Alanna Ossa

Professional Profile

Prior to joining the faculty at Oswego in 2016, Dr. Ossa was a Senior Project Manager at an Environmental Firm working as a professional archaeologist. She brings her 20+ years of experience in Cultural Resource Management and Historic Preservation in support of Oswego's strong professional undergraduate training in fieldwork and project management in archaeology, historical preservation, and environmental planning.

Research

• Mesoamerican archaeology; Postclassic period south-central Veracruz
• Hohokam archaeology, Sedentary and Classic period economies
• Market development, urbanism, and craft production
• Imperial and colonial political economies
• Network analysis applications, GIS, Quantitative Methods
• Ceramic Analysis, Compositional Analyses and Petrography
• Practical application and pedagogy of relational database technology in the storage, retrieval, and analysis of archaeological data in public, professional, and academic environments

Publications

• Ossa, Alanna
  2024    Soft Infrastructure: Realizing Value of Craft Producers in Small Centers and Settlements in Veracruz, Mesoamerica. In Realizing Value in Mesoamerica, edited by Scott Hutson and Charles Golden. Palgrave MacMillan. 
• Diane Z. Chase1*, José Lobo2, Gary M. Feinman3, David M. Carballo4, Arlen F. Chase5, Adrian S.Z. Chase6, Scott R. Hutson7, Alanna Ossa8, Marcello Canuto9, Travis Stanton10, L.J. Gorenflo11, Christopher A. Pool12, Barbara Arroyo13, Rodrigo Rubén Gregorio Liendo Stuardo14, Deborah L. Nichols15
  2023     Mesoamerican urbanism revisited: Environmental change, adaptation, resilience, persistence, and collapse. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120(31):e2211558120. DOI:10.1073/pnas.2211558120.
• Ossa, Alanna
  2022    The Organization of Obsidian Production and Exchange at Middle Postclassic period Sauce and its Hinterland in Veracruz, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 33(2), 2022, pp. 318–335.
• Ossa, Alanna 
  2021    Scaling Centers and Commerce in Preclassic and Late Classic Settlements in south-central Veracruz, Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 32: 66-79. 
• Ossa, Alanna and Andrea Gregory 
  2018    Subsistence, Ceramic Production, and Exchange at Farmstead Sites on the Queen Creek Bajada. Journal of Arizona Archaeology 6 (4): 44-62.
• Ossa, Alanna, Michael E. Smith, and José Lobo 
  2017    The Size of Plazas in Mesoamerican Cities and Towns: A Quantitative Analysis and Social Interpretation. Latin American Antiquity 28(4):457-475. 
• Watts, Joshua and Alanna Ossa (equal co-authors)
  2016     Exchange Network Topologies and Agent-based Modeling: Economies of the Sedentary period Hohokam. American Antiquity 81(4):623-644.
• Ossa, Alanna
  2014    Plazas in Comparative Perspective in South-Central Veracruz from the Classic to the Postclassic period (A.D. 300-1350).  In Mesoamerican Plazas: Negotiating Social Relations in Public Performance, edited by Kenichiro Tsukamoto and Takeshi Inomata, pp 130-148. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona. 
• Ossa, Alanna
  2013    Using Network Expectations to Identify Multiple Exchange Systems: A Case Study from Postclassic Sauce and its Hinterland in Veracruz, Mexico.  Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32:. 415-432.
• Stark, Barbara L. and Alanna Ossa
  2010    Origins and Development of Mesoamerican Marketing:  Evidence from South-Central Veracruz, Mexico.  In Archaeological Approaches to Market Exchange in Ancient Societies, edited by Chris Garraty and Barbara L. Stark, pp. 145-178.  University Press of Colorado.
• Stark, Barbara L. and Alanna Ossa
  2007    Ancient Settlement, Urban Gardening, and Environment in the Gulf Lowlands of Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 18 (4):385-406.
• Stark, Barbara L. and Alanna Ossa
  2006    Los Asentamientos Urbanos Huertos-jardines en la Planicie Costera de Veracruz. Anales de Antropología, Vol. 39, I, UNAM, Mexico.   
  

Conferences

• Society for American Archaeology
• Computer Applications in Archaeology
• Arizona Archaeological Council Meetings
• American Anthropological Association
• Internacional Congreso de Americanistas

Awards and honors

Early Start Competitive Grant Program- Research Foundation SUNY Oswego; National Science Foundation-DIG, BSC-0742324.

Education

Ph.D. Anthropology, Arizona State University, 2011
MA, Anthropology, Arizona State University, 2000
BA, Anthropology with general honors, University of Chicago, 1996