Papers by John M . D . Pohl
Essay, 2025
Research into the Middle Postclassic introduces a new and progressive area that explains much in ... more Research into the Middle Postclassic introduces a new and progressive area that explains much in terms of the dramatic changes that took place across Mesoamerica between 1150-1450 CE and continue to be expressed by the broad diversity of Indigenous populations extending between the Mexico and the Greater US Southwest. I focus on Cholula and its cult as a coordinating center for Eastern Nahua kingdoms across the Plain of Puebla through the Tehuacan Valley and into Oaxaca that maintained a political system based on meritocratic rule by councils of tetecuhtin who were confirmed in their positions at Cholula through a Tolteca-Chichimeca ritual dedicated to the patron god Quetzalcoatl.
by Michael D Mathiowetz, John M . D . Pohl, Susana Ramirez Urrea, Luis Alfonso Grave Tirado, Cinthya Vidal, John Carpenter, Guadalupe Sanchez, Cristina Garcia M., James Watson, Danielle Phelps, and Daniel Pierce The Aztatlán tradition of northwest Mesoamerica (AD 850/900–1350+) is one of the most understudie... more The Aztatlán tradition of northwest Mesoamerica (AD 850/900–1350+) is one of the most understudied and enigmatic cultural developments in the Americas. This volume presents a spectrum of interdisciplinary research into Aztatlán societies, combining innovative archaeological methods with historical and ethnographic investigations. The results offer significant revelations about west Mexico’s critical role in over a millennium of cultural interaction between Indigenous societies in northwest and northeast Mexico, the Greater U.S. Southwest, Mesoamerica, lower Central America, and beyond.
Volume contributors show how those responsible for the Aztatlán tradition were direct ancestors of diverse Indigenous peoples such as the Náayeri (Cora), Wixárika (Huichol), O’dam (Tepehuan), Caz’ Ahmo (Caxcan), Yoeme (Yaqui), Yoreme (Mayo), and others who continue to reside across the former Aztatlán region and its frontiers. The prosperity of the Aztatlán tradition was achieved through long-distance networks that fostered the development of new ritual economies and integrated peoples in Greater Mesoamerica with those in the U.S. Southwest/Mexican Northwest.
https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/reassessing-the-aztatlan-world/
This is a draft of a chapter published in the volume "Reassessing the Aztatlan World." Please con... more This is a draft of a chapter published in the volume "Reassessing the Aztatlan World." Please consult and cite this chapter as follows:
2025 Pohl, John M. D., and Michael D. Mathiowetz. Introduction. Integrated Approaches to the Aztatlán Tradition: History, Scale, and New Directions. In Reassessing the Aztatlán World: Ethnogenesis and Cultural Continuity in Northwest Mesoamerica, Michael D. Mathiowetz and John M. D. Pohl, eds.: 1–37. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Reassessing the Aztatlán World, 2025
This article examines one of the primary means by which Postclassic kingdoms coordinated systems ... more This article examines one of the primary means by which Postclassic kingdoms coordinated systems of long distance exchange extending between the Greater American Southwest and Central America. It argues that what is identified by archaeologists as “wealth finance” in these societies actually manifested a shared socio-political ideology introduced at Cholula where it was connected with principals of rotational governance and then was spread across Mesoamerica.
Notes-Bibliography-Text for Translation, 2025
This article examines one of the primary means by which Postclassic kingdoms coordinated systems ... more This article examines one of the primary means by which Postclassic kingdoms coordinated systems of long distance exchange extending between the Greater American Southwest and Central America. It argues that what is identified by archaeologists as “wealth finance” in these societies actually manifested a shared socio-political ideology introduced at Cholula where it was connected with principals of rotational governance and then was spread across Mesoamerica.
PARI Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, 2025
This article contributes to the evidence for the development of the Late Postclassic Internationa... more This article contributes to the evidence for the development of the Late Postclassic International style and Pictographic Communication System at Cholula by an elite society that re-deployed the polychrome ceramic tradition of the Late Classic Maya with whom they had been engaged through intermarriage and trade.
PARI Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute, 2025
This article contributes to the evidence for the development of the Late Postclassic Internationa... more This article contributes to the evidence for the development of the Late Postclassic International style and Pictographic Communication System at Cholula by an elite society that re-deployed the polychrome ceramic tradition of the Late Classic Maya with whom they had been engaged through intermarriage and trade.
A polychrome ceramic fragment preserved in the Princeton University Art Museum is a masterpiece o... more A polychrome ceramic fragment preserved in the Princeton University Art Museum is a masterpiece of Mixtec codex-style art. It also features a place sign for a location that features prominently in the north wall mural of the Church Group at Mitla
Record Princeton University Art Museum 63, 2004
Michael Lind was one of the first to show that representational imagery with human features was r... more Michael Lind was one of the first to show that representational imagery with human features was relatively absent from the Nahua polychrome tradition of the Puebla through Tehuacan valleys versus Mixtec polychrome. The form and style of a bowl preserved in the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum is typical of the Cholula area in particular. It depicts Xochiquetzal an important patroness of Cholula ritualism.
This is part three of my supplementary notes relating to the identification of Achiutla as a majo... more This is part three of my supplementary notes relating to the identification of Achiutla as a major cult center of southern Mexico that accompanies the published article The Sun God and the Plumed Serpent in the Mixtec Codices. Here I focus on funerary customs and the differing treatment of the dead depending on their manner of death. Achiutla was specifically maintained as a cult dedicated to those nobles who had died in war or were sacrificed and then cremated rather than being preserved as mummy bundles like those of Chalcatongo. The practice is the origin of the name for Achiutla as Ñuu Ndecu or Burnt Town symbolized by the flame glyph place sign qualifier.
The presentation provides additional information for the article "The Sun God and the Plumed Serp... more The presentation provides additional information for the article "The Sun God and the Plumed Serpent" in the Mixtec Codices with regard to the correlation of place signs appearing in the Mixtec codices with archaeological sites and historical sources.
The article focuses on localized identifications of oracular priests that appear in the Mixtec co... more The article focuses on localized identifications of oracular priests that appear in the Mixtec codices. While inspired by Early Postclassic ritualism at Tula, Hidalgo and Chichen Itza, I compare the legend of Eight Deer to the Popl Vuh and in so doing demonstrate that the Mixtecs and the K'iché are applying the same strategies for the establishment of their segmentary city-states within locally defined territories. Also see the Notes and Bibliography that I have also posted for a generalized discussion of this phenomena across Mesoamerica between 1150-1450.
Archaeology Magazine
The Original Seminal Article on Maya Cave Ritualism
In Waves of Influence: Pacific Maritime Networks Connecting Mexico, Central America, and Northwestern South America, 2022
This chapter by John M. D. Pohl and Michael D. Mathiowetz appears in a Dumbarton Oaks volume edit... more This chapter by John M. D. Pohl and Michael D. Mathiowetz appears in a Dumbarton Oaks volume edited by Christopher S. Beekman and Colin McEwan. Please cite the chapter and volume as follows:
Pohl, John M.D. and Michael D. Mathiowetz
2022 Our Mother the Sea: The Pacific Coastal Exchange Network of Postclassic Mexico. In Waves of Influence: Pacific Maritime Networks Connecting Mexico, Central America, and Northwestern South America, Christopher S. Beekman and Colin McEwan, eds.: 167–201. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D. C.
Text for translation at end of document, 2021
History on a Mixtec Vase. Journal of the Gilcrease Museum. Vol. XV (2) pp. 52-64., 2008
The Flower World of Cholula, 2021
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Papers by John M . D . Pohl
Volume contributors show how those responsible for the Aztatlán tradition were direct ancestors of diverse Indigenous peoples such as the Náayeri (Cora), Wixárika (Huichol), O’dam (Tepehuan), Caz’ Ahmo (Caxcan), Yoeme (Yaqui), Yoreme (Mayo), and others who continue to reside across the former Aztatlán region and its frontiers. The prosperity of the Aztatlán tradition was achieved through long-distance networks that fostered the development of new ritual economies and integrated peoples in Greater Mesoamerica with those in the U.S. Southwest/Mexican Northwest.
https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/reassessing-the-aztatlan-world/
2025 Pohl, John M. D., and Michael D. Mathiowetz. Introduction. Integrated Approaches to the Aztatlán Tradition: History, Scale, and New Directions. In Reassessing the Aztatlán World: Ethnogenesis and Cultural Continuity in Northwest Mesoamerica, Michael D. Mathiowetz and John M. D. Pohl, eds.: 1–37. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Pohl, John M.D. and Michael D. Mathiowetz
2022 Our Mother the Sea: The Pacific Coastal Exchange Network of Postclassic Mexico. In Waves of Influence: Pacific Maritime Networks Connecting Mexico, Central America, and Northwestern South America, Christopher S. Beekman and Colin McEwan, eds.: 167–201. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D. C.