with an additional $3,000 annual, taxable research allowance. The Postdoctoral Fellow will be eligible for medical insurance through the Dumbarton Oaks Fellows’ plan and will be provided with an office space, access to the library and museum collections, and complimentary weekday lunches, among other privileges of our community of fellows.  The health of our community is a priority for Harvard University. With that in mind, we strongly encourage all employees to be up to date on CDC-recommended vaccines.

Post-doc opening at Dumbarton Oaks 🏺 academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/16071

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Recreating the forms and sounds of historical musical instruments - MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering

dmse.mit.edu/news/recreat... 🏺🎵🔬

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New Themed Issue calls for urgent shift away from “Leaky Pipeline” metaphor as studies reveal systemic exclusion of women in Archaeology A new themed issue of Advances in Archaeological Practice, published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA), argues that the long‑standing “leaky p...

New Themed Issue calls for urgent shift away from “Leaky Pipeline” metaphor as studies reveal systemic exclusion of women in Archaeology | EurekAlert! 🏺https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1120637

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Debate explodes over age of key South American archaeological site New study argues Monte Verde is far younger than once thought, challenging when people arrived in the Americas

www.science.org/content/arti... 🏺

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Apocalypse no: how almost everything we thought we knew about the Maya is wrong For many years the prevailing debate about the Maya centred upon why their civilisation collapsed. Now, many scholars are asking: how did the Maya survive?

www.theguardian.com/news/2026/fe... 🏺

2 months ago 8 2 0 1
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Why whistles are becoming the symbol of the moment This hour, we look at how whistles are being used by organizers across the country, we discuss ancient whistles, and we talk about whistleblowers.

I was interviewed live (eek) on the Colin McEnroe Show about the archaeology of whistles and flutes: www.ctpublic.org/show/the-col... Available as a podcast, thanks to Connecticut Public Radio! 🏺

2 months ago 5 1 0 0
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Easter Island and the Allure of “Lost Civilizations” Why Western writers have shrouded the history of Rapa Nui in myth and mystery.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/202... 🏺🗿

2 months ago 3 2 1 0
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Oldest known cremation pyre in Africa reveals mysterious woman who lived 9,500 years ago | CNN The oldest known cremation pyre in Africa is shedding light on the complex funeral rites of ancient hunter-gatherers 9,500 years ago.

www.cnn.com/2026/01/06/s... 🏺💀

3 months ago 4 0 0 0
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Aguada Fénix

stri.si.edu/story/aguada... Featuring Smithsonian zooarchaeologist Ashley Sharpe 🏺

4 months ago 7 0 0 0
Dealing with Uniqueness: A Classic Period Maya Mosaic Ceramic Patolli Board from Naachtun, Guatemala | Latin American Antiquity | Cambridge Core Dealing with Uniqueness: A Classic Period Maya Mosaic Ceramic Patolli Board from Naachtun, Guatemala

www.cambridge.org/core/journal... A Classic Maya board game, made from pottery fragments 🏺♟️

4 months ago 4 0 0 0
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Amorphous carbonized objects and their contribution to reconstructing ancient Mesoamerican cuisine: An innovative non-destructive methodological approach Archaeobotanists often come across small, amorphous carbonized objects (ACOs) in their flotation samples. Although their identification remains difficult and requires a range of characterization techn...

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... Tamales & Teotihuacan! 🏺🫔🔬

5 months ago 6 2 0 0
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Scientists may finally have an explanation for the centuries-old 5,200 mystery holes in the Peruvian Andes Drone footage and on-the-ground excavations high in the Andes are revealing what the Chincha Kingdom and Inca Empire may have used these holes for centuries ago.

www.livescience.com/archaeology/... 🏺

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Massive 3,000-year-old Maya site in Mexico depicts the cosmos and the 'order of the universe,' study claims A roughly 3,000-year-old site in Mexico was built in the shape of a cosmogram that stretches for miles, a new study suggests.

www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

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Archaeologists discover how oldest American civilisation survived a climate catastrophe Experts find artefacts left behind in Caral showing how population survived drought without resorting to violence

www.theguardian.com/science/2025... 🏺

5 months ago 1 1 0 0
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News - Early Maya Monument Examined - Archaeology Magazine TUCSON, ARIZONA—According to a CNN report, excavations at Aguada Fénix, a plateau made of earth […]

archaeology.org/news/2025/11...

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La construcción más grande de la región maya fue levantada sin trabajo esclavo para representar el universo El yacimiento de Aguada Fénix es un enorme comosgrama que debieron de construir centenares de personas durante décadas

elpais.com/ciencia/2025...

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Some of that knowledge survives, thanks to the Indigenous people of Mexico and Central America.

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U of A-led team discovers large ritual constructions by early Mesoamericans Archaeologists working in southeastern Mexico unearthed further signs that a monument first recorded in 2020 is one of the region's most significant ceremonial sites known today.

news.arizona.edu/news/u-led-t...

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Oldest and biggest Maya temple was built to depict the cosmos | CNN Archaeologists say a vast and ancient Maya monument reflected how the lost civilization viewed the universe.

www.cnn.com/2025/11/05/s...

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Landscape-wide cosmogram built by the early community of Aguada Fénix in southeastern Mesoamerica The cosmogram of Aguada Fénix built over the landscape between 1050 and 700 BCE rivaled the extents of later Mesoamerican cities.

The open-access article: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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There’s a Monumental Cosmic Map Hidden beneath Mexico’s Oldest Maya Site Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a ritual-based site that may have been built long before the rise of Maya rulers

www.scientificamerican.com/article/arch... "Archaeologists Uncover a Monumental Ancient Maya Map of the Cosmos" -- exciting news from Aguada Fénix, Tabasco! 🏺

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https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.70034

"LiDAR‐Based Storytelling About a Historical Industrial Landscape in Southern Middle Tennessee," by Klehm & Westmont, open-access in American Anthropologist: t.co/3rFWIUFMRN 🏺

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Honoring the Founder | Copán Ruinas Exploring the Legacy of K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', Copan's Founding Ancestor: Rituals, Monuments, and Dynastic Origins.

It seems that the archaeologists did not remove the protective white-wash layer of stucco that the Maya added at the building's termination. They were able to determine the original colors through small tests. There's some more detailed info on that here, from Barbara Fash: mused.com/stories/960/...

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Temple 26 and Excavation Tunnels, Copan | Copán Ruinas Since the 1930’s, archaeologists have tunneled into the acropolis at Copan to understand the many phases of construction throughout its history. With investigations now mostly complete, the tunnels ...

mused.com/guided/158/t... Explore monuments and excavations at the Classic Maya city of Copan, in 3D! 🏺

5 months ago 23 7 1 0
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Early Maya Monumentalism The time period ∼1200–1000 BCE was pivotal in the Maya area, which witnessed the adoption of ceramics, changes in subsistence practices, a decrease in mobility, and the first monumental constructions....

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... Dani Triadan's review of early Maya monumentalism, featuring insights from Aguada Fénix and Ceibal 🏺

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A MacArthur 'genius' gleans surprising lessons from ancient bones, shards and trash Kristina Douglass wanted to find out the truth about how past communities adapted to environmental change. Her revelatory work has earned her a MacArthur award.

www.npr.org/sections/goa... 🏺

6 months ago 13 2 0 1
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After Vesuvius Buried Pompeii, Some Survivors Moved Back In

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/s... 🏺🌋

6 months ago 6 3 0 0
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

Wake Forest University is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology! Apply by November 15: apply.interfolio.com/174678

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