Ph.D.
Department of Anthropology
Christopher.Beekman@ucdenver.edu
303-315-7327

Mailing Address:
Department of Anthropology
Campus Box 103
PO Box 173364 
Denver, CO 80217-3364

Physical Location:
Auraria Campus
North Classroom
Suite 4002

Office Hours:
M-F 9-5

Dr. Beekman’s research has since graduate school revolved around issues in ancient political organization and scales of social identity (individual agency, corporate group, and ethnic identity). The sociopolitical system of the Tequila valleys, Jalisco, from ca. 1000 BC to AD 600 provides a distinctive case study in which power was shared between multiple lineages, subverting both individual identity and hierarchical power structures based on a single royal lineage. I have pursued this research through excavation at the settlements of Navajas and Llano Grande, study of the depiction of rulership in contemporary artwork, and computer simulation in collaboration with Dr. William Baden of Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne. I will soon begin a large scale survey project in collaboration with Dr. Verenice Heredia of the Colegio de Michoacán that elaborates upon this research to evaluate the rise and demise of this political system.

A second research thread has been the integration of linguistic, biological, ethnohistoric, and archaeological evidence to investigate the introduction of Nahuatl speaking migrants into parts of highland Mesoamerica in the 6th century AD. A regional scale analysis identified a good degree of overlap between biology and the use of material culture, but a detailed site-specific study at Tula identified a much more complex situation in which migrants and the indigenous population used material culture to signal claims about identity and affiliation. Much of this research has been in collaboration with Dr. Alec Christensen of JPAC-CILHI.

He has served as undergraduate advisor for Anthropology (2005-2008), graduate program director (2009-2011), and is currently department chair (2011-).

May, 1996 - Ph.D., Anthropology, VanderbiltUniversity. Dissertation- The Long-Term Evolution of a Political Boundary: Archaeological Research in Jalisco, Mexico.

 

June, 1989 - B.A. with high honors, Anthropology, Certificates in Museum Studies and Latin American Studies, from California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB).

Beekman, Christopher S. and Robert B. Pickering, editors. 2016. Shaft Tombs and Figures in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Gilcrease Ancient Americas Series, Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2016. Conflicting Political Strategies in Late Formative to Early Classic Central Jalisco. In Political Strategies in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, edited by Sarah Kurnick and Joanne Baron, pp. 95-117. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2015. Causes and Consequences of Migration in Epiclassic Northern Mesoamerica. In Migration and Disruptions: Toward a Unified Theory of Ancient and Contemporary Migrations, edited by Brenda Baker and Takeyuki Tsuda, pp. 73-96. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Solórzano, Federico, Otto Schöndube, Fernando González Zozaya, Daniel Zizumbo Villarreal, Christopher S. Beekman, José M. Muriá, and Heriberto Moreno. 2015. Historia de Jalisco. Volumen I. Desde los Orígenes hasta Mediados del Siglo XVI. Second edition. Gobierno del Estado de Jalisco, El Colegio de Jalisco, and Miguel Angel Porrua, Mexico, D.F.

Beekman, Christopher S. and Alexander F. Christensen. 2011. Power, Agency, and Identity: Migration and Aftermath in the Mezquital Area of North-Central Mexico. In Rethinking Anthropological Perspectives on Migration, edited by Graciela S. Cabana and Jeffery J. Clark, pp. 147-171. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

Beekman, Christopher S. and William W. Baden. 2011. El cultivo del maíz y su impacto regional: Agotamiento de los suelos en el Corredor de La Venta, Jalisco. In Patrones de Asentamiento y Actividades de Subsistencia en el Occidente de Mexico. Reconocimiento a la Doctora Helen P. Pollard, edited by Eduardo Williams and Phil C. Weigand, pp. 351-382. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora.

Beekman, Christopher S. and Phil C. Weigand. 2010. La Secuencia Cronológica de la Tradición Teuchitlán. In El sistema fluvial Lerma-Santiago durante el Formativo terminal y el Clásico temprano. Memoria del Segundo Seminario-Taller sobre Problemáticas Regionales, edited by Laura Solar V., pp. 237-261. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, D.F.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2010. Recent Research in Western Mexican Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 18: 14-109.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2009. Los Sistemas Políticos del Formativo en los Valles de Tequila, Jalisco y su Relación con la Subsistencia. In Las sociedades complejas del occidente de México en el mundo mesoamericano. Homenaje a Dr. Phil C. Weigand, edited by Eduardo Williams, Lorenza López Mestas, and Rodrigo Esparza, pp. 75-95. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México.

Weigand, Phil C., Christopher Beekman, and Rodrigo Esparza, editors. 2008. La Tradición Teuchitlán. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2008. Corporate Power Strategies in the Late Formative to Early Classic Tequila valleys of central Jalisco. Latin American Antiquity 19(4): 414-434.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2006. The Chronological Context of the Central Jalisco Shaft Tombs. In Mortuary Practices and Shaft Tombs in Western Mexico: An Homenaje to Phil Weigand, a Special Section of Ancient Mesoamerica 17(2): 239-249.

Beekman, Christopher S. and L. Javier Galván Villegas. 2006. The Shaft Tombs of the Atemajac Valley and Their Relation to Settlement. In Mortuary Practices and Shaft Tombs in Western Mexico: An Homenaje to Phil Weigand, a Special Section of Ancient Mesoamerica 17(2): 259-270.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2005. Nuevos enfoques sobre la tradición Teuchitlán: investigaciones actuales en Llano Grande y Navajas, Jalisco. In El Antiguo Occidente de México. Nuevas perspectivas sobre el pasado prehispánico, edited by Eduardo Williams, Phil C. Weigand, Lorenza López Mestas, and David C. Grove, pp. 73-91. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México.

Beekman, Christopher S. and William W. Baden, editors. 2005. Nonlinear Models for Archaeology and Anthropology: Continuing the Revolution. Ashgate Press, Aldershot, U.K.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2003. Agricultural Pole Rituals and Rulership in Late Formative Central Jalisco. Ancient Mesoamerica 14(2): 299-318.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2003. Fruitful Symmetry: Corn and Cosmology in the Public Architecture of Late Formative and Early Classic Jalisco. Mesoamerican Voices 1: 5-22.

Beekman, Christopher S. and Alexander F. Christensen. 2003. Controlling for Doubt and Uncertainty through multiple lines of evidence: A new look at the Mesoamerican Nahua migrations. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 10(2): 111-164.

Baden, William W. and Christopher S. Beekman. 2001. Culture and Agriculture: A Comment on Sissel Schroeder. American Antiquity 66(3): 505-515.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2000. Los Estudios de Casos Históricos y su Contribución al Estudio Arqueológico de los “Sistemas Políticos”. Special issue on History and Archaeology, Relaciones del Colegio de Michoacán, Estudios de Historia y Sociedad 82: 17-38.

Beekman, Christopher S. 2000. The Correspondence of Regional Patterns and Local Strategies in Formative to Classic Period West Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19(4): 385-412.

Beekman, Christopher S. and Phil C. Weigand. 2000. La Cerámica Arqueológica de la Tradición Teuchitlán, Jalisco. Colegio de Michoacán and the Secretaría de Cultura del Estado de Jalisco, Zamora, Michoacán.

Beekman, Christopher S., Phil C. Weigand, and John J. Pint. 1999. Old World Irrigation Technology in a New World Context: Qanats in Spanish Colonial Western Mexico. Antiquity73(280): 440-446.

Beekman, Christopher S. 1996. Political Boundaries and Political Structure: The Limits of the Teuchitlán Tradition. Ancient Mesoamerica 7(1): 135-147.

Beekman, Christopher S., Phil C. Weigand, and John J. Pint. 1995. El Qanat La Venta: Sistemas Hidráulicos de la Época Colonial en el Centro de Jalisco. Relaciones del Colegio de Michoacán, Estudios de Historia y Sociedad 16 (63/64): 139-185.

Beekman, Christopher S. 1992. A Case of Regional Specialization in a Quarry from the Río Santa Amelia Region, Guatemala. Mexicon 14: 98-102.

Graduate Seminars

  Archaeological Research Design

  Contemporary Perspectives in Archaeological Theory

Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate Upper Division Courses

  Landscape Archaeology

  Archaeology of Power and Inequality

  Archaeology of Mexico and Central America

Lower Division and Upper Division Undergraduate Courses

  World Prehistory

  Introduction to Archaeology

Graduate Seminars

  Archaeological Research Design

  Contemporary Perspectives in Archaeological Theory

Mixed Undergraduate/Graduate Upper Division Courses

  Integrating Anthropology

  Archaeology of Power and Inequality

  Archaeology of Mexico and Central America

Lower Division and Upper Division Undergraduate Courses

  World Prehistory

  Introduction to Archaeology