Marcello Canuto

Director - Middle American Research Institute

Professor - Anthropology
School of Liberal Arts
Stone Center Departments
The Stone Center
MARI
People Classification
Faculty
Tulane Affiliation
Core Faculty
Region
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Mesoamerica
  • South America
Marcello Canuto

Additional Info

Recently-Taught Latin American-Related Courses: 

Number of Dissertations or Theses Supervised in the Past 5 Years:

19

Research

Archaeological theory, Mesoamerican prehistory, Development of Socio-political complexity, Remote sensing analysis

Degrees

  • A.B., Harvard University, Anthropology, 1991
  • Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Anthropology, 2002

Academic Experience

Academic Experience
  • Associate Professor, Tulane University, 2009-
  • Assistant Professor, Yale University, 2002-2009
  • Lecturer, Yale University, 2001-2002
  • Lecturer, University of Massachusetts, 2000-2001
  • Field Instructor, Harvard Archaeological Field School, Honduras, 1997-2000

Distinctions

  • Research Grant, The Development of the Regional Political System among the Maya. Alphawood Foundation, 2016-2019
  • General Preservation Assessment of Ancient Egyptian Collection. National Endowment for the Humanities, Preservation Assistance Grants for Smaller Institutions, 2016
  • Certificate of Recognition, Office of the Mayor, City of New Orleans, 2016
  • Research and Development Grant, Political Centralizaiton in Classic Maya Society, Louisiana Board of Regents, 2015-2018
  • Traditional Enhancement Grant, Louisiana Board of Regents, 2015
  • Research Grant, Selz Foundation, 2015
  • National Geographic Society Grant, 2005, 2009, 2014
  • Selz Foundation Grant, 2012-2013
  • Honorary Citizen of Guatemala City, Office of the Mayor of Guatemala City, Guatemala, 2012
  • The Seaver Institute Grant, 2008-2010
  • Reed Foundation Research Grant, 2007
  • National Science Foundation Grant, 2004
  • Heinz Foundation Grant, 2004

Languages

  • Spanish
  • Italian
  • French
  • Portuguese

Overseas Experience

  • Honduras
  • Mexico
  • Guatemala
  • Bolivia
  • India

Related Experience

  • Director, Middle American Research Institute, Tulane University, 2009-
  • Consultant, United Nations Development Programme, Guatemala, 2008-
  • Editorial Board, Arqueología Guatemalteca, 2008-
  • Director, La Corona Regional Archaeological Project, La Corona, Petén, Guatemala, 2007-
  • Advisory Board, Instituto Hondureño de Antropología e Historia, 2006-2009
  • Assistant Curator, Pre-Columbian Collections, Peabody Museum, 2003-2009
  • Director, Yale Archaeological Project at the Henry Whitfield House Museum, 2003-2007

Selected Publications

  • 2016. “Impacts of Climate Change on the Collapse of Lowland Maya Civilization.” With Tomás Barrientos Q. Manuscript accepted by Annual Reviews in Earth and Planetary Sciences.
  • 2015. “Drought, agricultural adaptation and sociopolitical collapse in the Maya Lowlands.” With Douglas, Peter, Arthur A. Demarest, Mark Brenner. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(18):5607:5612
  • 2015. “Preliminary Notes on Two Recently Discovered Inscriptions from La Corona, Guatemala.” Maya Decipherment.
  • 2014. “Epitaph for a Maya Lord.” With Stuart, David, Tomás Barrientos Q. and Maxime Lamoureux St-Hillaire. Arts Quarterly, (Fall):8-9.
  • 2013. “Archaeological Investigations in the El Paraíso valley: the Role of Secondary Centers in the Multiethnic Landscape of Classic Period Copan” With Douglas, Peter, Mark Pagani, Mark Brenner, David A. Hodell, Timothy I. Eglinton, and Jason H. Curtis. A
  • 2012. “Community.” With Jason Yaeger. In Oxford Handbook on Mesoamerican Archaeology. D.L. Nichols and C.A. Pool, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • 2011. “Before the Classic in the Southeastern Area: Issues of Organizational and Ethnic Diversity in the Copan Region, western Honduras.” With R. J. Sharer and E. E. Bell. In The Southern Maya in the Late Preclassic. N Kaplan and M Love, eds. Boulder: Uni
  • 2009. “Proyecto Regional Arqueológico La Corona: Objetivos generales y resultados preliminares de las investigaciones en el “Sitio Q”.” With Tomas Barrientos Q. In XXII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala. Juan P. Laporte, et al., eds.
  • 2009. “Middle Preclassic Maya Society: Quixotic Tilting at Windmills or Giants of Civilization?” In Early Maya States. Robert J. Sharer and Loa P. Traxler, eds. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • 2008. “The Ties that Bind: Administrative Strategies in the El Paraíso Valley, Department of Copan, Honduras.” With Ellen E. Bell. Mexicon. 30 (1): 10-20.
  • 2004. Understanding Early Classic Copan. Editor, with Ellen E. Bell and Robert J. Sharer. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.