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The Mezquital Valley Project: Integrating Project Management with Archaeology

Spend your lunchtime learning about projects and finding out about our PMI community. Listen to Rodrigo Vilanova discuss how he combined project management with archaeology for the Mezquital Valley Project in Mexico. The Mezquital Valley Project (Proyecto Eje Valle del Mezquital) from the National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH, Mexico), is one of the most representative and long-lived research and educational projects in Mexico. Created in 1985, this 36-year project has adapted through the years to train and teach archaeology students.

Rodrigo has over 20-years’ experience in archaeology (both as teacher, researcher, and project assistant and manager). He focused the intent of Project Management in Archaeology in communicating the basic skills required for a successful project execution, a skill usually developed through “experience” and “hard work”, rarely taught by professionals and teacher in any level of archaeological education.

Vilanova is currently working as teacher in ITESM (Technological and Superior Studies Institute of Monterrey), campus Querétaro. For more information on Project Management in Archaeology or the Mezquital Valley Research Project, please contact Rodrigo Vilanova: rodrigo_vilanova@hotmail.com.

Below is additional information about the Mezquital Valley Project:

Created in 1985 by Fernando López Aguilar (Ph.D., ENAH/INAH), the formative project (meant to train and teach archaeology students) focused in a multidisciplinary approach that combined anthropological research along with historical approaches to try and better understand the reality of the Otomi (Ñahñüh) people of the Mezquital Valley in current Hidalgo state.

Originally, basing its theoretical endeavors on historic materialism proposal, the advances in the knowledge and data generated by the project regarding the past, territorial dynamics and deeply complex identitarian problematics of the Ñahñüh led the project to change its theoretical background to one that allowed for a real epistemological and methodological approach, one much more critical of the data being generated and how it was being interpretated.

By 1994, both Complexity Theories and Systemic Archaeology would define the approach on data gathering and reflection on how to process said data, describing historical dynamics along a vast expanse of territory.

It is during this second stage of the project that the training and field-work skill development acquired even more importance in the formation of young archaeologists, by the turn of the century members of the project were expected to have exemplary analytical and technical skills along with strong leadership qualities for both research and field positions.

By the early 2010´s the project included constant reflection on ethics and project management as part of the basic skill set required for archaeological work. The book Project Management in Archaeology, was written during this period by PEVM´s member Rodrigo Vilanova, Timothy Kloppenborg (ed.) and Kathryn N Wells.