Register: https://meridian-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZFWsut3xQq2uh0X3X0y5zA
Location: Online

Description

The archaeologists are part of a team of researchers led by Guatemala’s PACUNAM LiDAR Initiative, who recently discovered dozens of ancient, previously lost Mayan cities of more than 60,000 houses, palaces, elevated highways and other large constructions in the jungles of Guatemala.

The findings redefined previous understandings of how complex and interconnected Mayan civilizations were. Such findings, which had been missed by previous archaeological excavations and surveys in Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, reveal that:

• The Mayans populated the entire region in interconnected cities and manipulated the landscape to supply food and water for massive populations, rather than living in scattered, self-sufficient settlements.

• The urgency with which archaeologists and cultural preservationists must work to combat looting and environmental degradation from jungle-clearing fires.

On January 27, 2022, the virtual program will begin at 11:00 EST with a lecture by Dr. Canuto and Dr. Estrada-Belli followed by a panel discussion with Dr. Barrientos, Dr. Sarah Parcak (University of Alabama), and Dr. John Walker (University of Central Florida), moderated by Dr. Loa Traxler (University of New Mexico). Guests will include students, leading archaeologists and anthropologists, cultural heritage and museum professionals and scholars, and organizations with a focus on Central America, Pre-Columbian studies, and Mayan cultures. The program, which will be presented in English with Spanish translation, will conclude with a Q&A session open to the audience.

This program is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of Meridian’s Global Humanities Initiative.

Event Schedule

11:00 AM - 11:45 AM: Lecture

Dr. Marcello Canuto and Dr. Francisco Estrada Belli, Tulane University

11:45 AM - 12:30 PM: Panel Discussion

Moderator: Dr. Loa Traxler, University of New Mexico

Dr. Tomás Barrientos, Universidad de Valle de Guatemala

Dr. Sarah Parcak, University of Alabama

Dr. John Walker, University of Central Florida

12:30 PM - 12:45 PM: Q&A

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Dr. Tomás Barrientos Quezada, Universidad de Valle de Guatemala

Tomás Barrientos Quezada (Ph.D. Vanderbilt University 2014) has conducted archaeological research throughout Guatemala for the last 30 years. He is currently Chair of the Archaeology Department and Director of the Center for Archaeological and Anthropological Research at Universidad del Valle de Guatemala. For 14 years, has been the co-director of La Corona Regional Archaeological Project, conducting investigations in Northwestern Petén, Guatemala. He also worked at the site of Cancuen, in a pioneer project integrating local development of indigenous communities as an integral part of archaeological investigations. His specialties include spatial analysis of architecture, ancient geopolitics, Highland Maya and Pacific Coast archaeology, cultural heritage management, public archaeology, sustainable tourism, cultural astronomy and Prehispanic gastronomy. He has published more than 200 scientific articles and technical reports and has given more than 350 conferences in 13 countries.

Dr. Marcello Canuto, Tulane University

Marcello A. Canuto is currently Director of the Middle American Research Institute and Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University. He received his BA from Harvard University in 1991 and his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. Before coming to Tulane in 2009, he was an Assistant Professor at Yale University.

He has undertaken archaeological excavations in the Maya region, South America, India, North Africa, and the northeast US. His primary research interest in the Maya area has been on the integrative mechanisms that the ancient Maya used to build and maintain a socio-politically complex society throughout both the Preclassic and Classic periods. More broadly, his interests include household and community dynamics, the development of socio-political complexity in ancient societies, the definition of identity through material culture, and the modern social contexts of archaeology in Mesoamerica. His past research in Honduras investigated the nature of ethnic diversity at Copan. He now co-directs a project in the understudied Northwest Peten, Guatemala where he investigates the construction of social categories and the mechanisms by which complex socio-political organizations develop and were maintained.

Among many publications are the edited volumes The Regimes of the Ancient Maya (in preparation with Cambridge, 2019), Understanding Early Classic Copan: New Research and New Themes (University of Pennsylvania, 2004), The Archaeology of Communities: A New World Perspective (Routledge, 2000). He also serves on the U.S. Board of the Universidad del Valle Guatemala.

Dr. Francisco Estrada-Belli, Tulane University

Francisco Estrada Belli (Ph.D., Boston University), specializes in Maya archaeology, Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems. He is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and a National Geographic Explorer. He is the author of “The First Maya Civilization. Ritual and Power before the Classic Period” (Routledge, 2011) the first book on the origins of Maya civilization since 1977. He directs a multi-disciplinary archaeological project in the Holmul region of Peten, Guatemala, focusing on early developments of Maya civilization, human-environmental dynamics and Classic period political organization. He co-founded the Maya Archaeological Initiative, a non-profit organization that promotes research and youth education on Maya heritage. He is one of the co-directors of Guatemala’s Pacunam Lidar Initiative, the largest archaeological survey ever undertaken in the Maya lowlands.

Dr. Sarah Parcak, University of Alabama

Sarah Parcak is from Bangor, Maine. She is a National Geographic Society Archaeology Fellow, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a 2013 TED Senior Fellow. Sarah serves as the founding director of the Laboratory for Global Observation at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Sarah and her husband, Egyptologist Greg Mumford, work together on the Surveys and Excavation Projects in Egypt, which includes archaeological projects in the Delta, Sinai, and pyramid fields regions of Egypt. Sarah has written the first textbook on the field of satellite archaeology, Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology, and has published numerous peer reviewed scientific papers. She is regularly invited to give papers at national and international conferences and symposia. She is also interviewed regularly for national print media (Science, Nature, National Geographic, CNN, BBC). Her research has been featured in two major international BBC-Discovery Chanel Documentaries, "Egypt: What Lies Beneath” and "Rome's Lost Empire." Sarah has worked with NASA and the US State Department, and has collaborators across the globe. She has given 150 talks to a range of audiences worldwide.

Dr. Loa Traxler, University of New Mexico

Loa P. Traxler, Associate Professor and Director of Museum Studies at the University of New Mexico, investigates the architectural evolution of Classic Maya centers and the nature of sociopolitical organization of these societies. She received her doctorate in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, and her experience draws on over thirty years of field research, survey, curation, and collections management at sites throughout the world. Her archaeological research touches on diverse cultural traditions – from 17th century pueblo life in the Upper Río Grande, to the ancient city of Petra in southern Jordan, and the Classic Maya kingdom of Copan in western Honduras. In academia, she teaches and leads interdisciplinary programs with the goal of expanding professional museum training and research opportunities for diverse students. She publishes on Maya heritage and pre-Columbian civilization, most recently co-editing The Origins of Maya States (2016, University of Penn Museum), and currently is assembling archaeological reports from long-term research focused on the Copan Acropolis.

Dr. John Walker, University of Central Florida

John Walker is a landscape archaeologist who has worked in the Bolivian Amazon since 1992. He earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. He has written two books and many articles on Amazonian archaeology, including Island, River, and Field (2018), published by the University of New Mexico Press. Currently, he is part of an international, multidisciplinary research team that combines results from the natural sciences and archaeology to better understand how indigenous people domesticated the landscape for more than 3000 years, using earthworks and fire regimes. He teaches in the department of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, where he also runs the graduate certificate program in GIS.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this web page do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

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