Historians

Those who read the Maya past in written records after 1500, at work, retired, and remembered. Checked November 7, 2026. Back to Topics. Archaeologists and epigraphers and Anthropologists are the other two lists.

Spanish and Maya documents, the books of Chilam Balam, the Popol Vuh, colonial archives, and the records of the last two centuries. Each name links to the page that confirms the post or the death. Lines marked to verify come from an old or thin source. Each line names the field. Maya historians are marked and come first.

40 people.

• María de los Ángeles Aguilar. Maya K’iche’. Reed College. Assistant Professor of History and Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies. From Xelajuj No’j, Quetzaltenango. PhD in History, Tulane, 2021. State violence, policing, and criminalization in Guatemala in the second half of the twentieth century. Field, history. Working today. United States. Source
• Domingo Dzul Poot. Maya. Bécal, Campeche. 1927 to 2021. Born in Bécal, Calkiní. Paleographer, and leader of a team that translated the Chilam Balam of Chumayel. Worked with Alfredo Barrera Vásquez on the Diccionario Maya Cordemex. Wrote Leyendas y tradiciones históricas mayas (1987). His people, Yucatec Maya, are to verify. Field, translation of Maya texts. Remembered. Mexico. Source
• Emil’ Keme. Maya K’iche’. UNC Chapel Hill. Emilio del Valle Escalante. Associate Professor of Spanish. Maya literature and Maya movements. Wrote Le Maya Q’atzij/Our Maya Word. Field, literature. Working today. United States. Source
• Matthew Restall. Pennsylvania State University. Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Colonial Latin American History. PhD, University of California, 1992. Which campus is to verify. Colonial Mesoamerica, mainly Yucatán, with Guatemala and Belize. Maya history and the Spanish conquest. Field, history. Working today. United States. Source
• John F. Chuchiak IV. Missouri State University. Distinguished Professor, and Director of the Honors College. PhD, Tulane, 2000. The church, the Franciscan missions, and the Inquisition in colonial Yucatán. Field, history. Working today. United States. Source
• Mark Z. Christensen. Brigham Young University. PhD, Penn State, 2010. Translation of Nahuatl and Maya texts, and a study of Yucatec Maya society from more than 100 wills written in Maya. His rank is to verify, since the page gives both Professor and Associate Professor. Field, history. Working today. United States. Source
• David Carey Jr.. Loyola University Maryland. Doehler Chair, Professor. PhD in Latin American Studies, Tulane, 1999. Kaqchikel history in Guatemala, 1875 to 1970, from oral and written records. Wrote Ojer taq tzijob’äl kichin ri Kaqchikela’ Winaqi’ (A History of the Kaqchikel People). Field, history. Working today. United States. Source
• Ben Fallaw. Colby College. Professor of Latin American Studies. PhD in Latin American history, Chicago, 1995. Yucatán after the Mexican Revolution, and Maya ethnohistory. Field, history. Working today. United States. Source
• Pete Sigal. Duke University. Professor of History and of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. PhD in History, UCLA. Colonial Yucatec Maya and Nahua sexuality. Wrote From Moon Goddesses to Virgins. Source is his CV. Field, history. Working today. United States. Source
• Paul K. Eiss. Carnegie Mellon University. Associate Professor of Anthropology and History. PhD, Michigan, 2000. Yucatán from the nineteenth century to today, from archives and fieldwork. His rank is to verify, since a 2016 page says Professor. Field, anthropology, history. Working today. United States. Source
• Tsubasa Okoshi Harada. UNAM. Senior researcher, Centro de Estudios Mayas, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas. Doctorate in Anthropology, UNAM. Yucatec Maya society from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, read from colonial documents in Maya. Field, history, philology. Working today. Mexico. Source
• María del Carmen León Cázares. UNAM. Investigadora Titular B, Centro de Estudios Mayas, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas. Doctorate in History, UNAM. The discovery and conquest of the Maya area, the church and its missions there, and how the history of the Maya has been written. Field, history. Working today. Mexico. Source
• Greg Grandin. Yale University. Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History. PhD, Yale. Wrote The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation (Duke, 2000), on Maya elites in Quetzaltenango. Field, history. Working today. United States. Source Book
• Mark W. Lentz. Utah Valley University. Professor, History and Political Science. PhD, Tulane, 2009. Colonial Mexico and Central America, and interpreters in the conquest of Yucatán. Wrote Murder in Merida, 1792 (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). Field, history. Working today. United States. Source Work
• Arturo Taracena Arriola. UNAM, Mérida. Investigador Titular C, Centro Peninsular en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, since 2014. Holds a doctorate. Its field and school are to verify. Guatemala and Central America in the nineteenth century, and the history and press of Yucatán. Field, history. Working today. Mexico. Source
• Gabriela Solís Robleda. CIESAS Peninsular. Full-time professor. Doctorate in Anthropology, UNAM. Colonial Yucatán in the seventeenth century, and a collection of royal decrees for Spanish rule there. Field, history. Working today. Mexico. Source
• Martha Herminia Villalobos González. CIESAS Peninsular. Full-time professor. Doctorate in Mesoamerican Studies, UNAM. Quintana Roo from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, and land reform in the Maya zone of Quintana Roo. Field, history. Working today. Mexico. Source
• Pedro Bracamonte y Sosa. CIESAS Peninsular. Full-time professor. Doctorate in Anthropology, UNAM. Economic history, and Indigenous towns from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Wrote Los mayas y la tierra: La propiedad indígena en el Yucatán colonial (2003). Field, history. Working today. Mexico. Source Book
• Sergio Quezada. Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. Research professor. The history of Yucatán and its political organization. His doctorate is to verify. Field, history. Working today. Mexico. Source
• Laura Caso Barrera. Post to verify. Wrote Chilam Balam de Ixil: Facsimilar y estudio de un libro maya inédito (2011) and took part in El arte del tiempo maya (2012). Her post and degree are to verify. Field, history. Working today. Mexico. Source
• Timothy Knowlton. Berry College. Wrote Maya Creation Myths: Words and Worlds of the Chilam Balam (University Press of Colorado, 2010). His rank is to verify. Field, anthropology. Working today. United States. Source
• Caroline Cunill. EHESS, Paris. Maîtresse de Conférences. Yucatán in the sixteenth century, and the defenders of the Maya in colonial courts. Source is an undated project page, so her post is to verify. Field, history. Working today. France. Source
• Izaskun Álvarez Cuartero. University of Salamanca. Associate Professor of Latin American History. PhD in history, Deusto, 1994. Yucatán and Cuba from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and Maya workers taken to Cuba in the middle of the nineteenth century. Source is a project page from 2020, so her post is to verify. Field, history. Working today. Spain. Source
• Nancy M. Farriss. University of Pennsylvania. Walter H. Annenberg Professor Emerita. Her work on Maya society in colonial Yucatán is to verify, since the page gives only her title. Field, history. Retired. United States. Source
• Robert M. Hill II. Tulane University. Professor Emeritus. PhD, Pennsylvania, 1980. The Kaqchikel and the Guatemalan highlands before and after the conquest, from Spanish and Maya documents. Wrote Colonial Cakchiquels, on 1600 to 1700. Field, anthropology, ethnohistory. Retired. United States. Source
• Terry Rugeley. University of Oklahoma. Professor Emeritus of Latin American History. The Maya peasants of Yucatán and the origins of the Caste War. Field, history. Retired. United States. Source
• Robert W. Patch. UC Riverside. Professor of History Emeritus. Colonial Latin America and the Maya. Given a Distinguished Emeriti Award in 2025. Field, history. Retired. United States. Source
• Kevin Gosner. University of Arizona. Spanish rule in southern Mexico and Guatemala, and the Tzeltal revolt of 1712 in highland Chiapas. The page lists him among emeritus faculty with the title Associate Professor, so his status is to verify. Field, history. Retired. United States. Source
• Gilbert M. Joseph. Yale University. Farnam Professor Emeritus of History. PhD, Yale, 1978. Modern Mexico and Central America. Wrote Revolution from Without, on Yucatán from 1880 to 1924. Field, history. Retired. United States. Source
• Juan Pedro Viqueira Albán. El Colegio de México. 1954 to 2025. At El Colegio de México from 1998. Doctorate, EHESS Paris, 1997. Chiapas in colonial times and since. Field, history. Remembered. Mexico. Source
• Don E. Dumond. University of Oregon. 1929 to 2023. Professor of anthropology. PhD, Oregon, 1962. Wrote The Machete and the Cross: Campesino Rebellion in Yucatan (University of Nebraska Press, 1997), on the Caste War. Field, anthropology. Remembered. United States. Source Book
• Grant D. Jones. Davidson College. 1941 to 2022. Charles A. Dana Professor of Anthropology, 1985 to 2003, then emeritus. PhD, Brandeis. The Itza and the Spanish conquest of Nojpeten, from colonial records. Wrote The Conquest of the Last Maya Kingdom (Stanford University Press, 1998). Field, anthropology, ethnohistory. Remembered. United States. Source Dates
• Inga Clendinnen. La Trobe University. Died 2016, aged 82. Aztec and Maya history. Wrote Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, 1517–1570. Field, history. Remembered. Australia. Source
• Jan de Vos. Chiapas. 1936 to 2011. Born in Antwerp. Came to Mexico in 1973. Doctorate in History, Louvain. Chiapas and the Lacandon forest, colonial religion, and Indigenous resistance. His post at CIESAS is to verify. Field, history. Remembered. Mexico. Source
• Munro S. Edmonson. Tulane University. 1924 to 2002. Professor of anthropology. Translated the books of Chilam Balam of Chumayel and Tizimin. Field, anthropology. Remembered. United States. Source
• Severo Martínez Peláez. Guatemala. 1925 to 1998. The source gives only his dates. His book La patria del criollo (1970) and his posts are to verify. Field, history. Remembered. Source
• Alfredo Barrera Vásquez. Mérida. Died in Mérida, December 28, 1980. A scholar of the Maya language. His birth year, 1900, and his work on the Chilam Balam are to verify. Field, Maya language and texts. Remembered. Mexico. Source
• France V. Scholes. University of New Mexico. Died 1979 in Albuquerque. Head of post-Columbian history at the Carnegie Institution, 1931 to 1946. Found and read Spanish archives on Yucatán and Guatemala. His birth year and degree are to verify. Field, history. Remembered. United States. Source
• Ralph L. Roys. University of Washington. 1879 to 1965. Also Tulane and the Carnegie Institution. Translated the Chilam Balam of Chumayel (1933) and the Ritual of the Bacabs. Wrote The Titles of Ebtun and The Political Geography of the Yucatan Maya (1957). Field, ethnohistory. Remembered. United States. Source
• Adrián Recinos. Diplomat and scholar. Translated the Popol Vuh into Spanish from the Ximénez manuscript. Guatemala’s minister and then ambassador to the United States, 1928 to 1944. His years, 1886 to 1962, are to verify. Field, history, translation. Remembered. Guatemala. Source

Also working from written records. Giovanni Batz, on Anthropologists.

For people who have died, the sort for working or not lists them by the year they died, most recent first. The country is where the person worked last.

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