Joyce Marcus

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Joyce Marcus (* 1948 ) is an American American scholar ( anthropologist and archaeologist ) at the University of Michigan and curator of the Museum of Anthropological Archeology there (formerly the Museum of Anthropology ).

Live and act

Emblem glyph of Calakmul

Joyce Marcus earned a Masters degree from Harvard University in 1971 and a Ph.D. in 1974. there. She has served on the faculty at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor since 1976 . There she is (as of 2017) Robert L. Carneiro Distinguished Professor of Social Evolution, Anthropology and Curator for the Archeology of Latin America at the University's Museum of Anthropological Archeology .

Marcus is known as a connoisseur of pre-Columbian Latin America . Among other things, she dealt with the following topics: origin of the village as a form of settlement, origin of writing , comparison of different forms of government and rule, the emergence of social and political inequality , political economy of different states and empires.

Building on the work of Heinrich Berlin , Marcus was able to use written symbols to show that the Maya rulership system consisted of four layers. She was able to decipher the emblem glyphs for Calakmul and Motul de San José and depict the rise and fall of various Mayan empires as a cyclical process. She later transferred this pattern to the Zapotecs . Marcus was part of the leadership of the working group at the University of Michigan in San José Mogote ( Oaxaca , Mexico ), where the oldest hieroglyphs in Mexico were found and important knowledge about the social and political development of the Zapotecs was gained. Further work deals with the relationship between excavation results in Cerro Azul ( Peru ) and eyewitness accounts of the Spanish conquerors , as well as with the local craftsmanship ( pottery , brewery ) and professional division of labor ( weaving , fishing ).

In 1997, Marcus was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences , and in 2008 a member of the American Philosophical Society .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF, 1.1 MB) at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); accessed on February 5, 2017.
  2. ↑ Joyce Marcus. In: nasonline.org. Retrieved February 5, 2017 .
  3. ^ American Philosophical Society - Member History. In: amphilsoc.org. Retrieved February 5, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Marcus, Joyce
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American American scholar (anthropologist, archaeologist) and museum curator
DATE OF BIRTH 1948