While many students spent their summer on beach blankets, geography master’s student Bretton Sommers and several others spent their time uncovering ancient Mayan ruins in Belize.
LSU Maya Archaeology Night, held Tuesday night in 130 Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex, gave these students and researchers alike a chance to share their research and findings with the public.
Guest speaker Jamie Awe, director of the Belize government’s Institute of Archaeology and coordinator of the Belize Tourism Development Project, said he takes overgrown, beaten and broken Mayan structures and rebuilds them using both modern architecture and a deep knowledge of the ancient Mayan culture.
“Our goal is to preserve the past for the future,” Awe said. “Our institution is also responsible for looking at these sites and developing them to their tourism potential, not just their archaeological potential.”
Heather McKillop, an archaeology professor, organized the event with the help of Sommers.
The event was a three-hour presentation consisting of eight speakers who covered many different aspects of Mayan life and culture, and was followed by a reception allowing visitors to mingle with the presenters.
The presenters covered such topics as architecture restoration, Mayan water systems, Mayan coral architecture, sophisticated computer mapping of ancient Mayan sites and even how ancient hurricanes may have affected the Mayas.
McKillop said the event helps feed an insatiable interest in some of her archaeology students, who want to know more about what goes on outside of the classroom.
“As an archaeologist, I don’t own the past,” she said. “And this is basically just a way to share our information and to invite the public to get excited about what I get excited about.”
Karly Buras, an anthropology master’s student, said the event is beneficial for LSU, Baton Rouge and those researchers and students involved.
“It was very interesting,” Buras said. “It gives the LSU community and the public a chance to see what people are doing here, what’s going on, and what kind of research is being done.”
Buras said events like this one should appeal to everyone, not just those students deeply involved in geography and anthropology.
“They’re not loaded down with jargon that only people in the field would understand,” she said. “So people that are even slightly interested or have absolutely no knowledge of Maya archaeology would be able to understand it.”
Awe said Maya Archaeology Night is a way to show students the different opportunities available to them.
“I think this is good exposure to the students,” Awe said. “Students in there were going ‘Wow, this is cool. I wouldn’t mind going down and spending six weeks of the summer doing some of this stuff.'”
McKillop said this was the fourth Maya Archaeology Night she has organized, and it hopefully will not be her last.
“It’s a lot of extra work, but it’s really satisfying because I like to work with the public and I like students to get excited,” she said. “We’ll do it again, but not next year.”
Maya Archaeology Night was supported financially by the Department of Geography and Anthropology and by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, a press release said.