The Uxbenká Archaeological Project (UAP) examined human-environmental dynamics in the rise and fall of a tropical complex polity in southern Belize. Archaeological excavations were conducted from 2004-2015 and were led by Dr. Keith Prufer along with interdisciplinary scholars from the US and Europe.  The project focused on developing large datasets from both core architecture, local district seats, neighborhoods, and rural settlements, and a large mountain top cave-shrine complex all anchored by robust AMS ¹⁴C chronologies.  Additional studies focused on development of local paleoclimate records from cave-stalagmites (published in Science in 2012, Nature Geosciences in 2015, and Science Advances in 2021); long-term cave-climate monitoring (Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 2015); climate chronology models (Climate of the Past 2012); Ethnographic studies of food, agriculture, and social organization; and paleoecological studies of environmental change in the late Holocene. (Photo: Keith Prufer with then UNM undergraduate Claire Ebert, now an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburg, discussing survey strategies at Uxbenká.)

Selected Recent UAP Publications

Ongoing are efforts to assist in cultural resource management at the site that in the past have included assisting with the establishment and registration of an indigenous Mopan Maya Community Based Organization (The Uch’ben Kaj Kin Ajaw Association UKAA) which has been formally responsible for management of the ancient city since 2009 and the development of the Museum of Santa Cruz, the first indigenous Maya developed, funded, and managed museum in Belize (est. 2018) that also serves as a visitors center for the site and now houses a community seed bank.

(Photo right: Keith Prufer with former University of Oregon PhD student Brendan Culleton, now Senior Scientist at the PSU-AMS radiocarbon facility, and former University of Melbourne student Margret Reith, now a CRM specialist in Australia, extracting sediment cores from a lagoon for environmental reconstructions.)

(Photo below: Keith Prufer and field assistant Raymundo Sho installing climate monitoring equipment in Yok Balum Cave near Uxbenká.)

Funding for the UAP and student training:

Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies: 2005, 2006

National Science Foundation BCS 2006-2009

National Science Foundation HSD 2008-2012

Alphawood Foundation 2009-2015

National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant – Ethan Kalosky 2012

Wenner Gren Foundation Dissertation Award – Jillian Jordan 2011

Wenner Gren Foundation Dissertation Award – Valorie Aquino 2015

National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant – Amy Thompson 2015

(Photo right: Former UNM PhD student Amy Thompson, now assistant professor at the University of Texas-Austin, riding a horse to reach more distant rural settlement at Uxbenká)

  (Photo Left: Former TAMU PhD student Willa Trask, now senior bioarchaeologist with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency - DPAA, excavating at Uxbenká)

(Photo Above: Uxbenká project members leading a tour of local Mopan speaking school children to the nearby site of Nimli Punit in southern Belize.)