Starting any new archaeological project comes with difficult challenges and gratifying rewards. This is especially true for a project that seeks to incorporate public archaeology from its very inception. The Proyecto Arqueológico Nejapa y Tavela was initiated in 2007 by Stacie M. King in an area of Oaxaca without previous formal archaeological work. This paper seeks to explore the various methods we have used to incorporate a public component from the beginning of the project until the present. Public archaeology was conducted in the Nejapa Valley in the communities of Nejapa de Madero and Santa Ana Tavela, which vary in location within the valley, size, access to resources, and concerns among community members. The two towns also have different systems of land tenure that we propose is connected to different levels of local interest and investment in the practice and results of archaeological research. Our initial public archaeology methods included public talks, participation in local events, and the presentation of framed posters about archaeological findings to each town. We discuss the outcomes of these initial efforts, outline more recent and more successful approaches, and discuss our plans to include a community-based research component.Key words: Public archaeology, community-based research, Oaxaca, Mexico. Doing public archaeology and employing community-based methods are no longer viewed as novel activities in archaeology (Kerber 2006;Little 2002). However, specific methods and frameworks for incorporating public archaeology are not part of the canon of methods that all archaeologists employ. As such, it is important for archaeologists engaging in this type of work to communicate both the successes and the failures. In this article, we focus on the Proyecto Arqueológico Nejapa y Tavela (Nejapa and Tavela Archaeological Project, or PANT) and discuss both the challenges and the gratifying rewards that we have experienced doing public archaeology. We explore the various methods we have used to incorporate a public component from the beginning of the project and, as this is an ongoing project, we also discuss some of our more recent -and more successful-efforts. Lastly, we detail our plans for future work, which will incorporate more explicitly framed community-based collaborative research. El inicio de cualquier nuevo proyecto arqueológico lleva consigo desafíos difíciles y recompensas gratificantes. Esto es especialmente válido para proyectos que buscan incorporar arqueología pública desde sus comienzos. El Proyecto Arqueológico Nejapa y TavelaStacie King began the PANT in 2007 to explore a little studied region in southeastern Oaxaca, Mexico that lies on a long-standing trade route between
En Majaltepec, un pueblo colonial en las montañas de la región de Nejapa, se encontraron ocho personas enterradas debajo del piso de una casa de la élite hecho de adobe; algunas con ofrendas de cuentas de vidrio y azabache, un cuchillo de metal, y un malacate de cerámica. Estos individuos fueron enterrados en diferentes momentos, cuyas edades oscilaban entre la infancia y de 15 a 21 años de edad a la muerte. Las 448 cuentas, completas y fragmentadas, fueron hechas usando varias técnicas, incluyendo el chapado de oro, que probablemente es originario de España, Francia y/o Venecia. Es factible que hayan llegado a la región de Nejapa a través de clérigos dominicos encargados de evangelizar y extraer tributo de los pueblos indígenas locales en todo México. La mayoría de las cuentas se encontraron como parte de una pieza (o piezas) de joyería con un broche de cobre; algunas de las cuentas aún enhebradas con hilo de algodón. Aunque los residentes de Nejapa estaban vinculados a las redes de intercambio intercontinentales, ellos adaptaron desde una lógica local los bienes extranjeros dentro y fuera de las prácticas funerarias. El presente estudio ofrece una visión de las conexiones globales y locales mantenidas entre continentes incluyendo los cambios acelerados durante el periodo Colonial temprano.
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