The LFRC Field School
During May, June, and July, the Lamanai Field Research Centre
(LFRC) in Belize sponsored a number of field school sessions
open to graduate, undergraduate, and avocational students. A
special session on Maya architecture was taught by David Pendergast,
then of the Royal Ontario Museum.
The Lamanai On-Site Museum
During June and July of 1998, Elizabeth Graham, Lisa Hilborn,
and Heidi Ritscher, along with Nasario Ku, continued the work
they began in 1997 on the re-organization, cleaning, and sorting
of the Lamanai artifacts in the on-site museum on the Lamanai
Reserve. Funds are being raised to provide conservation materials
and supplies and also to help with the construction of safe storage
facilities for displayable small finds.
The Lamanai Research Team
In addition to Hilborn and Ritscher, there are students and scholars
who turned their attention towards analyses of the excavated
Lamanai artifacts as well as towards research built on the foundations
laid by David Pendergast (see History of Excavations at Lamanai).
Norbert Stanchly focused on identification and analysis of the
remaining Lamanai faunal material. Faunal material from earlier
excavations at Lamanai was identified and analysed by Kitty Emery
as part of the research for her Master's thesis (Postclassic
and Colonial Period Subsistence Strategies in the Southern Maya
Lowlands: Faunal Analyses from Lamanai and Tipu, Belize,
University of Toronto, 1990). During the 1998 field season Richard
Meadows, University of Texas at Austin, studied the chert eccentrics
from Lamanai, and Terry Powis, University of Texas at Austin,
began work on the Preclassic ceramics. Scott Simmons, who received
his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado, began residential settlement
studies in order to examine changes in production and economy
through time. |
