Professor of Archaeology, Anthropology, and Latin American Studies, Assistant Provost for General Education

Curriculum Vitae

Websites

Personal Website
Academia.edu Website
Plaza of the Columns
Tlajinga-Teotihuacan Project Website

Areas of Interest

Mesoamerican archaeology; households; ritual; political evolution; urbanism; cooperation and conflict; craft production and exchange; GIS; archaeometry; lithic analysis

Excavations and Fieldwork

David Carballo is a specialist in Mesoamerican archaeology, focusing particularly on the prehispanic civilizations of central Mexico. Currently ongoing projects at the ancient city of Teotihuacan include the Proyecto Arqueológico Tlajinga, Teotihuacan (PATT), and the Proyecto Plaza de las Columnas. The first seeks to understand urbanization, neighborhood organization, and the daily life of commoners through excavations and geophysical prospection within a southern district of the city. The second is focused on a palace compounds and is aimed at understanding the city’s political economy.

Representative Publications

Books

Carballo, David M.
2020 Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain. Oxford University Press, New York.

Hirth, Kenneth G., David M. Carballo, and Barbara Arroyo (eds.)
2020 Teotihuacan: The World Beyond the City.  Dumbarton Oaks and Trustees of Harvard University, Washington, D.C.

Carballo, David M.
2016 Urbanization and Religion in Ancient Central Mexico. Oxford University Press, New York.

Levine, Marc N., and David M. Carballo (eds.)
2014 Obsidian Reflections: Symbolic Dimensions of Obsidian in Mesoamerica. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Carballo, David M. (ed.)
2013 Cooperation and Collective Action: Archaeological Perspectives. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Carballo, David M.
2011 Obsidian and the Teotihuacan State: Weaponry and Ritual Production at the Moon Pyramid. University of Pittsburgh Memoirs in Latin American Archaeology No. 21. Center for Comparative Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, and Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Pittsburgh and Mexico City.

Selected Articles and Chapters

Carballo, David M., Kenneth G. Hirth, Daniela Hernández Sariñana, Gina M. Buckley, Andrés G. Mejía Ramón, and Douglas J. Kennett
2019 New Research at Teotihuacan’s Tlajinga District, 2012-2015.  Ancient Mesoamerica 30: 95-113.

Feinman, Gary M., and David M. Carballo
2018 Collaborative and Competitive Strategies in the Variability and Resiliency of Large-Scale Societies in Mesoamerica.  Economic Anthropology 5(1): 7-19.

Carballo, David M., and Gary M. Feinman
2016 Cooperation, Collective Action, and the Archaeology of Large-Scale Societies.  Evolutionary Anthropology 25: 288-296.

Carballo, David M., and Brent Fortenberry
2015 Bridging Prehistory and History in the Archaeology of Cities. Journal of Field Archaeology
http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1179/2042458215Y.00000000019

Carballo, David M., Paul Roscoe, and Gary M. Feinman
2014 Cooperation and Collective Action in the Cultural Evolution of Complex Societies.  Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 21(1): 98-133.

Carballo, David M., Jennifer Carballo, and Richard G. Lesure
2014 Houses of Style: Consumption, Adornment, and Identity in Formative Tlaxcalan Households. Ancient Mesoamerica 25(2): 459-476.

Carballo, David M.
2014 American Pioneers and Traditions. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, edited by Claire Smith, pp. 186-190. Springer, New York.

Carballo, David M., Luis Barba, Agustín Ortíz, Jorge Blancas, Nicole Cingolani, Jorge Toledo Barrera, David Walton, Isabel Rodríguez López, and Lourdes Couoh
2014 Suprahousehold Consumption and Community Ritual at La Laguna, Mexico. Antiquity 88(339): 141-159.

Carballo, David M.
2013 The Social Organization of Craft Production and Interregional Exchange at Teotihuacan. In Merchants, Markets, and Exchange in the Pre-Columbian World, edited by Kenneth G. Hirth and Joanne Pillsbury, pp. 113-140. Dumbarton Oaks and Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.

Carballo, David M.
2012 Public Ritual and Urbanization in Central Mexico: Plaza and Temple Offerings from La Laguna, Tlaxcala. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22(3): 329-352.

Carballo, David M.
2011 Advances in the Household Archaeology of Highland Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Research 19: 133-189.

Carballo, David M.
2009 Household and Status in Formative Central Mexico: Domestic Structures, Assemblages, and Practices at La Laguna, Tlaxcala. Latin American Antiquity 20(3): 473-501.

Carballo, David M., and Thomas Pluckhahn
2007 Transportation Corridors and Political Evolution in Highland Mesoamerica: Settlement Analyses Incorporating GIS for Northern Tlaxcala, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26(4): 607-629.