Ask an Archaeologist Day: The mischaracterization of the Maya as a ...

July 19 is “Ask an Archaeologist Day.” It’s an opportunity for archaeologists around the world to share their knowledge and most recent findings with the public.

TPR’s Kayla Padilla sat down with Jennifer Mathews. She is an archaeologist of the Mayan civilization and professor of anthropology in the sociology and anthropology department at Trinity University. She teaches courses in archaeology and biological anthropology.

This conversation has been edited for clarity.

Padilla: What are some of the biggest misconceptions that people have about archaeologists and the work that they do?

Mathews: So I think when most people think of archaeology, they think of something like [the Indiana Jones movies]. This has been particularly persistent because there's been five different movies that have come out over decades — starting from when I was a kid to just recently when it was re-released. I don't begrudge this, because I love Indiana Jones. It was actually one of the first exposures I had to archaeology. But I think what it has created in people's minds is that archaeologists study all cultures and all aspects of all cultures. They speak, you know, 20 dead languages, and they don't really do any of the actual work that archaeology involves, right? I mean, that would be boring in a movie. So I often will show clips from [the films] and have my students pick apart what's wrong with the representation.

Archaeology is very exciting, and it can be quite adventurous. It's also a lot of drudgery work. We have to document everything that we do. We have thousands of forms that we fill out in a given archaeological project. We are photographing everything. We are doing detailed line drawings, mapping, and keeping detailed notes in a field notebook. That's not the thing that most people want to think about. With things like excavation, the actual digging that we do is just a very small percentage. For every amount of excavation that we do, a tremendous amount of work comes out of it — and especially the lab component, which people forget about.

Padilla: We do know that archaeology and the broader field of anthropology has its roots in colonialism. There’s years of documented armchair anthropology and ethnographies that are actually very racist. Can you talk more about that?

Mathews: One of the things that we have to reconcile in the field of archaeology today is that it's a colonialist endeavor. Archaeology basically came out of Westerners encountering other cultures and often destroying sites, looting sites, removing the objects from that country and bringing it back to their own country. Within the United States in particular, indigenous cultures were ravaged by archaeology. Literally, archaeologists would go to battlefields, and they would remove skeletons, or they would desecrate graves and remove grave goods, including ceramics and other objects, and steal them in museums.

What needs to become a major focus in the field is getting those objects returned to indigenous cultures or to foreign countries, and being very vocal about the huge mistakes that we made. I think that's an exciting component of archaeology today. We can attempt to raise awareness and train students of the future to be archaeologists who are making up for the mistakes that we made in the past.

Padilla: As a Maya archaeologist, I’m sure you encounter people who have questions about the ancient Maya and the collapse of Maya civilization. These people may not realize that the Maya are still among us today.

Mathews: Absolutely. I've worked in the Maya region for about 30 years now, living and working amongst indigenous Maya peoples. I get those questions all the time. “What happened to the Maya?” “Why did they disappear?” And while there was certainly a dramatic decrease in Maya populations, due to colonization, disease, and warfare, there are millions of Maya people still alive today. I've literally been asked that question by tours that were in the Yucatan Peninsula, for example. And they were surrounded by people who were directly descended from the ancient Maya that they were talking about.

So I think that it's also important to recognize that these aren't “dead cultures” but very much living cultures, where you have nearly 30 different indigenous languages that are still spoken. You have a very lively culture with food and traditions and religious beliefs that are, in some ways, embedded in the past. These cultures are not frozen in time. They are lively cultures that are very modern of themselves but embedded with thousands of years of indigenous cultural traditions.

Padilla: Well, what have been the latest developments in Maya archaeology?

Mathews: I would say the biggest innovation that's occurring in Maya archaeology right now would be a technology known as LiDAR. It's a light detecting radar that has allowed us to see through one of the biggest obstacles we face: the jungle. We’ve not always been able to see archaeological sites because they're so embedded within the trees and vines. It makes it very difficult to see the actual architecture.

This technology is able to photograph from above archaeological sites that we have walked by, in some cases for decades, and have not recognized that they were there because they were so encased within the jungle landscape. So this is really changing archaeology. There are people who have worked at sites for decades who thought they had mapped everything. When they get the LiDAR imagery back, they realized that they may have only documented about 15% of an archaeological site. I think it also reduces the need for excavation and allows us to focus a lot on mapping.

Padilla: Why are there so many conspiracies tied to the Maya people? I mean in 2012, people were saying that the world was going to end because that’s when the Maya calendar ended. People have made other claims about the Maya that are untrue. There’s that show Ancient Aliens that claims aliens built ancient civilizations. As a Maya archaeologist, what is it like for you seeing all these false narratives being widely spread?

Mathews: I think another thing that I spend a lot of time in my class dispelling is things like conspiracy theories and shows like Ancient Aliens. So I will often have students watch an episode of Ancient Aliens and deconstruct it and talk about how they are incorporating conspiracy theories in with legitimate archaeological information. Much of this information is devaluing the indigenous people that actually created these archaeological cultures, right? If you are proclaiming that aliens introduced culture and technology to indigenous cultures, you're basically taking away the agency of these cultures who created these incredible civilizations. You're saying that they were not capable of creating these cultures. You don't usually hear those same kinds of conspiracy theories associated with the Greeks or the Romans.

Padilla: Well, you teach archaeology and human evolution at Trinity University. For some students who end up majoring in anthropology, they may not even know what that is until they get to college. Like other humanities degrees, I imagine people ask, "What is the value of an anthropology or archaeology degree?"

One of the things I often get asked when I have parents to talk to me is, “What is my kid going to do with an anthropology degree, or with an archaeology degree?” There’s this fear that you won't be able to get a job. But the thing about anthropology and archaeology is that it teaches you to think critically. It teaches you to be able to look at a large amount of data and synthesize it and make it comprehensible to look for patterns. It teaches you to write, and to present and speak to a general audience. Those are all transferable skills that can go in many different directions. So I think that that's another misconception about getting a degree that doesn't have a “practical outcome,” like a business degree or an engineering degree. You get to do really amazing things, like go work on an archaeological project in another place and meet people that may be different from you and experience another culture. And that just makes you a more interesting person, I think.

Padilla: Why is it so important that archaeology still exists? It undeniably has a troubled past, and there are times today when we still see problematic elements or characterizations of indigenous people. But I do think it serves its purpose in preserving world history, and there are even some archaeologists who are learning about and studying their own ancestors, right?

Mathews: I think archaeology could be a more inclusive field that encourages non-white scholars to be a part of this and explore a path from a non-white perspective — to be able to explore things like enslaved histories. There's been a growing number of projects that are looking at slave ships, for example, or indigenous people who are studying their own culture, and allowing archaeology to enrich an already rich culture. I think that is a really exciting future for archaeology as we move forward.