Marilyn Masson

Marilyn Masson (born 1958) is a Maya archaeologist whose research has focused on social transformation and political economy of ancient Mesoamerican cultures in Mexico and Belize. She is a professor of Mesoamerican Archaeology at the University at Albany SUNYAlbany.[1] She is a co-director of the PEMY (Proyecto los Fundamentos Ecónomico de Mayapán/Economic Foundations of Mayapán Project ) project at the site of Mayapan in the Northern Yucutan Peninsula of Mexico.[2]

Education and academic career

According to her cirriculum vitae Marilyn Masson earned her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Texas A&M University in 1982, her Master of Science in Anthropology from Florida State University in 1987, and her Ph.D in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. Her Ph.D dissertation work is titled Changes in Maya Community Organization from the Classic to Postclassic Periods: A View from Laguna de On, Belize. Her Master's thesis focused on lithic production changes in Late Classic Maya workshops at the site of Colha in Belize. She has a wide array of archaeological interests including household archaeology, ancient urbanism, archaeological political economy,craft production, zooarchaeology, lithic and ceramic analysis, and the archaeology of religion.[3]

Most of her academic career has been spent teaching as an Assistant Professor (1996-2002), an Associate Professor (2002–2011) and as a Full Professor (2011 to present) at the University of Albany SUNY. She has taught and teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate level classes, regularly including Aztec Inca Maya, Maya Art and Archaeology, Stone Tool Analysis, Zooarchaeology, Archaeological Lab Methods, The Archaeology of Urban Life, Current Theories on the Ancient Maya, and Ethnohistory and Archaeology.

Prior to earning her Ph.D., she spent time working in American Archaeology in Florida and Texas.

Mesoamerican research

Masson has worked extensively throughout the Southern Mexico/Maya region. She has directed the Belize Postclassic Project (1996-2002) and the Economic Foundations of Mayapan project (2001 to present). Earlier in her career, she participated in research onsites in Belize such as Colha, Kichpanha, K'axob, and also in Oaxaca.

The newest phase of her research focuses on regional and temporal variation in the northern Plains of Yucatan in the environs of the city of Mayapan. This focus examines rural-urban relationships of the Classic to Postclassic period, specifically to determine degrees of wealth, trade dependency, and occupational diversification at rural houselots and commoner dwellings at minor centers. These provide an important complement to her team's prior work within the walled urban zone of Mayapan that exhibits considerable inter-household and inter-regional dependencies on exchange, as well as pronounced commoner wealth and occupational variation. Reconstructing ancient economies must consider urban-rural dependencies and patterns for a more robust view. In 2013 she co-directed the Mayapan LiDAR project with Tim Hare (Morehead State University, Carlos Peraza (INAH Yucatan) and Brad Russell (College of St. Rose). This work identified abundant, nearly continuous (low density) distributions of houses (of multiple time periods) across a 40 sq km zone beyond the city walls. Her work in 2015 with this team excavated eight houses (four Terminal Classic, four Postclassic) in the hinterland outside of the city walls. These efforts to document and compare rural economies to urban ones, and to adopt a regional, rather than site-level approach, will continue in forthcoming years.

Mayapan

Current work by Marilyn Masson at Mayapan is conducted within the scope of the Economic Foundations of Mayapán Project (PEMY), funded by the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis, and the College of Arts and Sciences (UAlbany SUNY).

Awards, honors and grants

Books and journal publications

Books

Journals (since 2001)

Masson, Marilyn A. 2012 Maya Collapse Cycles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109:18237-18238. (Invited commentary)


References

  1. ↑ "Maya Exploration Center - Dr. Marilyn Masson". www.mayaexploration.com. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
  2. ↑ "Mayapan Archaeology". www.albany.edu. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
  3. ↑ "Marilyn A. Masson - University at Albany-SUNY". www.albany.edu. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
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