Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown

Assistant Professor, Anthropology Program, Centre for Social Sciences, Athabasca University

Fellow, Latin American Research Centre, University of Calgary

I am an anthropological archaeologist who maintains an active, cross-cultural, theory-based research program, incorporating significant collaborative and cross-disciplinary pursuits. My interests to date have focused on the built environment and exchange-consumption studies of material culture; investigating how individuals, households, and communities negotiate their integration in locally and regionally defined socio-political and economic institutions, and the impact of such negotiation on overall processes of urbanization. While my past research has focused heavily on the archaeology of households and communities, my more recent work considers larger issues related to landscape and urbanism among the ancient Maya. My current fieldwork is focused on rapid resource-based urbanism (rapid growth communities) at Alabama, Belize, and on multiple nuclei urbanism at Yaxnohcah, Mexico. Although I address questions of urbanism through “ancient” lenses, I also engage with modern urban issues, theories, and methods in conjunction with the past; for example, along with colleagues, I am currently exploring my interest in sustainable urban planning through the application of agent-simulation programs to develop testable models of pedestrian movement/crowd control in ancient and modern urban centres around the world.

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