Maya City Building: Materials, Technology, and Ecology in an Ancient Society

3-0-9 units. HASS-S · Undergraduate

Explores relationship between archaeology and materials science, and the potential to methodologically connect these fields. Taking ancient Maya society as an archaeological case study, surveys 13 materials utilized by Indigenous Maya peoples before European contact. Focuses on the modes of materials analysis used in archaeology, as well as experimental methods in which ancient technologies are replicated and approached as windows into human social, political and economic systems. In dialogue with community archaeology, class discussions and material explorations are shaped by questions offered by Maya craftspeople and descendent communities of experts today.