Vera Tiesler

Vera Tiesler is currently a research professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, where she heads the Laboratory of Bioarchaeology. Key books include Smoke, Flames, and the Human Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice (2018), co-edited with Andrew Scherer; the re-examination of a foundational Maya tomb in Janaab’ Pakal of Palenque. Reconstructing the Life and Death of a Maya Ruler (2006), co-edited with Andrea Cucina; and a number of works on cranial modification, most recently, Modificaciones cefálicas culturales en Mesoamérica. Una perspectiva continental (2018), co-edited with Carlos Serrano, and Head Transformations in Native Mesoamerica and the Andes. Identity, Power, and Embodiment (2018), coedited with María Cecilia Lozada. By exploring skeletal information jointly with pre-Columbian art, artifacts, and ethnohistoric sources, Tiesler’s research addresses ancient lifestyles and death practices, physical appearance and permanent body enhancement, violence, sacrifice, and body processing.