DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS

Archaeology, Everyday Life, Sustainability, Households, Spatial Analysis, Gender and
Feminist Theory, Maya, Mesoamerica

 

BIOGRAPHY

Cynthia Robin is an archaeologist who works with contemporary Maya communities to study the ancestral Maya past. She specializes in the study of the everyday lives of ordinary people to show how ordinary people make a difference in their societies and were not the mere pawns of history or prehistory.  Her research has paid particular attention to household and gender relations. Robin uses archaeology to document the resilience of ancestral Maya communities during periods of environmental stress and political crisis, illustrating archaeology’s relevance for the contemporary world.

Robin is the founding director (since 2001) of Northwestern’s Belize Archaeological Projects which brings together an international multi-disciplinary team to conduct research in Belize each summer. Our research is currently focusing on the ancestral Maya city of Aventura in northern Belize. Completed research examined the farming community of Chan in western Belize.

The currently ongoing Aventura Archaeology Project (2013 to present) examines the five millennia history of the ancestral Maya city of Aventura, a resilient Maya community that endured periods of drought and political turmoil. Our research to date has focused on the households, marketplace, and water resources of the city. This research has identified four factors that fostered household resilience at Aventura. These include
minimizing inequality across the city, household economic flexibility and local production, ecological management fostering conservation, and memory and spirituality.

Completed research on the Chan Project (2001-2010) examined the two millennia history of the ancestral Maya farming community of Chan. Research investigated the homes and agricultural terraces of farmers, craft producers, and leaders and all administrative and ceremonial architecture in Chan’s community center. This research documented the importance of farmers’ lives and their development of sustainable agricultural practices and religious and political innovations that fueled ancestral Maya society.

 

RECENT COURSES TAUGHT

• 322   Archaeological Research Design
• 325   Archaeological Methods Lab
• 328   The Maya
• 401   Logic of Inquiry, Archaeology
• 490   Household Archaeology
• 496   Engendering Archaeology

BOOKS

In prep. Maya Household Archaeology. Cambridge University Press.

Under review. Household Resilience at Aventura: Life in an Ancient Maya City. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

2015. The Materiality of Everyday Life. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 26(1). Wiley, Oxford. [Lisa Overholtzer and Cynthia Robin, editors]

2014. Households Make History in Ancient Mesoamerica. Special section in Ancient Mesoamerica 25(2). [Scott Hutson and Cynthia Robin, editors]

2013. Everyday Life Matters: Maya Farmers at Chan, Belize. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. [paperback edition 2016]

2012. Chan: An Ancient Maya Farming Community. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. [paperback edition 2013]

2008. Gender, Households, and Society: Unraveling the Threads of the Past and the Present. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 18(1). Wiley, Oxford. [Cynthia Robin and Elizabeth Brumfiel, editors]

2002. Spatial Theory and Archaeological Ethnographies. Special section in Journal of Social Archaeology 2(2). [Cynthia Robin and Nan Rothschild, editors]

1989. Preclassic Maya Burials at Cuello, Belize. British Archaeological Reports International Series 480, Oxford.

For a complete list of publications, presentations, grants, and awards download a
complete CV.