Julie A. Hoggarth, Ph.D.

Dr. Hoggarth's research applies an interdisciplinary approach that integrates history, demography, archaeology, and climate research to understand the impacts of abrupt climatic change from the Classic to Colonial Periods in the Maya Lowlands. Over the past several years, she has worked to compile archaeological and historic datasets from across the region to understand the effects of prehistoric and historic drought episodes on agricultural production and health for Maya populations. Her new project (funded by the National Science Foundation) focuses on developing a high-resolution radiocarbon chronology for the Belize Valley, based at the sites of Baking Pot and Cahal Pech. Ultimately, this project aims to identify chronological correlations (or lack thereof) between episodes of severe drought from the ninth to eleventh centuries with precisely dated archaeological evidence for political and demographic collapse. She is currently working to develop comparative methods for investigating archaeological examples where climate has impacted prehistoric societies. Identifying causal relationships is integral to this goal and her current work is strongly focused on chronology building. As such, she is developing the Archaeometry and Radiocarbon Sample Preparation Laboratory, which will offer analytical services for the preparation of organic samples for radiocarbon dating and isotopic measurement.