My primary research specialty is bioarchaeology, which concerns the analysis and interpretation of skeletal remains from archaeological contexts.  I have conducted most of my research at Maya sites in Belize, where I am currently the director of the Central Belize Archaeological Survey project.  Located in the Caves Branch and Roaring Creek river valleys in west-central Belize, this project focuses on a variety of sites, including ritual rockshelters and caves, several large urban ceremonial centers, and surrounding settlement zones.  The excavations and analyses conducted so far show that ancient Maya communities used the cave sites for various ceremonial and mortuary purposes over a span of approximately 2000 years. The changes over time in the rituals performed at the rural rockshelters and caves closely parallel sociopolitical transitions identified at the monumental centers we have investigated within our research area, as well as at other sites found throughout the rest of the Maya region. For this reason, the sites in central Belize are important in characterizing the effects of large-scale sociopolitical transformations on ancient Maya communities. The data derived from small rural agrarian contexts continue to provide a different perspective than that of the larger urban centers at which most archaeological investigations are focused.My recent work focuses on shape analysis using 3D photogrammetric models. I am working on two projects, one focused on the ancient Maya and the other on the peopling of Papua New Guinea.

My work is primarily focused on interdisciplinary bioarchaeological research on the ancient Maya, with secondary foci on Australasia bioarchaeology and digital heritage. Students interested in carrying out dissertation research at MSU on any of the following topics are encouraged to contact me.

1. Maya Bioarchaeology. I have carried out fieldwork on caves and rock shelters in central Belize from 2005 to 2017, most recently as director of the Central Belize Archaeological Survey (2009-2017) and before that as co-director of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project. Human skeletal materials excavated during the course of these projects, as well as from several other Maya archaeology projects in Belize, are currently curated at the MSU Bioarchaeology Laboratory. These are the focus of a series of ongoing collaborative analyses investigating aspects of ancient biology and of cultural and taphonomic alterations. In the summer of 2023, I will begin a new field research project and fieldschool in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Graham (University College London) investigating ancient Maya coastal trading populations at the site of Marco Gonzalez on Ambergris Caye, Belize.

2. Australasia Bioarchaeology. A collaboration with Dr. Michael Westaway (University of Queensland) and Dr. Matt Leavesley (University of Papua New Guinea), among others, investigates the population history of Papua New Guinea and northern Queensland, Australia. My research thus far has focused mostly on documenting cranial collections at museums (see #3 below). However, this project will offer the opportunity for student projects in a variety of field and lab settings.

3. 3D modeling. I utilize photogrammetry to create 3D digital models of crania, from which a variety of metric and non metric data may be collected. I am in the process of creating digital repositories of crania from throughout the Maya area and from Papua New Guinea. Morphometric data collected from these models will be the focus of analyses aimed at identifying and interpreting patterns of shape variability within and between groups, with the goal of reconstructing aspects of population history in these regions.