last modified:2008-10-01 17:36:21
Meso-American Studies
The University of Utah has a long and distinguished history in Mesoamerican Studies, a field that focuses on the indigenous peoples of the Mesoamerican region. The University’s commitment to the field is reflected in the holdings of the Rare Books Division of the Marriott Library, the activities of the University of Utah Press, and faculty teaching and research interests.
Mesoamerica (literally, Middle America) constitutes a cultural region that extends roughly from modern-day central Mexico in the north to El Salvador and Guatemala in the south. During the pre-Hispanic era, the indigenous societies of the region - the largest and most well known include the Aztecs, Mayas, and Mixtecs - shared certain cultural features: intensive agriculture, permanent settlements, dense populations, kingdoms with dynastic rulers, complex material culture, and a tradition of written record-keeping.
Written record-keeping in particular distinguished the indigenous societies of Mesoamerica from those in other parts of the Americas. Hieroglyphic writing, with its strong phonetic component, typified the Maya area in the southern region of Mesoamerica. Pictorial manuscripts that were heavily pictographic and ideographic known as codices (singular, codex) characterized the Aztec and Mixtec areas of the center and center-south. Along with archaeological remains, pictorial manuscripts constitute rich sources to study pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. The tradition of written record-keeping also accounts for the quick adoption of European alphabetic script by Native scribes, who began to produce documents written in their own languages within decades after the conquest.
Although the Spaniards destroyed many Mesoamerican manuscripts - only a handful of preconquest codices survive today - the tradition of pictorial writing persisted well into the colonial period. Many 
pictorial manuscripts composed in the early colonial period are extant, including the so-called Florentine Codex, arguably the most important source on Aztec culture and society. An encyclopedia of Aztec culture and life, the Florentine Codex was composed in the sixteenth century under the auspices of the Spanish friar Bernardo de Sahagœn and contains many pictorials alongside alphabetic text written in Spanish and Nahuatl (the Aztec language).
The Florentine Codex stands at the center of the tradition of Mesoamerican Studies at the University of Utah. Charles Dibble, Professor Emeritus of the Anthropology Department, translated and edited (with his collaborator, Arthur Anderson) the first major English-language facsimile edition of the Florentine Codex, published by the University of Utah Press. The publication of the Florentine Codex had a lasting impact on the University of Utah Press. It established the Press’s national reputation and the Press continues today to publish works in Mesoamerican Studies. And, largely due to the efforts of Professor Charles Dibble who oversaw the acquisition of facsimile editions, the Mesoamerican Codex Facsimile Collection at the Marriott Library Rare Books Division remains one of the finest in the nation.
Teaching and research interests also reflect ongoing interest in Mesoamerican Studies at the University of Utah. The late Wick Miller, Professor of Anthropology and former Director of the Linguistic Program, 
specialized in Uto-Aztecan (the language family that includes Nahuatl) as well as other American indigenous languages. Professor Rebecca Horn, Department of History, uses Nahuatl language
documents to study early colonial Nahua society in central Mexico. Professor Mauricio Mixco, Department of Linguistics, is a long-time student of Nahuatl along with such indigenous languages as Kiliwa of Baja California and Mandan of North Dakota. As co-founders of a seminar on the Nahuatl language and colonial-era Nahuatl texts, Professors Horn and Mixco continue the tradition of Mesoamerican Studies at the University of Utah.