Spotlight: August 2009
Solving ancient Maya civilization mysteries dating back over 1,300 years has become a way of life for LSU professor Heather McKillop. Her ‘modus operandi’ – shallow underwater excavation – makes her feats that much more intriguing.
She has literally transformed the knowledge of ancient Maya architecture and economy through her discoveries of ancient Maya wooden building remnants, a massive salt industry, and the first ancient Maya wooden canoe paddle. She also proved that tropical trees have tree-rings that can be used to determine their age.
The first reported ancient Maya wooden canoe paddle from the K’ak Naab’ salt works, radiocarbon dated to the Late Classic (A.D. 660-880). The drawing shows two of the paddler gods from an incised bone from a Maya Temple burial. (Drawn by Mary Lee Eggart, Photo by H. McKillop)
A research grant from Lousiana EPSCoR’s Pilot Funding for New Research (Pfund) program supported an important segment of her archaeological fieldwork in Belize; the Support Fund’s Awards to Louisiana Artists and Scholars (ATLAS) program has provided her with a year of writing and research time to complete a scholarly monograph, Underwater Maya: Mapping Ancient Maya Wooden Architecture below the Sea Floor, under contract with the University Press of Florida. In addition to LA EPSCoR and BoRSF funding, Dr. McKillop’s work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, LSU, and Earthwatch/Center for Field Research.
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