University Library News
Georgia State University

GSU Professor studying Plants and Ritual in Mayan Culture

Check out GSU Anthropology Professor Christopher Morehart‘s book:

Morehart, C. T. (2011). Food, fire and fragrance: A paleoethnobotanical perspective on classic Maya cave rituals. Oxford: Archaeopress.

GSU Professor Christopher Morehart
GSU Professor Christopher Morehart

“With few exceptions, virtually no other paleoethnobotanist has studied how the ancient Maya interacted with their spiritual universe via ritual practice…  How many ears of maize have Maya archaeologists found?  How many bean cotyledons or squash rinds?  How many fragments of cloth?  The author recovered more archaeobotanical remains (in terms of diversity and overall abundance) than is commonly recovered from an entire habitation site for a single feature at Baron Creek Cave, and tho his knowledge to date this monograph is the only one of its kind–the only full length book on paleoethnobotany in Maya archaeology.” (from publisher site)

Also take a look at his recently-published article, in which he evaluates using remote sensing data integrated with GIS data to map archaeological sites:

Morehart, C. T. (2012). Mapping ancient chinampa landscapes in the Basin of Mexico: a remote sensing and GIS approach. Journal Of Archaeological Science, 39(7), 2541-2551.