Positions

Research Areas research areas

Overview

  • Eleanor Harrison-Buck is a professor of anthropology at the University of New Hampshire. She received her Ph.D. from Boston University in 2007 and has directed the Belize River East Archaeology (BREA) project in Belize since 2011, examining the deep history of the lower Belize River Watershed from Preclassic to Colonial times. Her research focuses on the Classic Maya “collapse” period and subsequent Spanish and British colonial periods in Belize, Central America. Her work examines shifting social identity, power and religious ideology through technical and stylistic studies of architecture and material culture. Her research interests incorporate anthropological theory, which include studies of relational and neomaterialist archaeology, other-than-human agency, personhood, and the self. She engages critically with these topics in numerous peer-reviewed chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as Current Anthropology (2021), the International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2018), and Ancient Mesoamerica (2020), as well as her recent co-edited volume (with Julia Hendon), entitled "Relational Identities and Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology" (University Press of Colorado, 2018).

    • Selected Publications

    Academic Article

    Year Title
    2022 Archaeological Theory in Dialogue: Situating Relationality, Ontology, Posthumanism, and Indigenous Paradigms.  American Antiquity.  87:193-194. 2022
    2021 Advances in Geochemical Sourcing of Granite Ground Stone Ancient Maya Artifacts from the Middle Belize Valley.  ADVANCES IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRACTICE.  9:338-353. 2021
    2021 Relational Economies of Reciprocal Gifting.  Current Anthropology.  62:569-601. 2021
    2021 Reassessing Shamanism and Animism in the Art and Archaeology of Ancient Mesoamerica.  Religions.  12:394-394. 2021
    2020 Making Space for Heritage: Collaboration, Sustainability, and Education in a Creole Community Archaeology Museum in Northern Belize.  HERITAGE.  3:412-435. 2020
    2020 BOUNDARY THINGS IN THE EASTERN MAYA LOWLANDS: NEGOTIATING ALLIED RELATIONS FROM TERMINAL CLASSIC TO POSTCLASSIC TIMES.  Ancient Mesoamerica.  31:507-525. 2020
    2019 Pre-Maya Lithic Technology in the Wetlands of Belize: The Chipped Stone from Crawford Bank.  Lithic Technology.  44:183-198. 2019
    2019 The Strange Bedfellows of Northern Belize: British Colonialists, Confederate Dreamers, Creole Loggers, and the Caste War Maya of the Late Nineteenth Century.  International Journal of Historical Archaeology.  23:172-203. 2019
    2018 It's the journey not the destination: Maya New Year's pilgrimage and self-sacrifice as regenerative power.  Journal of Social Archaeology.  18:325-347. 2018
    2018 Four Preceramic Points Newly Discovered in Belize, a comment on Stemp et al. (Latin American Antiquity 2016:279-299).  Latin American Antiquity.  29:394-397. 2018
    2016 The afterlife of earthen-core buildings: A taphonomic study of threatened and effaced architecture in Central Belize.  Journal of Field Archaeology.  41:17-36. 2016
    2014 Anthropological Archaeology in 2013: The Search for Truth(s).  American Anthropologist.  116:338-351. 2014
    2014 Reevaluating Chronology and Historical Content in the Maya Books of Chilam Balam.  Ethnohistory.  61:681-713. 2014
    2013 TERMINAL CLASSIC CIRCULAR ARCHITECTURE IN THE SIBUN VALLEY, BELIZE.  Ancient Mesoamerica.  24:295-306. 2013
    2013 Terminal Classic Circular Architecture in the Sibun Valley, Belize.  Ancient Mesoamerica.  24:295-306. 2013
    2012 Architecture as animate landscape: circular shrines in the ancient Maya lowlands..  American Anthropologist.  114:64-80. 2012

    Book

    Year Title
    2018 Relational Identities and Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology.  Ed. Harrison-Buck, Eleanor.  2018

    Chapter

    Year Title
    2020 Maya Relations with the Material World.  424-442. 2020
    2020 From Urban Core to Vacant Terrain Defining the Heterotopia of Maya Monumental Landscapes at the Crossroads of the Middle Belize River Valley.  85-108. 2020
    2018 An Introduction to Relational Personhood and Other-than-Human Agency in Archaeology.  Ed. Harrison-Buck, Eleanor.  3-28. 2018
    2018 Relational Matters of Being Personhood and Agency in Archaeology.  Ed. Harrison-Buck, Eleanor.  263-282. 2018
    2017 The Coin of Her Realm: Cacao as Gendered Good Among the Pre-Hispanic and Colonial Maya.  104-123. 2017
    2016 Killing the "Kings of Stone" The Defacement of Classic Maya Monuments.  61-88. 2016
    2015 Maya Religion and Gods: Relevance and Relatedness in the Animic Cosmos.  113-127. 2015
    2012 Current Theory and Practice in the Archaeology of Power and Identity: An Introduction.  Ed. Harrison-Buck, Eleanor.  1-7. 2012
    2012 Rituals of Death and Disempowerment Among the Maya.  Ed. Harrison-Buck, Eleanor.  103-115. 2012
    Classic Maya Ceramic Hybridity in the Sibun Valley of Belize.  185-206.

    Conference Paper

    Year Title
    2015 Rivers, Wetlands, Creeks, and Roads: Investigating Settlement Patterns in the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Belize Watershed 2015
    2007 Empowered and Disempowered During the Late to Terminal Classic Transition: Maya Burial and Termination Rituals in the Sibun Valley, Belize.  NEW PERSPECTIVES ON HUMAN SACRIFICE AND RITUAL BODY TREATMENTS IN ANCIENT MAYA SOCIETY. 74-101. 2007

    Editor Of

    Teaching Activities

  • Adventures in Archaeology Taught course 2024
  • Cultu Sustain & Public Archaeo Taught course 2024
  • Arch Survey and Mapping Belize Taught course 2022 - 2023
  • Ritual & Religion Ancient Meso Taught course 2022
  • Archaeo Field School Belize Taught course 2022
  • World Arch Cultr/Mesoamerica Taught course 2021
  • Adv Top/Arch of Power&Identity Taught course 2021
  • Adventures in Archaeology Taught course 2021
  • Adventures in Archaeology Taught course 2020
  • World Arch Cultures/Mesoam Taught course 2020
  • Arch Survey and Mapping Belize Taught course 2019 - 2020
  • World Archaeological Cultures Taught course 2019
  • Top/Cult. Sust & Public Archae Taught course 2019
  • World Arch Cultures/Mesoam Taught course 2019
  • Arch Survey and Mapping Belize Taught course 2018 - 2019
  • Adventures in Archaeology Taught course 2017
  • WorldArch Cultures:Mesoamerica Taught course 2017
  • Arch Survey and Mapping Belize Taught course 2016 - 2017
  • Adventures in Archaeology Taught course 2016
  • Ritual & Religion Ancient Meso Taught course 2016
  • Adv Top/Arch of Identity Taught course 2016
  • Arch Survey and Mapping Belize Taught course 2015 - 2016
  • Adventures in Archaeology Taught course 2015
  • World ArchaelMesoam Cultures Taught course 2015
  • Arch Survey and Mapping Belize Taught course 2014 - 2015
  • Adv Top: Ritual & Religion Taught course 2014
  • World ArchaelMesoam Cultures Taught course 2014
  • Archaeol Field School Belize Taught course 2014
  • Adv Top/Arch of Identity Taught course 2014
  • Adventures in Archaeology Taught course 2014
  • Arch Survey and Mapping Belize Taught course 2013 - 2014

    • Education And Training

  • B.S. Anthro/Studio Arts, Skidmore College
  • M.A. Archaeology, Boston University
  • Ph.D. Archaeology, Boston University

    • Full Name

  • Eleanor Harrison-Buck

    • Mailing Address

  • University of New Hampshire

    Department of Anthropology

    73 Main St.

    Durham, NH  03824

    United States