On and off since the year 2000, College of the Redwoods professor, Justine Shaw, has been spending her summers in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, conducting research into what she calls the “late Terminal Classic period” of the Mayan Civilization. 2019 was her eleventh season at the Cochuah Regional Archaeological Survey (CRAS) and it involved archaeological research of the ejidos of Sacalaca and San Felipe. Her team in Mexico included her co-director Alberto G. Flores Colin, 20 to 25 local Mayans and three current and former CR students.

The project focuses on settlement patterns, political and economic ties between the northern and southern lowlands, mobility in agriculturalists, and Maya sacbeob (roads), with an area specialization in the northern Maya Lowlands.

Although rewarding, the work can also be grueling. Out in the field with no shade, high humidity, and temperatures often above 100 degrees, the 2019 crew began their day at 5:30 in the morning in order to avoid the hottest part of the day.

When asked about her interest in this area, she explains, “as a Maya archaeologist, I am often asked questions along the lines of “Why did all the Maya disappear?” and “Whatever happened to the mysterious Maya?”  Since my research involves working and living with the modern descendants of the ancient Maya, I am quick to explain that they didn’t vanish; their society underwent a period of decline that took place over several hundred years, first in the south and later in the north.  Their progeny are still here today, planting their fields, working in hotels, making things in factories, and earning advanced degrees in universities.” 

“At the same time, I have to admit that I have always been fascinated by how cities that once had thousands of people came to be abandoned by the time the Spaniards arrived, with remaining populations generally residing in smaller, lower-density settlements that were clearly organized differently than those of the Classic Maya.”

“My project has excavated several of what we are calling “open-fronted” structures that may have been something like council houses or homes for what still passed for “elite” individuals in a greatly reduced remaining population.  Additionally, we have excavated what were definitely everyday domestic structures, unusual round rock circles that would have once supported pole-and-thatch architecture.  Together, these provide a picture of a people that I choose to see not as a failure, but instead as incredibly resilient during what would have been a time of massive societal change, with governments ceasing to function, populations crashing, and social order as it had been known ceasing to exist.” 

“My own research has not, by any means, definitively settled how these resilient peoples were able to reorganize their new world during the late Terminal Classic, but by examining the strategies that they used and recognizing their humanity rather than their “mystery” we can empathize with them and, with this, potentially other peoples struggling to find a means to plant crops, build houses, and have babies in our own rapidly changing era.”

Professor Shaw will continue her work at the CRAS site again in the summer of 2020. She is also the recipient of the Portugal Award for the 2019-20 academic year, and will present her lecture “After the Apocalypse: The Archaeology of an Ancient Maya Household after the Maya Collapse” in February 2020.