DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Publications

Find the books, dissertations, articles, and annual reports covering the Chan Project.

Books

• Chan: An Ancient Maya Farming Community, edited by Cynthia Robin
  2012 [paperback 2013]
  University Press of Florida
  

  Chan offers a synthesis of compelling and groundbreaking discoveries gathered over ten years of research at this one archaeological site in Belize. The contributors develop three central themes, which structure the book. They examine how sustainable farming practices maintained the surrounding forest, allowing the village to exist for two millennia. They trace the origins of elite Maya state religion to the complex religious belief system developed in small villages such as Chan. Finally, they describe how the group-focused political strategies employed by local leaders differed from the highly hierarchical strategies of the Classic Maya kings in their large cities.  In breadth, methodology, and findings, this volume scales new heights in the study of Maya society and culture.

• Everyday Life Matters: Maya Farmers at Chan
  Cynthia Robin
  2013 [paperback 2016]
  University Press of Florida

  Examining the two-thousand-year history (800 B.C.–A.D. 1200) of the ancient farming community of Chan in Belize, Cynthia Robin’s ground-breaking work explains why the average person should matter to archaeologists studying larger societal patterns. Robin argues that the impact of the mundane can be substantial, so much so that the study of a polity without regard to its citizenry is incomplete. Refocusing attention away from the Maya elite and offering critical analysis of daily life elucidated by anthropological theory, Robin engages us to consider the larger implications of the commonplace and to rethink the constitution of human societies by ordinary people living routine lives.

Dissertations

Blackmore, Chelsea. 2008. “Challenging 'Commoner': An Examination of Status and Identity at the Ancient Maya Village of Chan, Belize.” PhD dissertation, University of California-Riverside.

Novotny, Anna C. 2015. “Creating Community: Ancient Maya Mortuary Practice at Mid- level Sites in the Belize River Valley, Belize.” PhD dissertation, Arizona State University.

Robin, Cynthia 1999. “Towards an Archaeology of Everyday Life: Maya Farmers at Chan Noòhol, Belize.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

Wyatt, Andrew R. 2008. “Gardens on Hills: The Archaeology of Ancient Maya Terrace Agriculture at Chan, Belize.” PhD dissertation, University of Illinois-Chicago.

Articles

Ashmore, Wendy and Cynthia Robin. 2021. “Inseparable Entities: Classic Maya Landscapes and Settlements,” In Mesoamerican Archaeology: Theory and Practice, ed. J. Hendon, R. Joyce, and L. Overholtzer, 179-202. Hoboken: Wiley.

Blackmore, Chelsea. 2011. “Ritual among the Masses: Deconstructing Identity and Class in an Ancient Maya Neighborhood.” Latin American Antiquity 22 (2): 159-77.

Blackmore, Chelsea. 2007. “Commoner Ritual and Socio-Political Life in a Late Classic Neighborhood: Archaeological Investigations at the Northeast Group, Chan, Belize.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 4: 24-46.

Kosakowsky, Laura J. and Cynthia Robin. 2010. “Contextualizing Ritual Behavior at the Chan Site: Pottery Vessels and Ceramic Artifacts from Burials, Caches, and Problematical Deposits.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 7: 45-54.

Lentz, David, Nicholas Dunning, Payson Sheets, Timothy Beach, Sheryl Luzzader- Beach, Andrew Wyatt, and Cynthia Robin. 2022. “Ancient Maya Intensive Agriculture and Water Management Practices,” In Sustainability and Water Management in the Maya World and Beyond, ed. J.T. Larmon, L.J. Lucero, and F. Valdez Jr. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

Meierhoff, James, Mark Golitko, and Jim Morris. 2010. “Sourcing of obsidian from the ancient Maya farming village of Chan, Belize using portable-XRF.” SAS Bulletin 33: 5-8. Novotny, Anna C. 2020. “Cooperation and Resilience at the Ancient Maya Site of Chan, Belize.”  American Anthropologist 122(4): 912.

Novotny, Anna C. 2017. “Defining Community in the Upper Belize River Valley during the Late Classic Period: A Micro‐regional Bioarchaeological Approach.” Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 28(1): 54-65.

Novotny, Anna C. 2013. “The Bones of the Ancestors as Inalienable Possessions: A Bioarchaeological Perspective." Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 23(1), 54-65.

Novotny, Anna C., and Laura J. Kosakowsky. 2009. “Burials and Caches from the Chan Site E-Group: A Bioarchaeological Perspective on Ritual and Social Complexity at an Ancient Maya Farming Community.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 6: 73-81.

Robin, Cynthia. 2023. “Time-Reckoning and Ordinary People at Chan,” In The Materialization of Time in the Ancient Maya World, ed. D. Freidel, A. Chase, A. Dowd, and J. Murdock, 254-272. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Robin, Cynthia. 2017. “Ordinary People and East-West Symbolism,” In Early Maya E Groups: Calendars, Astronomy, and Urbanism in the Early Lowlands, ed. D. Freidel, A. Chase, A. Dowd, and J. Murdock, 361-385. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Robin, Cynthia. 2016. “Neither Dopes nor Dupes: Maya Farmers and Ideology.” Ancient Mesoamerica 27(1): 221-230.

Robin, Cynthia. 2015. “A Tropical Rainforest Stie in Belize,” In Field Archaeology from Around the World: Ideas and Approaches, ed. M. Carver, S. Montón, and B. Gaydarska, 115-117. New York: Springer [reprint]

Robin, Cynthia. 2015. “Of Earth and Stone: The Materiality of Maya Farmers’ Everyday Lives at Chan, Belize,” In The Materiality of Everyday Life, ed. L. Overholtzer and C. Robin, 40-52. Oxford: Wiley.

Robin, Cynthia. 2014. “Chan: A Tropical Rainforest Site in Belize,” In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, Field Methods Section, ed. M. Carver, S. Montón, and B. Gaydarska, gen. ed. C. Smith. New York: Springer. Robin,

Cynthia. 2009. “Whose Complexity? Ancient Maya Socio-Political Organization and Complexity: A View from the Farm.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 6:25-32.

Robin, Cynthia. 2006. “Gender, Farming, and Long-Term Change: Maya Historical and Archaeological Perspectives.” Current Anthropology 47 (3): 409-33.

Robin, Cynthia. 2002a. “Outside of Houses: The Practices of Everyday Life at Chan Noòhol.” Journal of Social Archaeology 2 (2): 245-68.

Robin, Cynthia. 2002b. “Gender and Farming at Chan Noòhol, Belize.” In Ancient Maya Women, ed. T. Ardren, 12-30. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press.

Robin, Cynthia, Chelsea Blackmore, and Michael Latsch. 2005. “Household and Community Ritual in a Farming Community.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 2: 339-49.

Robin, Cynthia, Laura Kosakowsky, Angela Keller, and James Meierhoff. 2014. “Leaders, Farmers, and Crafters: The Relationship between Leading Households and Other Households Across the Chan Community.” Ancient Mesoamerica 25(2): 371-387.

Robin, Cynthia, Laura Kosakowsky, and David Lentz. 2012. “A Decade of Research at Chan.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 9: 183-193.

Robin, Cynthia, William Middleton, Mary Morrison, and Santiago Juarez. 2004. “Surveying an Agrarian Community: The 2002 Season at the Chan Site.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 1: 231-42.

Robin, Cynthia and Anna Novotny. 2013. “Embodiment, Emotion, and Youthful Death at Chan, “In Género y Arqueología en Mesoamérica. Homenaje a Rosemary A. Joyce, eds. M.J. Rodriguez-Shadow and S. Kellogg. Mexico City: Centro de Estudios de Antropología de la Mujer.

Robin, Cynthia, Andrew Wyatt, James Meierhoff, and Caleb Kestle. 2015. “Political Interaction: A View from the 2000 Year History of the Farming Community of Chan,” In Maya Politics of the Southern Lowlands: Integration, Interaction, Dissolution, ed. D.B. Marken and J.L. Fitzsimmons. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.

Wyatt, Andrew R. 2014. “The Scale and Organization of Ancient Maya Water Management.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water 1(5): 449-467. 

Wyatt, Andrew R. 2008. “Pine as an Element of Household Refuse in the Fertilization of Ancient Maya Agricultural Fields.” Journal of Ethnobiology 28 (2): 244-58.

Wyatt, Andrew R. 2006. “Excavations of Agricultural Terraces at Chan, Belize: Results of the 2004 Season.” Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 3: 169-178.