Damien Marken, Ph.D.

Why anthropology?

I am an anthropological archaeologist whose interest in the past began at an early age. Growing up, I frequently visited the ancient cities of the Classic Maya in Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico with my parents, particularly the site of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico (where I eventually worked as an undergraduate and masters student).

As a kid I marveled at the size of the ancient Maya temples and palaces, and wondered how these 1300-year old buildings were still standing. As I got older, I became more interested in the populations living within and around these clearly royal ceremonial centers. How and/or why did local farmers and hinterland leaders buy into such a precarious political and economic system?

How did they participate with and/or resist attempts by Classic period dynasts and other elites in building integrated urban settlement systems that typify the Maya Classic period (250-900 C.E.)?

Interests

Archaeology, ancient Mesoamerica, urbanism, state formation, organization, and collapse, settlement patterns, household economy, landscape ecology, GIS and remote sensing.

Publications: Edited Volumes

Marken, Damien B. and M. Charlotte Arnauld, editors
In press The Flexible Maya City: Attraction, Contraction, and Planning in Classic Urban Dynamics. University Press of Colorado, Forthcoming Summer 2021.
Marken, Damien B. and James L. Fitzsimmons, editors
2015 Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands: Integration, Interaction, Dissolution. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Marken, Damien B., editor
2007 Palenque: Recent Investigations at the Classic Maya Center. AltaMira Press, New York, NY.

Publications: Articles, Chapters and Conference Proceedings

Marken, Damien B., Matthew Ricker, Alex Rivas, and Erika Maxson
2019 Urbanismo de Bajo Densidad en las Tierras Bajas Maya: El Caso de El Perú-Waka’, Petén, Guatemala. Estudios de Cultura Maya 54:11-42. DOI:10.19130/iifl.ecm.2019.54.970

Marken, Damien B., Juan Carlos Pérez, Olivia Navarro-Farr, and Keith Eppich
2019 Ciudad del Ciempiés: Urbanismo, Límites y Comunidad en El Perú-Waka‘, Petén Guatemala. XXXII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2018, edited by Bárbara Arroyo, Luis Méndez Salinas, Gloria Ajú Álvarez, pp. 531-546. IDEAH, Guatemala City.
Canuto, Marcello A., Francisco Estrada-Belli, Thomas Garrison, Stephen D. Houston, Mary Jane Acuña, Milan Kováč, Damien Marken, Philippe Nondédéo, Luke Auld-Thomas, Cyril Castanet, David Chatelain, Carlos R. Chiriboga, Tomáš Drápela, Tibor Lieskovský, Alexandre Tokovinine, Antolín Velasquez, Juan C. Fernández Díaz, and Ramesh Shresta
2018 Airborne laser scanning of northern Guatemala: A Reckoning with Ancient Lowland Maya Complexity. Science 361: eaau0137 DOI: 10.1126/science.aau0137

Marken, Damien B., Stanley Guenter and David A. Freidel
2017 He’s Maya, but He’s not my Brother: Exploring the Place of Ethnicity in Classic Maya Social Organization. In “The One True People”: Linking Mayan Identities Past and Present, edited by Bethany J. Myers & Lisa LeCount, pp. 187-217. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Marken, Damien B. and Timothy Murtha
2017 Maya Cities, People and Place: Comparative Perspectives from El Peru and Tikal. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 14:177-187.

Marken, Damien B.
2016 Broadened Conceptions of Classic Maya Cities. Book Review Essay of Ancient Maya Cities of the Eastern Lowlands and Tikal: Paleoecology of an Ancient Maya City. American Anthropologist 118(2):408-410.
2015 Conceptualizing the Spatial Dimensions of Classic Maya States: Polity and Urbanism at El Perú-Waka’, Petén. In Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands, edited by Damien B. Marken and James Fitzsimmons, pp. 123-166. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Marken, Damien B. and James Fitzsimmons
2015 Introducing Classic Maya Polities: Models and Definitions. In Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands, edited by Damien B. Marken and James Fitzsimmons, pp. 3-37. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Fitzsimmons, James L. and Damien B. Marken
2015 Ideas of City and State: Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands. In Classic Maya Polities of the Southern Lowlands, edited by Damien B. Marken and James Fitzsimmons, pp. 263-274. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

Marken, Damien B.
2014 Sansamal Performance: Variability in Ritual Contexts at El Perú-Waka’. In Archaeology at El Perú-Waka’: Performances of Ritual, Memory and Power, edited by Olivia Navarro-Farr & Michelle Rich, pp. 134-146. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Marken, Damien B. and Francisco Castañeda
2014 Sitios Satelitales en la Región de El Perú-Waka’. XXVII Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2013, edited by Bárbara Arroyo, Luis Méndez Salinas, Andrea Rojas, pp. 733-742. IDEAH, Guatemala City.

Marken, Damien B.
2013 Gordon Willey. Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology, edited by John Jackson. Oxford University Press, New York. 10/1/13. http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-...
López, Joel, Damien B. Marken, Ana Lucía Arroyave, and Varinia Matute
2011 Relación Modal o Diferenciación de la Cerámica en las Áreas Periféricas del Sitio Arqueológico El Perú-Waka’. In XXIV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2010, edited by Bárbara Arroyo, Lorena Paiz Aragón, Andriana Linares Palma, & Ana Lucía Arroyave, pp.879-890. IDEAH, Guatemala City.

Marken, Damien B.
2007 Preface. In Palenque: Recent Investigations at the Classic Maya Center, edited by Damien B. Marken, pp. xxi-xxiii. AltaMira Press, New York, NY.
2007 The Construction Chronology of Palenque: Seriation within an Architectural Form. In Palenque: Recent Investigations at the Classic Maya Center, edited by Damien B. Marken, pp. 57-81. AltaMira Press, New York, NY.

Marken, Damien B. and Arnoldo González Cruz
2007 Elite Residential Compounds at Late Classic Palenque. In Palenque: Recent Investigations at the Classic Maya Center, edited by Damien B. Marken, pp. 135- 160. AltaMira Press, New York, NY.

Marken, Damien B. and Kirk D. Straight
2007 Conclusion: Reconceptualizing the Palenque Polity. In Palenque: Recent Investigations at the Classic Maya Center, edited by Damien B. Marken, pp. 279-324. AltaMira Press, New York, NY.

Marken, Damien B.
2006 Review of Copán: The History of an Ancient Maya Kingdom, edited by E. Wyllys Andrews and William L. Fash. Journal of Latin American Anthropology 11(1): 224-225.

Straight, Kirk D. and Damien B. Marken
2006 Los Depósitos de Terminación del Templo XIX, Palenque, Chiapas. In XIX Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2005, edited by J. P. Laporte, B. Arroyo, & H. Mejía, pp. 387-396. IDEAH, Guatemala City.
2002 ‘U-Pakal K’in’ich at Palenque and Its Use as a Pre-Accession Name. PARI Journal II(4)/III(1):1-4. PreColumbian Art Research Institute, San Francisco, CA.