John Kenneth Millhauser

How have the experiences of the poor shaped history? To begin answering this question, I will study poverty in the Aztec empire based on material and documentary evidence from the Late Postclassic (1300 to 1521 CE) and Early Colonial (1521 to 1650 CE) periods. Over a six-month fellowship, I will write a book that will define the nature of poverty in Aztec society, explore the material evidence of Aztec impoverishment, and identify the long-term consequences of impoverishment for indigenous communities after the Spanish conquest. This book will establish the validity of an archaeology of poverty, outside of the West and before capitalism, in support of the archaeologists, historians, and other scholars who use knowledge of the past to improve the present.