Jason P. De León (PhD 2008, Penn State)
Research Interests:
Archaeology: Political and domestic economies, households, craft production, lithic technology, Olmec people of lowland Veracruz, Mexico, Formative period Mesoamerica.
Cultural: Undocumented migration, political economy, borderlands, ethnoarchaeology, material culture, sexual behavior and identity, Mexico.
"I am an economic anthropologist who conducts archaeological and ethnographic research in Mesoamerica and along the Mexico/US border. I have conducted research in various parts of Mexico including the states of Tlaxcala, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Jalisco, and Veracruz. My recent dissertation examined the role of obsidian tools in the development of early political and domestic economies at the Olmec center of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, Veracruz, Mexico.
I am currently directing The Migrant Material Culture Project (MMCP), an ethnoarchaeological and ethnographic analysis of the economics of undocumented migration in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Using a combination of ethnoarchaeology and ethnography, the MMCP examines artifacts from clandestine migrant campsites in order to document and understand the demographic profile of people who use these sites, the economic systems that provision undocumented migrants with goods needed to cross the desert, and the life-histories of individuals who have been identified through lost (and found) personal possessions."
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Selected Publications:
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in press
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Jason P. De León. Rethinking the Organization of Aztec Salt Production: A Domestic Perspective. In Housework: Domestic Craft Production in Mesoamerica (working title), edited by Kenneth Hirth.
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in press
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Kenneth Hirth, Mari Carmen Serra Puche, Jesús Carlos Lazcano Arce, and Jason P. De León. Lapidary Craft Production in a Late Formative Household: Terrace 5, Nativitas, Tlaxcala. In Housework: Domestic Craft Production in Mesoamerica (working title), edited by Kenneth Hirth.
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in press
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Jason. P. De León, K. Hirth and D. Carballo.“The Origin and Evolution of Prismatic Blade Trading in Early Formative Mesoamerica.” Ancient Mesoamerica.
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2005
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Jason P. De León and J.C. Cohen. The Material Probe in Ethnographic Interviewing. Field Methods 17(2): 200-204.
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