Scholars@Hallwalls: Lacey Carpenter

Join us for the inaugural Scholars@Hallwalls talk of the 2026-27 season! Complimentary beverages and light fare are served for a brief, pre-talk mingling session.
In this talk, I take a deep history perspective spanning 3,000 years in Oaxaca. The focus of this work is the house, its design, and construction. This expansive approach allows for the identification of moments of rupture and change and contextualize contact and conquest in relation to major developments in Oaxaca’s past. In this eventful history, the Spanish conquest can be more accurately assessed as a historical process. I evaluate this history from an archaeological and household perspective. This analysis demonstrates that all major socio-political developments in the Valley of Oaxaca coincided with significant changes to the construction techniques and floorplans of houses except the Spanish Conquest. This continuity was likely linked to the importance of the house and its maintenance as a way to continue to demonstrate land and house ownership.
About Lacey Carpenter
Lacey Carpenter is an anthropological archaeologist studying daily life during a time of political transformation in the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico. More broadly, she is interested in examining households as political spaces where ordinary people participated in and reacted to major changes during a time of urbanization and political conflict in the region.