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Dr. Claire Ebert

BVAR Project Director

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Dr. Claire Ebert is an anthropological archaeologist interested in the role of human-environment interactions in the emergence of cultural complexity among the ancient Maya. She has been a member of the BVAR Project since 2012. She received her PhD from The Pennsylvania State University in 2017 is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. Claire’s research investigates the complex dynamics between people and their environments throughout the Holocene using method from environmental archaeology and archaeometry, including stable isotope analyses and radiocarbon dating. In particular, she interested in the Preclassic  Maya of the Belize Valley and their social, economic, and environmental adaptations of the region’s earliest farming communities. She has also participated in archaeological projects at the Maya site of Palenque, in Hawaii, Africa, Arizona, and New Mexico.  

As a co-instructor of the BVAR summer field school, Claire also leads several ongoing projects in collaboration with other project members that provide students with opportunities to engage in different forms of archaeological analysis in the field with BVAR and in the Paleoecology and Isotope Geochemistry Lab at Pitt. Current projects include:

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  • Ancient Maya human-animal interaction

  • Upper Belize Valley obsidian technological analysis and geochemical sourcing

  • Upper Belize Valley lidar (light detection and ranging) analysis project

  • Typological and geochemical compositional analyses of Early Preclassic (1200-1000 BC) and Middle Preclassic (1000 BC-AD 300) pottery

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A list of her recent publications with other BVAR Project members can be found here.

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