Ph.D., University of New Mexico, 1993, Associate Professor

---

Dr. Alexander is an archaeologist whose interests include Mesoamerican complex societies, colonial ethnohistory, and political economy.

 

I specialize in the study of the prehistoric complex societies of Mesoamerica, historical archaeology of the Yucatán peninsula, and colonial period Maya ethnohistory. Understanding the relationships between rural communities and the state is a long-term research goal. My research focuses especially on the formation of refuge areas, frontiers, and resistance to colonial regimes. In working on questions of rural autonomy, I contrast two cases involving the lowland Maya--the first for the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Yaxcabá, Yucatán, and the second in the tenth through the seventeenth centuries at Isla Cilvituk and Sahcabchén in southwestern Campeche. The latter project also addresses the process of Maya flight to the southern frontier of the Yucatan peninsula, multi ethnic community formation, and variability in vernacular architecture during the 20th century within the modern community of Silvituc, Campeche. My most recent investigations explore Maya historical archaeology and ethnohistoryin Ebtún and related towns in Yucatán, México, to develop an in-depth understanding of the impact of Spanish colonialism on indigenous Maya communities in the region and to explain how Maya farmers resisted or accommodated Spanish colonial administration of land ownership, transfer,and agricultural production between 1600 and 1847.

Curriculum Vitae

Archaeological Investigations in Ebtun, Yucatán

Archaeological Research in Isla Cilvituk

Archaeological Research in Yaxcabá Yucatán

 

Faculty Main Page