Philip J. Arnold III

Professor Emeritus

Philip Arnold received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico. He has conducted and/or directed archaeological fieldwork in New York, New Mexico, Florida, Illinois, and Mexico. Dr. Arnold's research interests are in the origins of complex society, ancient technological systems, and economic behavior in pre-Columbian Mexico. His current fieldwork investigates the formation of early social complexity along the South Mexican Gulf Coast.

Research Interests

Dr. Arnold recently completed two seasons of archaeological fieldwork at the Formative Period (ca. 1000-100 BC) site of La Joya, in southern Veracruz, Mexico. This project is designed to gather information on land use, subsistence activities, and incipient craft production within the Tuxla Mountains of Veracruz. A second goal of the research is to explore and define socio-economic variation exhibited by the Gulf Olmec culture, considered to be one of the earliest complex societies within Mesoamerica.

Publications/Research Listings

P. J. Arnold III, 1991/2004 - Domestic Ceramic Production and Spatial Organization: A Mexican Case Study in Ethnoarchaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (Reissued in paperback, 2004).

P. J. Arnold III, 2003a - Early Formative Pottery from the Tuxtla Mountains and Implications for Gulf Olmec Origins. Latin American Antiquity 14:29-46.

P. J. Arnold III, 2003b - Back to Basics: The Middle-Range Program as Pragmatic Archaeology. In Essential Tensions in Archaeological Method and Theory, ed. by T. VanPool and C. VanPool, pp 55-66. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

P. J. Arnold III and B. Wilkens, 2001a - On the VanPools' "Scientific Postprocessualism." American Antiquity 66:361-366.

P. J. Arnold III, 2001b - When Day Turned to Night: Volcanism and the Archaeological Record from the Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico. In Environmental Disaster and the Archaeology of Human Response, ed. by G. Bawden and R. Reycraft, pp. 143-162. Anthropological Papers No. 7, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (R. Santley, S. Nelson, B. Reinhardt, C. Pool, and P. Arnold III).

P. J. Arnold III, 2000a - Sociopolitical Complexity and the Gulf Olmecs: A View from the Tuxtla Mountains, Veracruz, Mexico. In Olmec Art and Archaeology in Mesoamerica, ed. by J. Clark and M. Pye, pp. 117-135. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

P. J. Arnold III, 2000b - Working Without a Net: Recent Trends in Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 8:105-133.

P. J. Arnold III, 1999a - Tecomates, Residential Mobility, and Early Formative Occupation in Coastal Lowland Mesoamerica. In Pottery and People: A Dynamic Interaction, ed. by J. Skibo and G. Feinman, pp. 157-170. University of Utah Press.

P. J. Arnold III, 1999b - On Typologies, Selection, and Ethnoarchaeology in Ceramic Production Studies. In Material Meanings: Critical Approaches to the Interpretation of Material Culture, ed. by E. Chilton, pp. 103-117. University of Utah Press. book info: http://content.lib.utah.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/UU-press&CISOPTR=1643

P. J. Arnold III, 1998 - Ceramic Ethnoarchaeology: Caught Between "Coming of Age" and "Showing Its Age." Reviews in Anthropology 27:17-32.

Stark, B. L., and P. J. Arnold III, eds  1997 - Olmec to Aztec: Settlement Patterns in the Ancient Gulf Lowlands. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/books/bid1068.htm

Stark, B. L., and P. J. Arnold III,  1996 - Craft Specialization and Social Change Along the Southern Gulf Coast of Mexico. In , B. Wailes (ed),Craft    Specialization and Social Evolution: In  Memory of V. Gordon Childe, pp. 201-210. University Museum Monograph 93, University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Santley, R. S., and P. J. Arnold III, 1996 - Pre-Hispanic Settlement Patterns in the Tuxtla Mountains, Southern Veracruz, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 23:225-249.

P. J. Arnold III, 1994 - Southern Veracruz Archaeology. Special Section. Ancient Mesoamerica 5:213-287