Ancient hydrological and water management systems Pre-Columbian settlement patterns & political economies Maya site archaeology in Belize and the Petén
As of 2011[update] Scarborough is a Distinguished Research Professor and Charles P. Taft Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, University of Cincinnati in Ohio, USA. Scarborough's research and fieldwork on hydrology and water management systems has been conducted primarily among pre-ColumbianMaya civilization sites in the Maya lowlands of Guatemala and Belize, where since 1992 he has co-directed and instructed on a number of seasonal archaeology programmes under the Programme for Belize Archaeological Project (PfBAP). In addition to his research conducted at Maya sites in Mesoamerica, Scarborough has worked in his field specialty with institutions and at site locations in Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Greece and the American Southwest, among others. He is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee with IHOPE (Integrated History for the Future of the People of Earth) an effort of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the Stockholm Resilience Center, for both the global (Berlin meeting) and the regional Asia (Akita, Japan) and Americas (Santa Fe) initiatives.
Xunantunich is an Ancient Maya archaeological site in western Belize, about 70 miles west of Belize City, in the Cayo District. Xunantunich is located atop a ridge above the Mopan River, well within sight of the Guatemala border – which is 0.6 miles (1 km) to the west. It served as a Maya civic ceremonial centre to the Belize Valley region in the Late and Terminal Classic periods. At that time, when the region was at its peak, nearly 200,000 people lived in the Belize Valley.
Lubaantun is a pre-Columbian ruined city of the Maya civilization in southern Belize, Central America. Lubaantun is in Belize's Toledo District, about 42 kilometres (26 mi) northwest of Punta Gorda, and approximately 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) from the village of San Pedro Columbia, at an elevation of 61 metres (200 ft) feet above mean sea level. One of the most distinguishing features of Lubaantun is the large collection of miniature ceramic objects found on site; these detailed constructs are thought to have been charmstones or ritual-accompanying accoutrements.
Cerros is an Eastern Lowland Maya archaeological site in northern Belize that functioned from the Late Preclassic to the Postclassic period. The site reached its apogee during the Mesoamerican Late Preclassic and at its peak, it held a population of approximately 1,089 people. The site is strategically located on a peninsula at the mouth of the New River where it empties into Chetumal Bay on the Caribbean coast. As such, the site had access to and served as an intermediary link between the coastal trade route that circumnavigated the Yucatán Peninsula and inland communities. The inhabitants of Cerros constructed an extensive canal system and utilized raised-field agriculture.
Sylvanus Griswold Morley was an American archaeologist and epigrapher who studied the pre-Columbian Maya civilization in the early 20th century. Morley led extensive excavations of the Maya site of Chichen Itza on behalf of the Carnegie Institution and published several large compilations and treatises on Maya hieroglyphic writing. He also wrote popular accounts on the Maya for a general audience.
Stephen Douglas Houston is an American anthropologist, archaeologist, epigrapher, and Mayanist scholar, who is particularly renowned for his research into the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. He is the author of a number of papers and books concerning topics such as the Maya script, the history, kingships and dynastic politics of the pre-Columbian Maya, and archaeological reports on several Maya archaeological sites, particularly Dos Pilas and El Zotz. In 2021, National Geographic noted that he participated in the correct cultural association assigned to a half-size replica discovered at the Tikal site of the six-story pyramid of the mighty Teotihuacan culture, which replicated its Citadel that includes the original Feathered Serpent Pyramid.
William Andrew "Bill" Saturno is an American archaeologist and Mayanist scholar who has made significant contributions toward the study of the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. Saturno is a former director of the Proyecto San Bartolo-Xultun at the Instito de Antropologia e Historia in Guatemala, a former national space research scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center, and a research associate at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Saturno has previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Boston University and MIT and as a lecturer at the University of New Hampshire.
Robert J. Sharer was an American archaeologist, academic and Mayanist researcher. He was known for his archaeological investigations at a number of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sites conducted over a career spanning four decades, and for his archaeological reports, theorizing, and writings in his field of specialty, the ancient Maya civilization. Sharer was a lecturer and professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Anthropology for more than 30 years, and as of 2008, occupied the endowed chair of Sally and Alvin V. Shoemaker Professor in Anthropology, an appointment which he held beginning in 1995. He also had an extensive association with Penn's University Museum of archaeology and anthropology, where from 1987 to 2009 he was the curator-in-charge of the museum's American collection and research section. He died on September 20, 2012.
Pierre Robert Colas was a German anthropologist, archaeologist and epigrapher. As a Mayanist scholar who investigated the pre-Columbian Maya civilization of ancient Mesoamerica, Colas was well known for his contributions to the study of the Maya writing system, and his archaeological work on cave sites used by the Maya. His analysis of onomastics—personal naming practices and titles of rank—in Classic-era Maya inscriptions was the first major publication of its kind. Colas also conducted ethnographic studies and surveys among contemporary Maya communities living in Belize. In Europe, he had close involvement with the organisation of academic conferences and workshops on the Maya, as a workshop tutor, presenter of original papers, and editor of several conference proceedings and reports.
Heather Irene McKillop is a Canadian-American archaeologist, academic, and Maya scholar, noted in particular for her research into ancient Maya coastal trade routes, seafaring, littoral archaeology, and the long-distance exchange of commodities in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
Blue Creek is a riverine system and major archaeological site located in North-Western Belize, Central America. It is situated geographically on the Belize–Mexico border and then continues south across the Guatemala–Mexico border. The river is commonly known as the Río Azul or ‘Azul River’ in Spanish, which translates to ‘blue river’ or ‘blue creek’ in English.
William Robertson Coe II was an American archaeologist and Mayanist academic. He conducted extensive field work on pre-Columbian Maya civilization sites, and published numerous works on the subject.
Diane Zaino Chase is an American anthropologist and archaeologist who specializes in the study of the Ancient Maya. As of January 2023, she serves as senior vice president for academic affairs and provost of the University of Houston and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs for the University of Houston System.
David Michael Pendergast, is an American archaeologist, and is most famous for his work at Altun Ha and Lamanai, Belize. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology in 1955 from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his Ph.D. in 1961 at the University of California, Los Angeles, studying with Clement Meighan. He was later married to Elizabeth Graham, also a Mesoamerican Archaeologist.
Linton Satterthwaite Jr. (1897–1978) was a Maya archaeologist and epigrapher and is primarily associated with the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania. He is well known for his works at Caracol, Piedras Negras, Cahal Pech and Benque Viejo (Xunantunich).
Pusilhá is an archaeological site in Belize. The location of this Late Classic Maya urban complex, along the east and west flow of trade, made the city a major transfer point for economic activities in the whole region. In addition, the city gave archaeologists a historical view of a secondary Maya site. Large and extended excavation efforts have changed the overall picture of Maya social and political relationships between larger and smaller cities and challenged the prevailing view of conquest and absorption of smaller cities into the larger cities in the region. The research conducted at Pusilhá began in 1927 and continues to this day.
La Milpa is an archaeological site and an ancient Maya city within the Three River region of Northwest Belize bordering Mexico and Guatemala. La Milpa is located between the sites of Rio Azul and Lamanai. Currently, La Milpa lies within the nature preserve owned by the Programme for Belize, a non-profit organization. PfB acquired land for the preserve from the Coco-Cola Company, who purchased land in Belize in 1988 with the goals of tearing down the rainforest to create a citrus plantation, however donated the land to Conservation and Management Project in 1990 and 1992. Following Caracol and Lamanai, La Milpa is the third largest site in Belize with the Main Plaza alone covering 18,000 square meters, making it one of the largest in the entire Maya region.
Baking Pot is a Maya archaeological site located in the Belize River Valley on the southern bank of the river, northeast of modern-day town of San Ignacio in the Cayo District of Belize; it is 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) downstream from the Barton Ramie and Lower Dover archaeological sites. Baking Pot is associated with an extensive amount of research into Maya settlements, community-based archaeology, and of agricultural production; the site possesses lithic workshops, and possible evidence of cash-cropping cacao as well as a long occupation from the Preclassic through to the Postclassic period.
David Cheetham is a Canadian archaeologist. He works primarily in Central America and specializes in the identification of Preclassic/Formative era structures and pottery.
Jaime José Awe is a Belizean archaeologist who specializes in the ancient Maya, a professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University, and the Director of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project.
Marilyn Masson is a Maya archaeologist whose research has focused on social transformation and political economy of ancient Mesoamerican cultures in Mexico and Belize. She is a professor of Mesoamerican archaeology at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is a co-director of the PEMY project at the site of Mayapan in the Northern Yucutan Peninsula of Mexico.
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