November Lecture
Dr. John Walden – Assistant Professor at Galen University Belize
November 13, 2025 @ 7:30pm via zoom
Title: Modeling Classic Maya Kinship Networks in the Belize River Valley
Abstract
The Classic Maya political landscape was dominated by multiple ancient kingdoms, each with rulers, subordinate elites based at smaller centers, and vast multitudes of commoner subjects. Politics, economics, and religious life were interwoven into this web of relationships between these hierarchically nested political actors. Modeling Classic Maya kinship networks using ancient DNA and traditional archaeological approaches offers tangible insights into the interconnectedness of social actors situated at different levels of society. This reconstruction of kinship networks will revolutionize our understanding of how ancient political and economic systems emerged, persisted, and collapsed. I present on ongoing aDNA analysis of 350 apical elite, intermediate elite, and commoners individuals from eight Classic Maya polities in the Belize River Valley.
Bio: John Walden is an Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Galen University, Belize, and a Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Walden codeveloped the Ancient Maya Kinship Project while a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University from 2022-2024. John Walden is an anthropological archaeologist who is interested in the ways in which relationships of inequality were created and perpetuated between Classic Maya rulers, intermediate elites, and commoners. His research employs aDNA and archaeological data to reconstruct Classic Maya kinship networks. John is Assistant Director of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance project and directs research and an outreach and engagement program at Lower Dover, Belize and its hinterland districts of Barton Ramie, Floral Park, and Tutu Uitz Na.
Registration Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/dxYS9BSJS5G_yUib_BCcBA