Graduate Student Introduction for Kirk D. French
Expression of Interest:
I began working at the Classic Maya site of Palenque in 1998, and was immediately impressed by the remains of the hydrological system, which had long been famous among archaeologists. I have since spent the last eight years studying this system.
My research interests include Maya water management, Mesoamerican culture history, urbanization, public space, human water usage, paleoclimate, and human responses to climate change.
Dissertation Title:
Hydro-archaeology at Palenque: The Management of Risk and Opportunity
Experience:
Fieldwork
2005-present
Principle Investigator - Palenque Hydro-Archaeology Project.
2002b.
Research Assistant - Proyecto Mono Maya, Universidad National Autónoma de México and University of Texas at Austin.
2002a.
Independent Study - Water management survey of Lacanja, Bonampak, Yaxchilan in Chiapas and Comalcalco in Tabasco, Mexico. Funded in part by the Precolumbian Art Research Institute (PARI).
2001
Pilot Study - Preliminary study of mineral deposits from water features at Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico. In accordance with the Instituto National de Anthropología e Historia (INAH).
1998-2000
Surveyors Assistant - Proyecto Grupo de Las Cruces, PARI-INAH.
1998
Student – Texas State University Archaeological Field School at Blackman Eddy, San Ingacio, Belize.
Laboratory Work
1998
Lithic Analyst – University of Montana Archaeological Field School at the Big Horn National Forest in Wyoming.
Dissertation Research
My dissertation will:
- review what we know about the settlement history of the site
- reconstruct the Palenque landscape as it was when the first settlers arrived – about AD 100, and assess suitability for settlement and expansion.
- investigate the process by which the Palenqueños adapted their settlement to an abundant, dynamic, and unpredictable set of hydrological resources
- examine the large and sophisticated set of water manipulation features constructed to produce a highly artificialized landscape – a considerable feat of civil engineering.
- utilize a new strategy for integrated hydrological modeling devised by Dr. Christopher Duffy, a hydrology professor from Penn State’s Department of Civil Engineering.
Publications
In Press
Creating Space through Water Management at the Classic Maya Site of Palenque, Chiapas. In Palenque: Recent Investigations at the Classic Maya Center, edited by Damien Marken. Altamira Press, Lanham, Maryland.
2006
Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence for Water Management and Ritual at Palenque. (Kirk D. French, David Stuart, & Alfonso Morales). In Precolumbian Water Management: Ideology,Ritual and Power, edited by Barbara Fash and Lisa Lucero. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona.
2002b.
Population of the Black Howler Monkey (Alouatta pigra) and Spider Monkeys (Ateles geoggroyi) in the Mayan Site of Yaxchilan, Chiapas, Mexico: A Preliminary Survey. (Estrada, Luecke, Van Belle, French, Muñoz, García, Castellanos, and Mendoza). In Neotropical Primates, 10(2):89-95.
2002a.
Creating Space through Water Management at the Classic Maya Site of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico. A thesis submitted to the Division of GraduateStudies and Research of the University in partial fulfillment of therequirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department ofAnthropology of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences.
2001b.
The Precious Otulum of Palenque. Published by The PARI Journal, Vol. II No. 2, Spring 2001.
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