Sam Holley-Kline
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sholleykline.bsky.social
Sam Holley-Kline
@sholleykline.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.2K following 300 posts
anthro PhD | book: In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico (@univnebpress.bsky.social) | co-editor @bhajournal.bsky.social‬ | published work: hcommons.org/members/sholleykline/
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sholleykline.bsky.social
In the Shadow of El Tajín is formatted in CMOS 16th ed. notes-bibliography w/ short form in the endnotes—copyedited by Kerin Tate (editingandindexing.com/home/) —means you'll the most efficient cross-referencing experience on the market. concise!!! 👇
For reviews, see Daneels, "El patrón de asentamiento, 37-63; Arnold, Pool, and Diehl, "Historical Currents"; Nahmad Molinari, "El debate." El Tajín was traditionally identified with the Totonacs. See Spinden,"Place of Tajin"; García Payón, "Quiénes construyeron el Tajín." Discussions of Huastec presence are found in Du Solier, "La cerámica arqueológica"; Wilkerson, "Huastec Presence"" Other research prefers the "Tajín culture" designation; see Brüggemann,"Otra vez." See Pascual Soto, El Tajin, on the probable multiethnicity of the city's inhabitants.
November 2, 2025 at 2:54 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
historian??? anthropologist??? mexicanist??? this book has something for everyone!!! it's got land tenure!!! oil!!! vanilla!!! wage labor!!! guards!!! experts!!! and archaeology!!! from archives!!! and interviews!!! and participant-observation!!!
Introduction 1. Lands: Public Pyramids, Private Parcels 2. Oil: Practical Entanglements, Cumulative Contamination 3. Vanilla: Violence and Temporality 4. Wage Labor: From Subsistence Farming to Archaeology 5. Custodios: Cohorts and Histories of Labor 6. Experts: Precarity and Opportunity Conclusion
November 2, 2025 at 2:54 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
PUBLICATION DAY for In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico!

Use discount code 6AF25 for 40% off—that's $18 plus taxes and shipping (paperback/ebook)! Thanks, @univnebpress.bsky.social!

For more: www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978....

🗃️📚🇲🇽🏺
Flyer for book, IN THE SHADOW OF EL TAJIN: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico. "Immensely important.... Sam Holley-Kline reframes the archaeological site of El Tajín as a location of recent, rather than just ancient, Indigenous history. In the Shadow of El Tajín makes a significant contribution to the emerging field of the history of archaeology in Mexico and beyond, as well as to our understanding of Mexican political economy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries." -LISA PINLEY COVERT, author of San Miguel de Allende: Mexicans, Foreigners, and the Making of a World Heritage Site. Located in the Papantla municipality of the Mexican state of Veracruz, El Tajín is a UNESCO World Heritage site but a lesser-known tourist destination and national symbol. The Indigenous Totonac residents of the region know well that the site's relative absence from discussions of global archaeology and heritage belies a century of wide-ranging labor, extractive industries, and commodity exchange. In the Shadow of El Tajin tells the story of how a landscape of ancient mounds and ruins became an archaeological site, brings to light the network of actors who made it happen, and reveals the Indigenous histories silenced in the process. By drawing on the insights of Indigenous Totonac peoples who have lived and worked in El Tajín for more than a century, Sam Holley-Kline explores historical processes that made both the archaeological site and regional historical memory. In the Shadow of El Tajín decenters discussions of the state and tourism industry by focusing on the industries and workers who are integral to the functioning of the site but who have historically been overlooked by studies of the ancient past. Holley-Kline recovers local Indigenous histories in dialogue with broader trends in scholarship to demonstrate the rich recent past of El Tajín, a place better known for its ancient history. SAVE 40% with code 6AF25 at nebraskapress.unl.edu
November 2, 2025 at 2:54 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Just over a week out from publication day for my book, In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico (@univnebpress.bsky.social). Read more below or at www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978....

🗃️📚🇲🇽🏺 #skystorians #Mexico #archaeology #heritage
Flyer for book, IN THE SHADOW OF EL TAJIN: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico. "Immensely important.... Sam Holley-Kline reframes the archaeological site of El Tajín as a location of recent, rather than just ancient, Indigenous history. In the Shadow of El Tajín makes a significant contribution to the emerging field of the history of archaeology in Mexico and beyond, as well as to our understanding of Mexican political economy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries." -LISA PINLEY COVERT, author of San Miguel de Allende: Mexicans, Foreigners, and the Making of a World Heritage Site. Located in the Papantla municipality of the Mexican state of Veracruz, El Tajín is a UNESCO World Heritage site but a lesser-known tourist destination and national symbol. The Indigenous Totonac residents of the region know well that the site's relative absence from discussions of global archaeology and heritage belies a century of wide-ranging labor, extractive industries, and commodity exchange. In the Shadow of El Tajin tells the story of how a landscape of ancient mounds and ruins became an archaeological site, brings to light the network of actors who made it happen, and reveals the Indigenous histories silenced in the process. By drawing on the insights of Indigenous Totonac peoples who have lived and worked in El Tajín for more than a century, Sam Holley-Kline explores historical processes that made both the archaeological site and regional historical memory. In the Shadow of El Tajín decenters discussions of the state and tourism industry by focusing on the industries and workers who are integral to the functioning of the site but who have historically been overlooked by studies of the ancient past. Holley-Kline recovers local Indigenous histories in dialogue with broader trends in scholarship to demonstrate the rich recent past of El Tajín, a place better known for its ancient history. SAVE 40% with code 6AF25 at nebraskapress.unl.edu
October 24, 2025 at 4:54 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Próximamente por divulgar en medios digitales: Una revista conmemorativa para celebrar el centenario de los primeros ejidos de Papantla, Veracruz, México. Cuenta con estudios históricos y regionales de diversa índole, incluso por ejidatarios. Mira el índice aquí:

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Screenshot of table of contents: ÍNDICE Una historia de resistencia: las luchas de los pueblos de la región de Papantla, Michael T. Ducey, Universidad Veracruzana. Conflicto territorial en la rebelión de Papantla, 1836-1838, Juan Carlos Santander Ontiveros, Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Una historia oral cuasi-inédita de Modesto González contada a Ángel Palerm, 1948, Samuel Holley-Kline, University of Maryland. Un siglo de organización agraria: identidades y efectos culturales, Elissa Rashkin, Universidad Veracruzana. Cien años de la hacienda San Miguel del Rincón y los ejidos papantecos, Brehnis Daniel Xochihua García Entre la revolución y el agrarismo papanteco, 1915-1921, Brehnis Daniel Xochihua García Cuyuxquihui, ejido centenario, Jorge Bazán Galindo, Emilia Santes Juárez, Armando Atzin Bautista, M. Isabel Atzin Nicolás, Ejidatarios de Cuyuxquihui. Cronología de un pueblo: Cerro Blanco, Efrén Mendez Falcón, Comisariado Ejidal de Cerro Blanco Joloapan, el epicentro del agrarismo, B. Daniel Xochihua G. y Venustiano Hernández Salazar, Comisariado Ejidal de Joloapan Antecedentes del ejido Paso de Valencia, Saúl Zepeta Saavedra, Comisariado Ejidal de Paso de Valencia
September 27, 2025 at 7:24 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
protesting is a great antidote to doomscrolling! even if you couldn't make the #WeAreAllDC protest, it's still a good day to subscribe to @51st.news, support @freedcproject.bsky.social, or set up a regular donations to @dcmigrantmutualaid.org, @remorahousedc.bsky.social, and more.
Crowd of protesters marching towards an underpass in downtown DC.
September 7, 2025 at 1:53 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
New volume, "Collecting the 'Other Americas': Ancient Americas Collections in American Art Museums" looks great—check out the ToC! Available #OpenAccess here: mayer2023.denartmus.org

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Table of contents: Director’s Foreword | Christoph Heinrich vii The Ancient Americas, Curated: Developing Institutional Collections | Ellen Hoobler and Victoria Isabel Lyall 1 Nineteenth-Century Rambles in Mexico, an Itinerant Peruvian Textile, and Pan-American Cooperation at the Brooklyn Museum, 1930–50 | Nancy B. Rosoff 117 Ancient American Art In and Out and Back In Again at The Met | Joanne Pillsbury 33 Dealers, Donors, and Directors: Shaping Mid-Atlantic Collections of Ancient American Art in the Twentieth Century | Ellen Hoobler 51 “The art of those who lived here before the white man came”: Collecting the Ancient Americas at the Cleveland Museum of Art | Susan E. Bergh 67 Art Not Artifact: The Aesthetic Recognition of Ancient and Indigenous American Works at the Art Institute of Chicago | Elizabeth Irene Pope 85 Ancient American Art in the Gateway to the West | Matthew H. Robb 103 James Johnson Sweeney and the Discovery of the “Other Americas” in 1960s Houston | Rex Koontz 117 Collecting the Ancient Americas at the Denver Art Museum | Victoria Isabel Lyall 131 Ancient American Art in a Borderlands City: Collections and Community at Tucson Museum of Art | Kristopher Driggers 147 All in the Details: The Stendahl Art Galleries and the Business of Prehispanic Art in the United States (1954–65) | Mary E. Miller 163 Appendix: Letters from the Stendahl Art Galleries Archive 178 Acknowledgments | Ellen Hoobler and Victoria Isabel Lyall 191
August 14, 2025 at 1:26 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Hard to beat Mexico's National Museum of Anthropology! Right by Chapultepec Park, friendly staff, and, plus, it's got three or four different archives and the National Library of Anthropology and History.
Central patio of Mexico's Museo Nacional de Antropología, with a pillar supporting an umbrella-style roof in the center and skyscrapers in the background. From Wikimedia Commons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/National_Museum_of_Anthropology_Mexico_City.jpg
July 24, 2025 at 1:47 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
when you don't check @capitalweather.bsky.social before going on a run
July 20, 2025 at 1:10 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
My book, In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico, is out in November—and it has a cover! Couldn't be happier with @univnebpress.bsky.social. For more: www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/978... 🗃️📚🏺🏛️🇲🇽
Book cover reading "In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico," above a black-and-white photo of workers excavating a pre-Hispanic mound with a Willys Jeep to the left and masonry visible to the right.
June 5, 2025 at 1:21 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
I don't know how widely they're followed, but I appreciate that the AHA has some recommendations on terminology: www.historians.org/resource/sta...
The status of a book, article, or other publication that is still in the production pipeline is often an important piece of information for search committees, tenure/promotion review committees, and fellowship committees. Yet the profession has no standardized terminology for works in progress, often rendering their status unclear. The AHA suggests the following lexicon. "In Press": the manuscript is fully copyedited and out of the author's hands. It is in the final stages of the production process. "Forthcoming": a completed manuscript has been accepted by a press or journal. "Under contract to ...": a press and an author have signed a contract for a book in progress, but the final manuscript has not yet been submitted. "Submitted" or "under consideration": the book or article has been submitted to a press or journal, but there is as yet no contract or agreement to publish.
May 14, 2025 at 10:35 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Thinking about something for TAG (tag2025wm.com/tag-wm/) before the Monday deadline? Check out the 'zine on labor and bodies that Allison Mickel, @leftistdadjokes.bsky.social, and I are putting together: bit.ly/TAGZINE2025 🏺
Poster reading "Calling all archaeologists with a body: We want your scraps, your bits, your memories, your testimonies to the experience of archaeological labor on your skin and bones. At TAG 2025 in Williamsburg, we'll be assembling a zine that gathers and engages with evidence of how archaeology works on the body as we work in archaeology. We are seeking contributions of: photographs, artwork, short recollections (under 500 words), news clippings, poetry, receipts and bills, social media posts, paper ephemera ...that speak to the impact that participating in archaeological work has had on the body, or ways that negotiating bodily functions affects archaeological labor. We hope that the assemblage of these bits and pieces will convey widely shared experiences of the relationships between archaeological labor and the body as well as particular experiences shaped by race, gender, class, disability, and other identities. For more information, contact Allison Mickel (ajm717@lehigh.edu), Travis Corwin (tlcorwin@ncsu.edu) or Sam Holley-Kline (shk@umd.edu).
March 14, 2025 at 1:02 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Mis ángeles? Azules
Zooming in on a concert stage with a cumbia in progress
February 27, 2025 at 7:14 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
"Travesías de la antropología en México" ya esta disponible en #AccesoAbierto en @mediateca-inah.bsky.social. Tiene 18 captítulos sobre la #historia de la #antropología (incluso los museos), aquí va el índice o baja todo el libro aquí: mediateca.inah.gob.mx/islandora_74.... 🗃️📚🏺🏛️🇲🇽
Índice El inah y la inagotable recuperación de nuestra memoria Diego Prieto Hernández Introducción Daniela Tovar Ortiz Haydeé López Hernández Luis Antonio Huitrón Santoyo 1. Fundamentos. Naturaleza e historia I. Museos de provincia que no son “provincianos” Fernando González Dávila II. Exhibiciones naturales: entre la historia natural, la medicina y la antropología Frida Gorbach III. El Museo Nacional entre las ciencias de la vida y de la cultura. Evocaciones de Gume, los Ponchos Herrera y otros amigos naturalistas de las musas Rafael Guevara Fefer IV. La antropología física y sus colecciones en el Museo Nacional: sus primeros pasos, 1887-1912 Miguel García Murcia V. Entre septiembre y octubre de 1885, Batres lanza dos osadas propuestas Elvira Pruneda Gallegos 2. Centralización. Monumentos e identidad VI. Las leyes de 1896 y 1897 y la protección del patrimonio arqueológico nacional Guillermo Palacios VII. Manuel Gamio y los proyectos integrales José Roberto Gallegos Téllez Rojo VIII. Vaivenes en la consolidación institucional: las direcciones de Arqueología y de Monumentos Prehispánicos (1926-1938) Haydeé López Hernández IX. La arqueología del inah y los trabajadores de la lista de raya en El Tajín, 1934-1974 Samuel Thomas Holley-Kline X. 50 años de arqueología del inah en el norte de México Elisa Villalpando Canchola y Cristina García Moreno XI. El inah en tiempos de la guerra. Crónica de una coyuntura Eduardo González Muñiz XII. Préstamos, éxitos y reproches compartidos: travesías del indigenismo interamericano en México Laura Giraudo 3. Retos. Tensiones y diálogos XIII. Retos actuales y conflictos sociales para la investigación arqueológica en Michoacán José Luis Punzo Díaz XIV. El Estado coleccionista o cómo llenar 30 000 metros cuadrados en el nuevo Museo Nacional de Antropología Sandra Rozental XV. Réplicas, falsificaciones y desconcertantes. Un recorrido crítico por la sala 7, Culturas de Oaxaca, en el Museo Nacional de Antropología Adam T. Sellen XVI. La colección Kelley, una exploración arqueológica a su ordenación archivística en el Archivo Nacional de Arqueología José Humberto Medina y Lourdes Patricia Martínez Rangel XVII. Documentación lingüística de las terminologías de la historia del arte y la arqueología en México. Primeros pasos de un proyecto de largo aliento Claudio Molina Salinas XVIII. Apretando el paso, nuevas reflexiones sobre la documentación del patrimonio cultural en México Pedro Ángeles Jiménez
February 14, 2025 at 4:31 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
this tracks. last audiobook of the year was @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social's Absolution, and it was stellar. came for the worldbuilding, stayed for the characters. also, have never literally lol'd so much at an audiobook as i did during the 3rd part—Bronson Pinchot is a great narrator.
My 2024 #AudibleStats Total listening time: 228 hrs 30 mins Top author: Jeff VanderMeer Longest listening session: 4 hrs 14 mins Top listening month: October Top genre: Sci-fi & fantasy
January 27, 2025 at 8:14 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Around 7 AM during the spring equinox, for instance, the sun rising over the Cerro illuminates the Pyramid of the Niches in a descending zig-zag pattern, body by body and minute by minute. For a moment, the Pyramid of the Niches is the only fully-illuminated building at the site. 9/10
Six photos illustrating the illumination of the Pyramid of the Niches during the spring equinox.
December 18, 2024 at 3:14 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
More recent research by Patricia Castillo Peña suggests that the Pyramid is, in fact, placed to evoke landscape-related and archaeoastronomical phenomena. To the first, LIDAR mapping identified a probable pre-Hispanic entrance at the western edge of the monumental core—with a view like this: 6/10
West facade of the Pyramid of the Niches with the Cerro de los Mantenimientos in the background.
December 18, 2024 at 3:14 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Folks have puzzled over the meaning of the niches since the colonial period, but the Pyramid's placement in the site core is also a bit of a puzzle. It faces a plaza that is... not that large, especially considering how elaborate the building is. 4/10
Map of El Tajín's core with principal buildings highlighted, including the Pyramid of the Niches and its not-very-large plaza. From Sam Holley-Kline, "El Tajín," on the Mainly Museums blog.
December 18, 2024 at 3:14 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
There's no archaeological evidence that the niches contained anything—but they needn't have, either. Considering the Pyramid's original color, the chiaroscuro effect is impressive enough. 3/10
The east facade of the Pyramid of the Niches at night, colored in red light, from S. Jeffrey K. Wilkerson's "El Tajín, A Guide for Visitors."
December 18, 2024 at 3:14 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
The Pyramid of the Niches is known for, well, niches, of which there are around 365—depending on how you count them. These and the so-called flying cornices are common in El Tajín's architecture, though with less regularity than in this building. 2/10
Reconstructive drawing of the east facade of the Pyramid of the Niches, from José García Payón, "La pirámide del Tajín: estudio analítico."
December 18, 2024 at 3:14 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Took a too-short trip to El Tajín at the end of a too-short visit to #Mexico, and figured I'd write a bit about one of my favorite buildings in #Mesoamerica, the Pyramid of the Niches. 🏺🗃️🇲🇽 1/10
East facade of the Pyramid of the Niches at El Tajín, composed of seven bodies adorned with niches and flying cornices, with a staircase flanked with alfardas on either side.
December 18, 2024 at 3:14 AM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Noticias tristes desde la Dra. Lourdes Budar de la Universidad Veracruzana. QEPD, Mtro. Sergio Vásquez Zárate. Una gran pérdida para Veracruz.
Con mucha tristeza y pesar recibo la noticia del fallecimiento del Mtro. Sergio R. Vásquez Zárate notable arqueólogo, docente, investigador, compañero y amigo. Pilar de la Facultad de Antropología, emblemático maestro de muchas generaciones de arqueólogos y antropólogos de la Universidad Veracruzana. Hombre de mente brillante y con el don de palabra, que dedicó su vida al estudio y la investigación de la cultura y el pasado. Con profundo sentimiento y respeto me uno a la tristeza que embarga a sus familiares, amistades, colegas y estudiantes por tan irreparable pérdida. Que suenen los silbatos y las ocarinas, que crujan los huesos, las sonajas y cascabeles; que todas las caritas sonrientes levanten los brazos y las Cihuateteos se pongan todas de pie para despedir a nuestro querido Sergio. Siempre agradecida, estará en mi mente y en mi corazón Descanse en Paz Xalapa, Veracruz a 25 de noviembre de 2024
November 25, 2024 at 4:55 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
Looking forward to presenting research on "Race and Labor, from Maya Ruins to Bananas and Chewing Gum" at Syracuse University's Program on Latin America and the Caribbean this week! 🗃️
Holley-Kline will present as-yet-unpublished archival research on the relationships between archaeological labor, race and extractive industry in early twentieth-century Guatemala. The paper explores how ideas of race prevalent in the banana and chicle (chewing gum) industries played out in two contexts: the Archaeological Institute of America’s excavations in Quiriguá (1910-1915) and the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s research in Uaxactún (1926-1937), both of which relied on transnational labor forces. In the first, archaeologists drew on patterns of racial discrimination characteristic of the United Fruit Company in managing workers. In the second, racialization did not entail discrimination but still reflected archaeologists’ beliefs about what kinds of bodies were suitable for certain kinds of work. Ultimately, the research seeks to understand the politics of archaeology from the ground up, and relative to the transnational firms and actors that scholars relied on to do their work in the field. This event is co-sponsored by the Anthropology Department. Sam Holley-Kline is currently an ACLS Fellow, and was most recently assistant clinical professor in the University Honors program at the University of Maryland, College Park. His book, “In the Shadow of El Tajín: The Political Economy of Archaeology in Modern Mexico” is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press. He earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Stanford University, and has published research in the Journal of Social Archaeology, Ethnohistory, and Archaeological Dialogues, among others.
November 19, 2024 at 10:06 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
hopefully not too "known" but my second most-viral tweet got a lot more attention than any of my work on the history and politics of Mexican archaeology, ha
started second week by RIPPING MY FUCKING PANTS IN CLASS, can you drop the course if you're teaching it??? i always try and approach seminars with humility but NOT LIKE THIS
November 12, 2024 at 9:00 PM
sholleykline.bsky.social
One of Mérida's coolest museums: the Museo Conmemorativa de la Inmigración Coreana a Yucatán, run by third-generation descendents of the 1905 migration of 1,014 Koreans to Yucatán. More details here: spanish.korea.net/NewsFocus/Ho...
Mural flanked by South Korean and Mexican flags. The mural features pictures of Korean laborers performing a variety of tasks on a henequen hacienda.
November 12, 2024 at 7:11 PM