HELEN PERLSTEIN POLLARD, Professor of Anthropology, has carried out archaeological and ethnohistoric research in western Mexico since 1970. Her research and teaching deals with two broad issues: human ecology and the emergence and evolution of social, political and economic inequality. Within the context of human ecology she focuses on (1) human adaptation to environmental fluctuation and (2) the impact of humans on the environment in the context of the emergence and development of prehistoric states and empires. Her studies of prehistoric states focuses on the emergence and evolution of social stratification, political centralization, and the political economies of archaic states and empires.
Specifically, her research deals with central and west Mexico, especially Michoacán and the Purépecha\Tarascans, and the development of social theory in archaeology to understand the evolution of inequality by class, ethnicity, and gender.
Dr. Pollard’s research in Mexico has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Geographic Society, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Heinz Foundation, and Michigan State University. Since coming to Michigan State she has carried out fieldwork in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico, in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2009 and laboratory analysis on campus in 1997-8 and 2001-2003 on archaeological collections on loan from Mexico and 2012-2013 on collections at MSU. In all field and laboratory work she has incorporated undergraduate and graduate students and collaborated with colleagues at other institutions in the U.S. and Mexico, including the Universidad Michoacana and El Colegio de Michoacán.
In addition to her work in western Mexico, Dr. Pollard has carried out archaeological research in the Andes and the U.S. Her own graduate training was supported by Woodrow Wilson Fellowships, the Ford Foundation, and Columbia University (PhD 1972). She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa (Barnard College 1967).
Education
PhD. in Anthropology, August 1972, Columbia University.
Dissertation: Prehispanic Urbanism at Tzintzuntzan, Michoacan.
A.B. in Anthropology, June 1967, Barnard College, Columbia University
Employment History
1996 - 2012 Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
1991 - 1996 Associate Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
1986 - 1991 Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.
1985 - 1986 Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Anthropology-Sociology, State University of New York, Oswego.
1975 - 1985 Assistant Professor of Anthropology (Adjunct), Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Plattsburgh.
1973 - 1977 Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Residential research semester-Miner Center, Institute for man and Environment, State University of New York, Plattsburgh.
Books and monographs:
1993 Tariacuri's Legacy The Prehispanic Tarascan State. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
1983 The Tarascan Civilization: A Late Prehispanic Cultural System. Vanderbilt University Publications in Anthropology, 28, Nashville (co-authored with S. Gorenstein).
Book chapters
2017 Tula of the Toltecs and Tzintzuntzan of the Tarascans, City, Craft, and Residence in Mesoamerica: Research Papers Presented in Honor of Dan M. Healan, edited by Ronald K. Faulseit, Nezahualcoyotl Xiutecutli, and Haley Holt-Mehta, pp. 161-177, Middle American Research Institute #42, Tulane, New Orleans.2016 Ruling ‘Purépecha Chichimeca’ in a Tarascan World. Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, edited by Joanne Baron and Sarah Kurnick, pp. 217-240, University of Colorado Press.2016 La jerarquía y heterarquía en el mundo prehispánico tarasco: la transformación dentro de una tradición. Nuevas contribuciones al estudio del antiguo Michoacán, edited by Sarah Albiez-Wieck and Hans Roskamp, pp. 51-72, El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora.2016 Ceramics, Social Status, and the Tarascan State Economy. Cultural Dynamics and Production Activities in Ancient Western Mexico. Eduardo Williams and Blanca Maldonado, editors. British Archaeological Reports International Series, pp. 163-178, Archaeopress, Oxford, UK.
2015 The Prehispanic Heritage of the Tarascans (Purépechas), Histories of Communal Sovereignty: The Tarascan and Caxcan Territories in Transition, eds. Andrew Roth-Seneff, Robert Kemper, and Julie Adkins, pp.92-110, University of Arizona Press.
2012 Del corazón imperial a la periferia colonial. La cuenca del Lago de Pátzcuaro, 1400-1800. Abriendo caminos. El legado de Joseph Benedict Warren a la historia y a la lengua de Michoacán un Homenaje al Dr. J. Benedict Warren, ed. Louise Enkerlin Pauwells, pp. 219-239, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico, D.F.; El Colegio de Michoacán, A.C.; Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de la Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo Morelia; Grupo Kwanískuyarhani de Estudios del Pueblo Purépecha; Editorial Morevalladolid, Morelia. (available 2013, ISBN: 978-607-424-350-5)
2012 The Tarascan Empire: Postclassic Social Complexity in West Mexico. Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology, edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher Pool, pp. 434-448, Oxford University Press.
2012 La economía política del almacenaje en el Estado tarasco prehispánico. Almacenamiento prehispánico, del Norte de México hasta el Altiplano central, editors D. Michelet, S. Bortot, and V. Darras, pp. 131-144, Laboratoire d’Archéologie des Amériques of the CNRS (Paris), Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, and CEMCA (Centro francés de estudios mexicanos y centroamericanos, México).
2011 Una Larga Caminata: El Análisis Regional En La Arqueología Tarasca. Patrones de Asentamiento y Actividades de Subsistencia en el Occidente de México, Reconocimiento a la Dra. Helen P. Pollard. Pp. 21-34, Eduardo Williams y Phil C. Weigand, Organizadores, El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora.
2009 Un modelo para el surgimiento del Estado tarasco, for Las Sociedades Complejas del Occidente de México en el Mundo Mesoamericano, Homenaje al Dr. Phil C. Weigand, edited by Eduardo Williams, Lorenza López Mestas, and Rodrigo Esparza, pp. 225-253, El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México.
2005 From Imperial Core to Colonial Periphery: The Lake Pátzcuaro Basin 1400-1800. For: The Late Postclassic to Spanish Era Transition in Mesoamerica, eds. Rani Alexander and Susan Kepecs, pp. 65-76, The University of New Mexico Press, Alburquerque.
2005 Michoacán en el mundo mesoamericano prehispánico: Erongarícuaro, Michoacán y los estados teotihuacano y tarasco. El antiguo occidente de Mexico. Nuevas perspectivas sobre el pasado prehispánico. Pp. 283-303, Editores Eduardo Williams, Phil C. Weigand, Lorenza López Mestas, David C. Grove, El Colegio de Michoacán-INAH Guadalajara.
2004 La fase Loma Alta en la cuenca de Pátzcuaro: Unas raíces del pueblo purépecha. Las tradiciones arqueológicas del Occidente de México, ed. Efraín Cárdenas García, pp. 183-193, El Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, Mexico.
2003 Central places and cities in the Core of the Tarascan State. In Urbanization in Mesoamerica, eds. William T. Sanders and Alba Guadalupe Mastache, pp. 345-390, INAH and Pennsylvania University Press. Bilingual edition: El Urbanismo en Mesoamérica, Lugares Centrales y Ciudades en el Núcleo del Estado Tarasco.
2003 Development of a Tarascan core: The Lake Pátzcuaro Basin. The Postclassic Mesoamerican World, eds. F. Berdan and M. E. Smith, pp. 227-237, University of Utah Press.
2000 Tarascans and Their Ancestors: The Prehistory of Michoacan. Greater Mesoamerica: The Archaeology of West and Northwest Mesoamerica, edited by M. Foster and S. Gorenstein, pp. 59-70, University of Utah Press.
1994 Late Postclassic imperial expansion and economic exchange within the Tarascan domain. In Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm, edited by M. Smith and M. Hodge, pp. 447-470, Studies on Culture and Society, Vol. 6, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, SUNY, Albany, distributed by University of Texas Press. (co-authored with T. Vogel)
1994 Ethnicity and political control in a complex society: The Tarascan State of prehispanic Mexico. In Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World, ed. E. Brumfiel and J. W. Fox, pp. 79-88, Cambridge University Press.
Articles
2008 A Model of the Emergence of the Tarascan State Ancient Mesoamerica, 19 (2): 217-230
2006 Desarrollo del Estado Tarasco: Proyecto Erongarícuaro. El Boletín del Consejo de Arqueología del INAH, Julio. On-line journal at http://www.inah.gob.mx/index.html
2005 Lake level change, climate, and the impact of natural events: the role of seismic and volcanic events in the formation of the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico. I. Israde-Alcántara, V.H. Garduño-Monroy, C.T. Fisher and, H.P. Pollard Quaternary International 135 (1): 35-46.
2003 A reexamination of human induced environmental change within the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 100, no.8: 4957 -4962, supplementary tables on line. Christopher T. Fisher, Helen P. Pollard, Isabel Israde, Victor Hugo Garduno, Subir K.Banerjee
1999 Mortuary Patterns of Regional Elites in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin of Western Mexico. (With L. Cahue) Latin American Antiquity 10(3): 259-280. 1999 Intensive Agriculture and Socio-Political Development in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico. Antiquity 73 (281): 642-649. (with C.T. Fisher and C. Frederick)
1997 Recent Research in West Mexican Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research, 5 (4): 345-384.
1991 The construction of ideology in the emergence of the prehispanic Tarascan State. Ancient Mesoamerica 2: 167-179.
1987 The Political Economy of Prehispanic Tarascan Metallurgy. American Antiquity 52 (4): 741-752.
1982 Ecological variation and economic exchange in the Tarascan State. American Ethnologist 9 (2): 250-268.
1980 Central places and cities: a consideration of the Protohistoric Tarascan State. American Antiquity 45 (4): 677-696.
1980 Agrarian potential, population and the Tarascan State. Science 209 (4453): 274-277 (co-authored with S. Gorenstein).
1977 An analysis of urban zoning and planning in prehispanic Tzintzuntzan. Proceedings: American Philosophical Society 121 (1): 46-69.
