Jay E. Silverstein

Adjunct Professor

Background
Research Interests
Selected Writings

B.A. (with Distinction), Anthropology, San Jose State University, 1991
Ph.D., Anthropology, Penn State University, 2000

Background: Prior to graduate school, I served 9 years as a police officer in California. Since changing careers, I have taught as a guest professor at University of Copenhagen, Denmark, worked as a lecturer at the Pennsylvania State University, and I am currently working as a forensic archaeologist for the military at the Central Identification Lab of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. I have conducted major research projects on the Aztec-Tarascan frontier in Mexico and the Great Earthwork of Tikal, Guatemala. I have also worked on projects at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, Veracruz, and Tepeaca, Puebla, in Mexico, and at the Sutton Hoo Anglo Saxon burial site in England. As a military archaeologist, I have led archaeological investigations in Laos, South Korea, North Korea, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, and Austria.

Research Interests:

My research interests include the archaeology of militarism and frontiers, the rise and fall of complex societies, and Mesoamerica. I am particularly interested in the evolution and expression of social power, the cohesive force generated by society that induces individuals to act with unified purpose.

Selected Writings:

Silverstein, J., J. Byrd, and L. Otinero
2006 The Last Stand of Operation Manchu. In Fields of Conflict, edited by D. Scott. Manuscript submitted for publication at Praeger, Greenwood Publishing, New York.

Connell, S. and J. Silverstein
2006 From Laos to Mesoamerica: Battlegrounds between Superpowers. In The Archaeology of Warfare: Prehistories of Raiding and Conquest, Edited by Elizabeth Arkush and Mark Allen. University Press of Florida, Gainsville.

Webster, D., J. Silverstein, T. Murtha, H. Martínez, and K. Straight
2004 The Tikal Earthworks Revisited. Occasional Papers in Anthropology No. 28, Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

Silverstein, J.
2002 La Frontera Mexica-Tarasca en el Norte de Guerrero. In El Pasado Arqueologico de Guerrero, edited by C. Niederberger and R. M. Reyna Robles, pp. 409-428. CONACULTA. INAH, Mexico City.

Silverstein, J.
2001 Aztec imperialism at Oztuma, Guerrero: Aztec-Chontal relations during the Postclassic and Early Colonial Period. Ancient Mesoamerica 12:31-48.

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