Stone temples rising above the rainforest canopy and elaborate 
hieroglyphs carved onto stone monuments give silent testimony to 
the high culture of the Maya ancestors of the indigenous peoples of 
Central America. They have inspired generations of archaeologists, 
professional and avocational, to take to the field in search of the past.

    One such archaeologist is Heather McKillop, who in 1979 first 
visited the coast of Belize in search of a little-known aspect of ancient 
Maya life: the sea trade that helped move salt, obsidian, coral, and 
other goods around the interior of the empire. In 1982, she began 
bringing volunteers and students to the islands off the coast of Port 
Honduras, Belize. Since then she has returned many times to 
excavate sites that reveal the scope and diversity of the trade that 
passed by water throughout the Maya world.

    In this book, McKillop tells the story of the search for the Maya 
sea traders, as well as the story of the traders themselves as it 
emerges from the excavations. In Search of Maya Sea Traders 
describes the trading port of Wild Cane Cay, where exotic obsidian, 
jade, gold, and other goods—including highly crafted pots—were 
traded from distant lands. McKillop also tells us about the more 
coastal-inland trade of salt, seafood, and other marine resources.

    Through the story of her own work and that of her students and 
volunteers, McKillop models both the research design and the field 
work that are required to interpret the civilizations of the past. She 
includes the adventure of discovery, the challenges of working in wild 
environments (from snakes and rising sea levels to falling coconuts) 
and the tedium of daily measured digs in a near-tropical setting. 
Through her experiences, the reader also gets to know some of the 
local residents of Port Honduras and Wild Cane Cay, descendants of 
the ancient Maya.

    In Search of Maya Sea Traders will appeal to that part of each of 
us that longs to explore distant places and cultures, in quest of a 
seldom-glimpsed past.

_________________________________________________________

HEATHER MCKILLOP is the William G. Haag Professor of 
Archaeology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Much of 
her career has been devoted to study of the coastal areas and islands 
off Belize, focusing on an aspect of the Maya archaeological record 
not widely known. Her Ph.D. is from the University of California–Santa 
Barbara.


Number Eleven: Texas A&M University Anthropology Series


What people are saying about this book

"A scholarly work that often reads like a travel novel, In Search of 
Maya Sea Traders beautifully interweaves science and humanism, 
enabling McKillop to reach out simultaneously to both academic 
and non-professional readers."—Daily News, November 11, 2007

"For all of us who see archaeology as a great adventure, this is a 
fabulous story of green vine snakes and falling coconuts and leaky 
boats and short supplies."—American Archaeology, Fall 2005

"Dr. McKillop is an accomplished writer . . . [this] will be a welcome 
addition to the literature available for potential volunteers on 
archaeological projects. . . . involve(s) the romance of fieldwork in a 
remote and occasionally dangerous locale."—Thomas H. Guderjan, 
Texas Christian University

"In Search of Maya Sea Traders is certain to be of great interest to 
the large general readership that is fascinated by the civilization of 
the ancient Maya.  Heather McKillop, a highly respected specialist on 
the ancient Maya, has provided an engrossing and informative 
account of her archaeological fieldwork on the coast of Belize in 
Central America. The book is a terrific read and is strongly 
recommended to aficionados of Precolumbian Maya civilization."
—Jeremy A. Sabloff, University of Pennsylvania, and author, The 
Cities of Ancient Mexico and The New Archaeology and the Ancient 
Maya

"McKillop’s book is an innovative endeavor to explain archaeology to 
a wider audience. Reflexive archaeology, to my knowledge, is a new 
topic in the Maya field. She introduces a number of field situations 
and methodologies that most archaeologists handle on a frequent 
basis. . . . The book is so descriptive of the humans at the site. 
Delightful in fact!"—Shirley Mock, Institute of Texan Cultures

"McKillop has managed to capture the experience of being an 
archaeologist. . . . Specialists will identify with her experiences, 
tourists will develop a heightened awareness of what it means to do 
Maya archaeology, and armchair readers will feel transported to the 
nexus of adventure."—K. Anne Pyburn, Indiana University