Richard D. Hansen

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Hansen in 2017 El arqueologo Richard Hansen.jpg
Hansen in 2017

Richard D. Hansen is an American archaeologist who is an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Utah.

Contents

Career

Hansen is a specialist on the ancient Maya civilization and directs the Mirador Basin Project, which investigates a circumscribed geological and cultural area known as the Mirador Basin in the northern Petén, Guatemala. [1] [2] He has previously held positions at the University of California, Los Angeles and Idaho State University.[ citation needed ] He is also the founder and president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES).[ citation needed ] His work has been featured in 36 film documentaries[ citation needed ] and was the principal consultant for the movie Apocalypto ,[ citation needed ] CBS' Survivor Guatemala ,[ citation needed ] and National Geographic's The Story of God with Morgan Freeman.[ citation needed ]

He was also awarded the Orden de la Monja Blanca by the Guatemalan Ministry of Defense in 2019. He was named as "one of the 24 individuals that changed Latin America" [3] and his work has been an important contribution to the understanding of the development of Maya civilization. [4]

Richard D. Hansen is a specialist on the early ancient Maya civilization and directs the Mirador Basin Project, which investigates a geological and cultural area known as the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin in the northern Petén, Guatemala. Archeological Research in the Petén, Guatemala Mirador Basin National Monument: The Cradle of Maya Civilization.

FARES

He is the founder and president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES), a non-profit scientific research institution based in Idaho.[ citation needed ]

Academia

He graduated with a Ph.D. in Archaeology from UCLA in 1992 as a National Graduate Fellow, a Jacob Javits National Fellow, the UCLA Hortense Fishbaugh Memorial Scholar, the UCLA Distinguished Scholar (1988), a Fulbright Scholar (Guatemala) (1989-1990), the UCLA Outstanding Graduate Student (1991), and the UCLA Chancellor's Marshall with highest honors (1992).

He previously held a double major B.S. degree (cum laude) in Spanish and Archaeology from Brigham Young University in 1978, and a M.S. degree in Anthropology in 1984.

Awards

He was recently named as "one of 24 individuals that changed Latin America" by Bravo Association, Latin Trade Magazine, Dec. He was awarded the highest civilian award possible in Guatemala, the Gran Cruz of the Order of Quetzal on March 9, 2017 in the National Palace by President Jimmy Morales and Minister Jose Luis Chea. He received the "Orden de la Monja Blanca) (highest civilian award possible) from the Ministry of Defense of Guatemala in November 2019. He was named the 2014 Kislak Lecturer at the U.S. Library of Congress, and was honored as the "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres" of the "Ordre des Arts et Lettres" by the French Ministry of Culture in 2012. He was awarded the "Orden del Pop" by Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala in 2012. He was awarded the highest Idaho State University Achievement Award 2009 and was named Environmentalist of the Year in Latin America 2008 by the 161,000 members of the Latin Trade Bravo Business Association. He was awarded the National Order of the Cultural Patrimony of Guatemala by Guatemalan President Oscar Berger in December 2005.

He was the founder of the Dialogue of Civilizations Conferences hosted by the National Geographic Society, with recent conferences in Guatemala, Turkey, and China and more scheduled for India and Egypt.[ citation needed ] Hansen was the co-founder of the Guatemala-China Association for Culture, Tourism and Sports based in Guatemala City.[ citation needed ]

Publications

He has published 3 books (2 as series editor), and is the editor of three more volumes currently in preparation. In addition, he has published 190 papers and book chapters in scientific and popular publications and has presented more than 393 professional papers and technical reports in scientific formats and symposia throughout the world. As a project, his team has currently published 318 scientific papers, abstracts, and book chapters, and 1209 technical reports and scientific presentations

Locations

He has conducted and/or directed archaeological research in Israel, the U.S. Great Basin, U.S. Southwest, and Central America. Hansen's research in the remote rainforests of northern Guatemala currently involves scholars from dozens of universities and research institutions from throughout the world.[ citation needed ]

His team has mapped and excavated in 51 ancient cities in the Mirador Basin.[ citation needed ] Hansen's studies have identified some of the largest and earliest ancient cities in Central America, and his work has been an important contribution to the developmental history of Maya civilization. [5] [ failed verification ]


Related Research Articles

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Petén is a department of Guatemala. It is geographically the northernmost department of Guatemala, as well as the largest by area – at 35,854 km2 (13,843 sq mi) it accounts for about one third of Guatemala's area. The capital is Flores. The population at the mid-2018 official estimate was 595,548.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maya peoples</span> People of southern Mexico and northern Central America

The Maya are an ethnolinguistic group of indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The ancient Maya civilization was formed by members of this group, and today's Maya are generally descended from people who lived within that historical region. Today they inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and westernmost El Salvador and Honduras.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Mirador</span> Pre-Columbian Maya settlement

El Mirador is a large pre-Columbian Middle and Late Preclassic Maya settlement, located in the north of the modern department of El Petén, Guatemala. It is part of the Mirador-Calakmul Karst Basin of northern Guatemala.

Cival is an archaeological site in the Petén Basin region of the southern Maya lowlands, which was formerly a major city of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization. It is located in the present-day Department of Petén, Guatemala.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sacbe</span> Paved roads linking ancient Mayan cities

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<i>Apocalypto</i> 2006 film by Mel Gibson

Apocalypto is a 2006 epic historical action-adventure film produced and directed by Mel Gibson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Farhad Safinia. The film features a cast of Indigenous and Mexican actors consisting of Rudy Youngblood, Raoul Trujillo, Mayra Sérbulo, Dalia Hernández, Gerardo Taracena, Jonathan Brewer, Rodolfo Palacios, Bernardo Ruiz Juarez, Ammel Rodrigo Mendoza, Ricardo Diaz Mendoza, and Israel Contreras. Set in Yucatán around the year 1517, Apocalypto portrays the hero's journey of a young man named Jaguar Paw, a late Mesoamerican hunter and his fellow tribesmen who are captured by an invading force. After the devastation of their village, they are brought on a perilous journey to a Maya city for human sacrifice at a time when the Maya civilization is in decline.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nakbe</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirador Basin</span>

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Jeremy "Jerry" Arac Sabloff is an American anthropologist and past president of the Santa Fe Institute. Sabloff is an expert on ancient Maya civilization and pre-industrial urbanism. His academic interests have included settlement pattern studies, archaeological theory and method, the history of archaeology, the relevance of archaeology in the modern world, complexity theory, and trans-disciplinary science.

The history of Maya civilization is divided into three principal periods: the Preclassic, Classic and Postclassic periods; these were preceded by the Archaic Period, which saw the first settled villages and early developments in agriculture. Modern scholars regard these periods as arbitrary divisions of chronology of the Maya civilization, rather than indicative of cultural evolution or decadence. Definitions of the start and end dates of period spans can vary by as much as a century, depending on the author. The Preclassic lasted from approximately 3000 BC to approximately 250 AD; this was followed by the Classic, from 250 AD to roughly 950 AD, then by the Postclassic, from 950 AD to the middle of the 16th century. Each period is further subdivided:

References

  1. Archeological Research in the Petén, Guatemala - NASA
  2. Mirador Basin National Monument: The Cradle of Maya Civilization
  3. Latin Trade Magazine, Dec. 2013, p. 72, www.latintrade.com
  4. Prensa Libre, 10 Marzo 2017: 12,35 http://www.globalheritagefund.org/apocalypto.html Global Heritage Fund Archived 2007-11-02 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Prensa Libre, 10 Marzo 2017