Santa Fe Institute

Bio

My activities include both archaeological research and collaborative programs with descendant communities in the Maya region. I have come to appreciate that interpreting the past—writing a narrative based upon archaeological evidence (whether from Belize, Yucatán, or elsewhere)—poses great theoretical and methodological challenges as well as daunting responsibilities, the latter particularly in respect to descendant communities. My career has been one of continual engagement with the evolving challenges and responsibilities of archaeology.

Currently, I co-direct the Maya Area Cultural Heritage Initiative (MACHI, www.machiproject.org). This initiative works in collaboration with local Maya communities and NGOs seated within the community to develop programs that emphasize the value of heritage preservation. Heritage is broadly defined as both the tangibles (archaeological landscapes; inherited and inalienable objects) and intangibles (language; spirituality; ritual practice; artistic performance; and learned technologies) of cultural transmission. The goal of MACHI is to foster greater dialogue between communities and archaeologists and between communities and respective nation-states regarding the investigation, interpretation, and management of Maya cultural heritage. MACHI embraces the ethical philosophy that descendant Maya peoples possess a basic human right to access all domains of knowledge about their past and to be active partners in decisions that affect presentation and perception of their deep history, particularly in reference to tourism, museum development, and archaeological research.

To reach this objective, MACHI has launched grassroots programs in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. In collaboration with local NGOs, MACHI programs include classroom workshops, radionovelas, and a puppet-based documentary film.  All media impart information about Maya cultural heritage and the value of its preservation. Codification of the existing preservation crisis for many ancestral places—as a consequence of looting, timbering, urban expansion, or road building—is underway via the construction of a GIS-based Registry of Endangered Maya sites.

Within Belize, I serve as the principal investigator of the NSF-supported Xibun Archaeological Research Project (XARP), which is focused on understanding the political economy of cacao (chocolate) and salt production in Classic Maya society. In collaboration with colleagues and graduates students, XARP has investigated over 25 sites in the Sibun Valley drainage and adjacent karst—the latter a vibrant locale for ritual practice.  The architecture and configuration of the Late Classic settlements within the valley provide a powerful example of the manner in which production and identity were intricately entangled. My CV (linked below) contains a list of pertinent publications, including Sacred Landscape and Settlement in the Sibun River Valley (2002).  

Through the 1990s, my NSF-supported field research focused on the agricultural use of wetlands and the significance of ancestor veneration within domestic contexts at the northern Belizean site of K’axob. An edited hybrid publication (CD and hardcopy) on Preclassic life at K’axob, entitled K’axob: Ritual, Work, and Family in an Ancient Maya Village was published in 2004. This monograph provides case material for the earlier theoretical work entitled Living with the Ancestors: Kinship and Kingship in Ancient Maya Society (1995).

For more information and images of both XARP and the K’axob Project, see www.bu.edu/tricia). Field seasons of both projects were conducted as joint research and teaching endeavors and provided field practicum for over a hundred undergraduate students as well as advanced training and thesis material for over a dozen graduate students.