Brandeis University
Department of Anthropology
P.O. Box 549110, MS 006
Waltham, MA 02454
(781) 736-2223
urcid@brandeis.edu
Profile
Associate Professor in Anthropology
Chair of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program
Javier Urcid is an anthropological archaeologist interested in how symbolic systems, including scribal traditions and other forms of material culture, integrated social practices in ancient Mesoamerican cultures. Other interests center on archaeological approaches to political economies and on bio-archeology, particularly work on the social dimensions of mortuary practices and cultural/ritual modifications of human bones. His experience on forensic approaches to the study of human skeletal remains includes the analysis of large burial series from several archaeological sites in the central valleys of Oaxaca, of some 3,000 sets of remains targeted for repatriation formerly housed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C., and of burial series curated in the Harvard Peabody Museum.
Selected Publications
J. Urcid, L. Leonardo López (2020). Xochicalco en Mexico-Tenochtitlan: apropiaciones gráficas en la tradicíon escrituraria tardía de la Cuenca de México. Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, UNAM.
J. Urcid (2018). Advances in Oaxaca Archaeology – Cerro de las Minas: Arqueología de la Mixteca Baja. Marcus Winter, Centro INAH Oaxaca.
J. Urcid (2018). Ritual and Society in Ancient Central Oaxaca (350-850 CE), chap 2 from book “Real Fake: The story of a Zapotec Urn”.
S. Van Doesburg, J. Urcid (2017). Two Fragments of an Ancient Mantic Manuscript in San Bartolo Yautepec, Oaxaca. Ancient Mesoamerica 28(02): 1-19.
J. Urcid (2014). Mythical Past and Historied Present: Another Interpretation of a Polychrome Vessel from Nochixtlan, Oaxaca. Signs and Society 2(1): 127-170.
M. Lind, J. Urcid (2010). The Lords of Lambityeco and the Collaptse of Monte Albán: Political Evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca during the Xoo Phase (650-850 CE). Boulder: University Press of Colorado.