Jane MacLaren Walsh is an

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

and researcher at the Smithsonian's

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

She is known for her role in exposing faked

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European col ...

artifacts.

Early life and education

Walsh grew up in Mexico and studied at the University of the Americas for B.A. and M.A. degrees. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology at Catholic University of America with the doctoral thesis "Myth and imagination in the American story : the Coronado expedition, 1540-1542."

Career

Walsh's research specialty is

crystal skull Crystal skulls are human skull hardstone carvings made of clear, milky white or other types of quartz (also called "rock crystal"), claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders; however, these claims have been refut ...

s, an artifact type often purported to be of Precolumbian origin and frequently revealed as hoaxes by archaeologists. Her interest in these objects began with the anonymous delivery of one such object to the Smithsonian in 1992. Notable cases she has investigated include

s alleged to have been of ancient

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El S ...

n (mostly

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

) origins, and a piece held by the

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Dumbarton Oaks, formally the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, is a historic estate in the Georgetown, Washington, D.C., Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was the residence and gardens of wealthy U.S. diplomat Rober ...

purported to be an authentic pre-Columbian representation of Tlazolteotl, an

and central Mexican goddess.Walsh (2008a; 2008b)

Selected works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walsh, Jane Maclaren American anthropologists American biographers American Mesoamericanists Catholic University of America alumni Historians of Mesoamerican art Smithsonian Institution people Women Mesoamericanists Living people Crystal skull Year of birth missing (living people) American women scientists 21st-century Mesoamericanists 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers