"Who Makes the Cut? What the Skull Masks and Skulls of the Templo Mayor Tell Us About Aztec War and Sacrifice"

Corey's research focuses on the effects that cultural relationships have on population structure and interaction during the Postclassic period (AD 900-1520) in Mexico. Using dental morphological features as a proxy for genetic information, his research compares the biological distinctions between sacrificial victims by examining geographic distance, migration history, trade, and political interaction. The research investigates these relationships at the group and individual levels. 

In this video, Corey discusses the archaeobiological information provided by the skulls from the Templo Mayor, located in the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan. Using available cranial/dental data among the sacrificial victims, he evaluates how war and status effect the treatment of human remains in the Late Postclassic period (AD 1300-1520) at Tenochtitlan.

Defense of the Eucharist paintings portray an eternal conflict - that between Spanish monarch and non-believers, but more importantly, that between balanced and complementary opponents. Defense paintings ultimately honor the reciprocity between idolatry and orthodox religion, and they owe their inception to the unique circumstances of viceregal Peru. The invention of the iconography can be attributed to an Andean affinity for understanding triumph as the coming together of festive, complementary  opponents. Colonial dictionaries describe tinku (tinkuy) and its many linguistic permutations, both in Quechua and Aymara, as a place of union where two opposing yet complementary forces have come together to form something new and powerful.