Clifford Brown

Background

I am an archaeologist and anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University, in Boca Raton, Florida. I received my B.A. in archaeology from Yale University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in anthropology from Tulane University. I worked in heritage management as a public archaeologist for some years before becoming an academic research archaeologist.

Research

Most of my research and experience in archaeology focuses geographically on the culture area called Mesoamerica, which encompasses central and eastern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and western Honduras. Within Mesoamerica, I have conducted archaeological research in Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua. I have excavated mainly in the Maya region, particularly in the state of Yucatan in the northern Maya lowlands. I have directed excavations at the ancient Maya capital of Mayapan, and I have conducted survey in the central part of Yucatan. As a student, I participated in excavation projects in Quintana Roo, Veracruz, and Chiapas, Mexico, and Copan, Honduras. During graduate school, I also spent six months conducting ethnoarchaeological research in a Yucatec Maya hamlet in Yucatan.

Recently, I began survey and excavations in northwest Nicaragua, in the Department of Chinandega.

Outside of Mesoamerica, I have worked in the southeast United States, in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

My research interests include the origins of civilization, particularly the emergence of inequality and social complexity; ceramic analysis; lithic analysis; and the application of quantitative methods in archaeology, especially fractal analysis.