Prof Elizabeth Graham | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Archaeologist |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | UCL |
Elizabeth Graham is a professor of Mesoamerican Archaeology at UCL. She has worked, for decades, on the Maya civilization, both in prehispanic and colonial times, specifically in Belize.[1] She has recently turned her attention to Maya Dark Earths, and conducts pioneering work in the maya region as dark earths have mostly been studied in the Amazonia.[1] She particularly focuses on how human occupation (domestic and industrial waste, burials, abandoned houses and processing sites) influences soil formation and production.[1]
Graham completed a BA in history at the University of Rhode Island in 1970.[1] She obtained a Phd in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge in 1983, entitled The Highlands of the Lowlands: Environment and Archaeology in the Stann Creek District, Belize, Central America.[1]
From 1978 to 1980, Graham was the Archaeological Commissioner in Belize. During this time she orchestrated the international training of colleagues in Belize .[2]
During the 1980s, she conducted coastal surveys in the Stann Creek District region of Belize.[3] In the late 1980s she commenced work on Postclassic site at Lamanai.[2] She has also conducted excavations at Negroman-Tipu, Belize. Graham directs excavations at Lamanai on the New River Lagoon in Belize, and at Marco Gonzalez, on Ambergris Caye.[1][4] Recent work has focused on mission churches from the early Spanish colonial period.[5]
In the late 1980s, Graham was a Canada Research Fellow at York University, Ontario as well as a research associate in New World Archaeology at the Royal Ontario Museum.[6] Graham joined UCL in 1999.[7]
Graham has written on Mesoamerican archaeology in the Guardian,[8] Apollo Magazine,[9] and the Conversation.[10] She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the archaeology journal Antiquity.[11]
Graham was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 2003.[12]