Making a Living: early Maya economy and society

Norman Hammond is a British archaeologist, academic and Mesoamericanist scholar, noted for his publications and research on the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. Educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, Hammond was a professor in the Archaeology Department at Boston University's College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), where he was a faculty member from 1988. Now Emeritus at Boston, he is currently a Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University. As well as specialising in the archaeology of Maya lowland sites in Belize, Hammond has also written on the emergence of complex societies in general, and the history of archaeology.

Since 1968, Dr. Hammond has worked in the Maya lowlands at the following sites in Belize, Central America: Lubaantun (1970-1971), Nohmul (1973-1986), Cuello (1975-1986), and most recently La Milpa (1992-2002).

Professor Hammond is currently teaching at Boston University. He held previous positions at: Cambridge University (1967–75), Bradford University (1975–77), Rutgers University (1977–88) and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Jilin University (China), the Sorbonne and the University of Bonn.

Norman Hammond has served on the Editorial Boards of Ancient Mesoamerica and the Journal of Field Archaeology. He has also been the archaeology correspondent for The Times newspaper in London.

In 1998 Hammond was elected as a corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), honouring his contributions to the field of Mayanist research.

Publications

• The Archaeology of Afghanistan, co-editor with F. R. Allchin, Academic Press, London & New York 1978. Revised second edition, co-editor with F. R. Allchin and W. N. Ball, forthcoming Edinburgh University Press 2019.
   
• Cuello: An Early Maya Community in Belize. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York (1991, reissued in paperback 2009).
   
• Inside the Black Box: Reconstructing Maya Polity. In Classic Maya Political History: Hieroglyphic and Archaeological Evidence, ed. T.P.Culbert, pp. 253-284 Cambridge University Press (1991).
   
• Ancient Maya Civilization. Cambridge University Press and Rutgers University Press. (1982, Fifth edition 1994).
   
• Nohmul: a Prehistoric Maya Community in Belize, Excavations 1973-1983 (2 vols, 1985).
   
• Lubaantun: A Classic Maya Realm. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Monograph 2. Cambridge, MA (1975).