Mesoamerican Archaeology Laboratory
Director: Dr. Jaime Awe
Location: Bilby Research Center, Room 133
Research in this laboratory focuses on the emergence of social, political and economic complexity among ancient Mesoamerican pre-industrial societies, and the role of the environment in these processes. We study the ancient Maya and their neighbors through site excavation, survey, artifact analysis, iconographic studies, spatial analysis, and archaeometric analyses.
The facility includes:
- wet and dry lab areas;
- computer workstations;
- archaeological materials from western Belize collected by the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project (BVAR);
- ceramics, lithics (chert and obsidian), and faunal remains recovered from excavations at several large Maya cities, spanning a range of temporal periods from 1200 BC to AD 1000; and
- collaborates with the Lithic Casting, Research, and Teaching Laboratory, which represents the largest type collection of Archaic period points from Mesoamerica.