Dr. Claire Ebert
About Me
I am an environmental archaeologist specializing in human-environment interactions throughout the Holocene in Mesoamerica. I received my MA and PhD from The Pennsylvania State University and my BA from the University of New Mexico. My research broadly examines deep histories of adaptation among the ancestral Maya, focusing on the long-term processes through which societies respond to environmental, social, and cultural challenges. I am particularly interested in two key areas: the role of subsistence systems in adapting to fluctuating climate regimes, and the impact of capital investments—social, natural, and landesque—on the growth and sustainability of early Maya cities in response to environmental and climate change. To investigate these themes, I use methods such as isotope geochemistry, radiocarbon dating, and lidar remote sensing with GIS analysis. As co-director of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance (BVAR) Project, I lead field and lab projects and collaborate on research initiatives across the Maya region. My current work includes studying the Archaic-Formative transition in western Belize, examining the role of animals in Maya political systems, and investigating urban adaptations in Maya cities through various forms of capital investment. Additionally, I lead CAMBIO (The Caribbean and Mesoamerica Biogeochemical Isotope Overview), a collaborative project that compiles published isotopic datasets from across the region into an open-access database. Beyond my archaeological research, I am committed to applying these insights to contemporary environmental challenges, collaborating with local communities in Belize to explore how lessons from ancient societies can inform modern strategies for sustainability and climate adaptation.
My current research projects include:
The Yaxox Archaeology and Conservation Project involves lidar analysis, settlement surveys, and excavations to explore urbanization and environmental interactions at the site of Yaxox in western Belize
Documenting relationship between Maya diet and environment using multi-isotopic analyses of environmental, faunal, and human skeletal tissues
Exploring the role of animals in Maya political systems through isotopic analysis and ZooMS
Meta-analyses of isotopic data from Mesoamerica and the Caribbean to identify regional trends in subsistence and migration
Investigating the Archaic-Formative Transition (2000-1000 BC) through in western Belize
Collaborating with local communities in Belize to explore how archaeological insights can inform and address contemporary concerns about climate change
Publications
2025
Kelmelis, Saige, John P. Walden, Kirsten Green Mink, Julie A. Hoggarth, Claire E. Ebert, Carolyn Freiwald, Tia B. Watkins, Victoria S. R. Izzo, Michael Biggie, Rafael A. Guerra, Chrsitina Warinner, Amy E. Thompson, Jaime J. Awe. Biocultural Taphonomies and Analysis of an Emerging Terminal Classic (AD 750-900) Maya Deathway. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 32:22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09689-y
2024
Awe, Jaime J., Christophe Helmke, Claire E. Ebert and Julie A. Hoggarth. “Le Roi est Mort, Vive le Roi”: Examining the Rise, Apogee, and Decline of Maya Kingship in the Belize River Valley. In Faces of Rulership in the Maya Region, edited by Patricia A. McAnany and Marilyn A. Masson, pp. 249-284. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
Ebert, Claire E., Sean W. Hixon, Gina M. Buckley, Richard J. George, Sofía Pacheco-Fores, Juan Manuel Palomo, Ashley E. Sharpe, Oscar R. Solís-Torres, J. Britt Davis, Doughlas J. Kennett, and Ricardo Fernandes. 2024. The Caribbean and Mesoamerica Biogeochemical Isotope Overview (CAMBIO). Scientific Data 11:359.
Green Mink, Kirsten, Claire E. Ebert, Jaime J. Awe, Carolyn Freiwald, and Jelmer W. Eerkens. 2020. Colonial Lifeways and Childhood Revealed through Osteobiographic Analysis at Cahal Pech, Belize. In Mesoamerican Osteobiographies: Revealing the Lives and Deaths of Ancient Individuals, edited by Gabriel D. Wrobel and Andrea Cucina, pp. 75-91. University of Florida Press, Gainesville, Florida.
Walden, John P., Michael Biggie, Kyle Shaw-Müller, Yijia Qiu, Olivia P. Ellis, Julie A. Hoggarth, Rafael A. Guerra, Claire E. Ebert, and Jaime J. Awe. 2024. Intermediate Elites and the Shift from Communities to Districts in the Formation of a Late Classic Maya Polity. In The Socio-Political Integration of Ancient Neighborhoods and Districts: Perspectives from the Andes and Mesoamerica, edited by Gabriela Cervantes Quequezana and John P. Walden, pp. 65-102. University of Pittsburgh Center for Comparative Archaeology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
2023
Awe, Jaime J., Christophe Helmke, Julie A. Hoggarth, and Claire E. Ebert. 2023. Changing Spheres of Interaction in Terminal Classic Western Belize. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 18:219-242.
Biggie, Michael, John P. Walden, Kyle Shaw-Müller, Michael L. Petrozza, Olivia P. Ellis, Ian N. Roa, Norbert Stanchly, Rafael A. Guerra, Claire E. Ebert, Julie A. Hoggarth, and Jaime J. Awe. Shell Games: A Middle Preclassic Shell Deposit at the Minor Center of Tutu Uitz Na in the Upper Belize River Valley. Latin American Antiquity 35(3):771-778.
Ebert, Claire E. 2023. The Formative Period in Mesoamerica. In Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 2nd ed., edited by Thilo Rehren and Efthymia Nikita. Vol. 3, pp. 313-326. Academic Press, Oxford.
Walden, John P., Julie A. Hoggarth, Claire E. Ebert, Scott L. Fedick, Michael Biggie, Brett Meyer, Kyle Shaw-Muller, Yijia Qiu, Weiyu Ran, Olivia P. Ellis, Tia B. Watkins, J. Britt Davis, Rafael A. Guerra, Christophe Helmke, and Jaime J. Awe. 2023. Classic Maya Settlement Systems Reveal Differential Land Use Patterns in the Upper Belize River Valley. Land 12(2):483.
Walden, John P., Julie A. Hoggarth, Claire E. Ebert, Kyles Shaw-Müller, Weiyu Ran, Yijia Qiu, Olivia P. Ellis, Brett Meyer, Michael Biggie, Tia B. Watkins, Rafael A. Guerra, and Jaime J. Awe. 2023. Patterns of Residential Differentiation and Labor Control at Baking Pot and Lower Dover in the Belize River Valley. Ancient Mesoamerica 34(e9):1-9.
2022
Jordan, Jillian M., James A. Davenport, Whitney A. Goodwin, Brandi L. MacDonald, Claire E. Ebert, Julie A. Hoggarth, and Jaime J. Awe. 2022. Volcanic Ash Tempered Pottery Production in the Late to Terminal Classic Belize Valley, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 33(3):556-574.
Hoggarth, Julie A., Carolyn Freiwald, Claire E. Ebert, Christophe Helmke, Jaime J. Awe, Kirsten Green Mink, Patricia Powless and Ashley H. McKeown. 2022. As the b’ak’tun turned: Reconstructing Classic to Postclassic population dynamics in the Belize River Valley. In 3000 years of war and peace in the Maya lowlands: Identity, Politics, and Violence, edited by G. Braswell, pp. 209-240. Routledge Archaeology of the Ancient Americas. Routledge, New York.
Peniche May, Nancy, Jaime J. Awe and Claire E. Ebert. 2022. Migration and conflict, or emulation and interaction?: The Belize Valley during the Middle Preclassic. In 3000 years of war and peace in the Maya lowlands: Identity, Politics, and Violence, edited by G. Braswell, pp. 48-78. Routledge Archaeology of the Ancient Americas. Routledge, New York.
Thompson, Amy E., John P. Walden ,Adrian S. Z. Chase, Scott R. Hutson, Damien B. Marken, Bernadette Cap, Eric C. Fries, M. Rodrigo Guzman Piedrasanta, Timothy S. Hare, Sherman W. Horn III, George J. Micheletti, Shane M. Montgomery, Jessica Munson, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Kyle Shaw-Müller, Traci Ardren, Jaime J. Awe, M. Kathryn Brown, Michael Callaghan, Claire E. Ebert, Anabel Ford, Rafael A. Guerra, Julie A. Hoggarth, Brigitte Kovacevich, John M. Morris, Holley Moyes, Terry G. Powis, Jason Yaeger, Brett A. Houk, Keith M. Prufer, Arlen F. Chase, and Diane Z. Chase. 2022. Ancient Lowland Maya neighborhoods: Average Nearest Neighbor analysis and kernel density models, environments, and urban scale. PLoS ONE 17(11):e0275916.
2021
Awe, Jaime J., Claire E. Ebert, W. James Stemp, M. Kathryn Brown, Lauren A. Sullivan and James F. Garber. 2021. Lowland Maya Genesis: The Late Archaic to Late Early Formative Transition in the Belize River Valley. Ancient Mesoamerica 32:519-544.
Douglas, John E., Brandi L. MacDonald, Claire E. Ebert, Jaime J. Awe, Laure Dussubieux and Catherine E. Klesner. 2021. The Implications of Mount Maloney Black pottery from a Terminal Classic deposit, Cahal Pech, Belize, using a comparative multi-method compositional approach. Journal of Archaeological Science Reports 35. DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102666.
Ebert, Claire E., James McGee and Jaime J. Awe. 2021. Early Monumentality in the Belize River Valley: Excavations of a Preclassic E-Group at Cahal Pech, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 32:209-217. [With comment by Horn (2021) and reply by Ebert and Awe (2021)]
Ebert, Claire E., Asta J. Rand, Kirsten Green-Mink, Julie A. Hoggarth, Carolyn Freiwald, Jaime J. Awe, Willa R. Trask, Jason Yaeger, M. Kathryn Brown, Christophe Helmke, Rafael A. Guerra, Marie Danforth and Douglas J. Kennett. 2021. Sulfur Isotopes as a Proxy for Human Diet and Mobility from the Preclassic through Colonial periods in the Eastern Maya Lowlands. PLoS ONE. DOIi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254992.
Hoggarth, Julie A., Sylvia Batty, Valerie Bondura, Emma Creamer, Claire E. Ebert, Kirsten Green-Mink, C. L. Kieffer, Heidi Miller, C. V. Ngonadi, Suzanne E. Pilaar Birch, Chirsty Pritchard, Kristen Vacca, Tia B. Watkins, Emily Zavodny and Alicia R. Ventresca Miller. 2021. Impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Women, Historically Under-Represented Ethnic Groups, and Early Career Archaeologists. Heritage 4:1681-1702.
Hoggarth, Julie A., Claire E. Ebert and Victor E. Castelazo-Calva. 2021. MesoRAD: A New Radiocarbon Data Set for Archaeological Research in Mesoamerica. Journal of Open Archaeological Data 9, p. 10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/joad.83
Price, Michael H., José M. Capriles, Julie A. Hoggarth, Kyle Bocinsky, Claire E. Ebert and James Holland Jones. 2021. End-to-end Bayesian analysis for summarizing sets of radiocarbon dates. Journal of Archaeological Science 135: 105473. DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2021.105473.
Smith, Michael E., Scott G. Ortman, José Lobo, Claire E. Ebert, Amy E. Thompson, Keith M. Prufer, Rodrigo Liendo Stuardo and Robert M. Rosenswig. 2021. The Low-Density Urban Systems of the Classic Period Maya and Izapa: Insights from Settlement Scaling Theory. Latin American Antiquity 32: 120-137.
Wrobel, Gabriel D., Raúl Alejandro López Pérez and Claire E. Ebert. 2021. Life and Death Among the Earliest Maya: A Review of Early and Middle Preclassic Burials from the Maya World. Ancient Mesoamerica 32:545-557.
2020
Awe, Jaime J., Claire E. Ebert, Julie A. Hoggarth, James J. Aimers, John Douglas, Christophe Helmke and W. James Stemp. 2020. The last hurrah at Cahal Pech: Examining the nature of peri-abandonment deposits and activities in a Belize Valley center. Ancient Mesoamerica 31:175-187.
Awe, Jaime J., Christophe Helmke, James J. Aimers, Claire E. Ebert, W. James Stemp & Julie A. Hoggarth. 2020. Applying regional, contextual, ethnohistoric and ethnographic approaches for understanding the significance of peri-abandonment deposits in western Belize. Ancient Mesoamerica 31:109-126.
Awe, Jaime J., Julie A. Hoggarth and Claire E. Ebert. 2020. La Arqueología del Valle de Belice: Siete Décadas de Progreso. Special Issue: Maya Archaeology in Belize. Arqueología Mexicana 165:35-39. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia y Editorial Raíces, Mexico, DF.
Ebert, Claire E. and Jaime J. Awe. 2020. Who were the Early Preclassic Maya?: Reassessing key questions about the origins of village life in the Belize River Valley. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 17:273-286.
Hoggarth, Julie A., Jaime J. Awe, Claire E. Ebert, Rafael A. Guerra, Antonio Beardall, Tia B. Watkins and John P. Walden. 2020. Thirty-two years of integrating archaeology and heritage management in Belize: a brief history of the BVAR Project’s research and public archaeology outreach programs. Heritage 3(3):699-732.
Walden, John P., Tia B. Watkins, Kyle Shaw-Müller, Claire E. Ebert, Emma Messinger, Rafael A. Guerra and Jaime J. Awe. 2020. Multiscalar approaches to reconstructing Classic Maya strategies of ceremonial inclusion and exclusion through the accessibility of architecture at Lower Dover, Belize. In El paisaje urbano maya: del preclásico al virreinato, edited by J. Garcia Targa, pp. 195-210. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
2019 and prior
Akers, Pete D., George A. Brook, L. Bruce Railsback, Alex Cherkinksy, Fuyuan Liang, Claire E. Ebert, Julie A, Hoggarth, Jaime J. Awe, Hai Cheng and R. Lawrence Edwards. 2019. Integrating U-Th, 14C, and 210Pb methods to produce a chronologically reliable isotope record for the Belize River Valley Maya from a low-uranium stalagmite. The Holocene 29(7):1234-1248.
Awe, Jaime J., Claire E. Ebert, Carolyn Freiwald and Kirsten Green. 2017. The dead do tell tales: Unravelling the case of Cahal Pech’s John or Jane Doe. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 14:213-225.
Awe, Jaime J., Claire E. Ebert and Julie A. Hoggarth. 2015. Three k’atuns of pioneering settlement research: Preliminary results of LiDAR survey in the Belize River Valley. In Breaking barriers: Proceedings of the 47th annual Chacmool Archaeological Conference, edited by Robyn Crook, Kim Edwards, and Colleen Hughes, pp. 57-75. University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.
Ebert, Claire E. and Jaime J. Awe. 2018. Reconstructing ancient Maya household economies in the Belize River Valley. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 15:65-78.
Ebert, Claire E., Brendan J. Culleton, Jaime J. Awe & Douglas J. Kennett. 2016. AMS 14C dating of Preclassic to Classic Period household construction in the ancient Maya community of Cahal Pech, Belize. Radiocarbon 58:69-87.
Ebert, Claire E., Mark Dennison, Kenneth G. Hirth, Sarah B. McClure and D. J. Kennett. 2015. Formative Period obsidian exchange along the Pacific Coast of Mesoamerica. Archaeometry 57(S1):54-73.
Ebert, Claire E., Julie A. Hoggarth and Jaime J. Awe. 2016. Classic Period Maya water management and ecological adaptation in the Belize River Valley. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 13:109-119.
Ebert, Claire E., Julie A. Hoggarth and Jaime J. Awe. 2016. Integrating quantitative LiDAR analysis and settlement survey in the Belize River Valley. Advances in Archaeological Practice 4:284-300.
Ebert, Claire E., Julie A. Hoggarth and Jaime J. Awe. 2019. The climatic context for the formation and decline of societies the Belize River Valley. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 16:79-85.
Ebert, Claire E., Julie A. Hoggarth, Brendan J. Culleton, Jaime J. Awe and Douglas J. Kennett. 2019. The role of diet in resilience and vulnerability to climate change among early agricultural communities in the Maya Lowlands. Current Anthropology 60(4):589-601.
Ebert, Claire E., Nancy Peniche May, Brendan J. Culleton, Jaime J. Awe and Douglas J. Kennett. 2017. Regional response to drought during the formation and decline of Preclassic Maya societies. Quaternary Science Reviews 173:211-235.
Ebert, Claire E., Daniel Pierce and Jaime J. Awe. 2019. Preclassic ceramic economy in Belize: neutron activation analyses at Cahal Pech. Antiquity 93:1266-1283.
Ebert, Claire E., Keith M. Prufer and Douglas J. Kennett. 2012. Maya monuments and spatial statistics: A GIS-based examination of the Terminal Classic period Maya collapse. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 9:91-105.
Ebert, Claire E., Keith M. Prufer, Martha J. Macri, Bruce Winterhalder and Douglas J. Kennett. 2014. Terminal long count dates and the disintegration of Classic Period Maya polities. Ancient Mesoamerica 25:337-356.
Helmke, Christophe, Claire E. Ebert, Jaime J. Awe and Julie A. Hoggarth. 2019. The Lay of the Land: A Political Geography of an Ancient Maya Kingdom in West-central Belize. Contributions in New World Archaeology 12:9-54.
Hoggarth, Julie A., Sebastian F. M. Breitenbach, Brendan J. Culleton, Claire E. Ebert, Marilyn A. Masson and Douglas J. Kennett. 2016. The political collapse of Chichén Itzá in cultural and climatic context. Global and Planetary Change 138:25-42.
Kennett, Douglas J., Sebastian F. M. Breitenbach, Valorie Aquino, Yemane Asmerom, Jaime Awe, James Baldini, Patrick Bartlein, Brendan J. Culleton, Claire Ebert, Christopher Jazwa, Martha J. Macri, N. Marwan, Victor Polyak, Keith M. Prufer, Harriet E. Ridley, H. Sodemann, Bruce Winterhalder and Gerald H. Haug. 2012. Development and disintegration of Maya political systems in response to climate change. Science 338:788-791.
Peniche May, Nancy, Jaime J. Awe and Claire E. Ebert. 2018. El intercambio en las sociedades mayas del preclasico medio: El caso de Cahal Pech en el Valle de Belice. In Evolución, Comervia, y Migración del Pueblo Maya: Meorias del Cuarto Simpsio de Cultura Maya Ichkaantijoo, edited by A. Góngora Salas, pp. 157-174. Media, Yucatan.
Prufer, Keith M., Amy E. Thompson, Clayon R. Meredith, Brendan J. Culleton, Jillian M. Jordan, Claire E. Ebert, Bruce Winterhalder and Douglas J. Kennett. 2017. The Classic Period Maya transition from an ideal free to an ideal despotic settlement system at the polity of Uxbenká. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 45:53-68.
Smith, Carley B., Claire E. Ebert and Douglas J. Kennett. 2014. Human ecology of shellfish exploitation at a prehistoric fishing-farming village on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 9:183-202.
Thompson, Any E., Claire E. Ebert and Keith M. Prufer. 2013. Shifting dynamics and use of space at Uxbenká. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 10:253-268.
Walden, John P., Claire E. Ebert, Julie A. Hoggarth, Shane Montgomery and Jaime J. Awe. 2019. Modeling variability in Classic Maya intermediate elite political strategies through multivariate analysis of settlement patterns. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 55: doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2019.101074.
Wallgrün, Jan Oliver Wallgrün, Jiawei Huang, Jiayan Zhao, Claire Ebert, Paul Roddy, Jaime Awe, Tim Murtha and Alexander Klippel. 2017. Immersive technologies and experiences for archaeological site exploration and analysis. In Proceedings of workshops and posters at the 13th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2017), edited by P. Fogliaroni, A. Ballatore, and E. Clementini, pp. 307-314. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Cham, Switzerland.