Michael Blake (4) (1953–)

Michael Blake joined the faculty at UBC in 1986, a year after completing his Ph.D. in Anthropology, with a specialization in Archaeology, at the University of Michigan. Since then he has carried out archaeological research in Chiapas, Mexico and British Columbia, Canada. His doctoral research in show more the early 1980s examined the household archaeology of the Postclassic period Maya centre of Canajasté on the Lagartero River near the Chiapas-Guatemala border in the Upper Grijalva Tributaries region of SE Mexico. That research has recently been published as a monograph in the research Papers series of the New World Archaeological Foundation. Soon after completing his doctoral research, he teamed up with John Clark, former Director of Brigham Young University's New World Archaeological Foundation, to begin a research project investigating the emergence of complex social and political systems in the Soconusco region on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, dating between about 4000 and 3000 years ago. These Early Formative period societies (that have dubbed the Mokaya) comprised some of Mexico's earliest villages, and developed practices that later became common throughout Prehispanic Mesoamerica (for example, they built Mesoamerica's earliest known ballcourt-the subject of Warren Hill's UBC PhD in 1999). Richard Lesure(UCLA) later joined the project, and, along with several other archaeologists, their ongoing research documents the transformations that took place as people became increasingly dependent on agriculture (including maize cultivation), lived in permanent settled communities, and developed complex social and political hierarchies. Their work in Chiapas has been funded by the generous support of SSHRC Canada, and the BYU-New World Archaeological Foundation, along with many other agencies. Between 1992 and 2007, Michael Blake conducted archaeological research in the Fraser River Valley of Southwestern British Columbia in partnership with members of Stó:l? Nation and Stó:l? Tribal Council as well as research partners from a number of universities. Their long-term project concentrated on the ancient village site of Scowlitz (Qithyil), located 100 km east of Vancouver within the traditional territories of the Sto:lo Coast Salish peoples. Working with Dana Lepofsky (Simon Fraser University), their project team-which has included many UBC, SFU, and UCLA archaeology fieldschools-has investigated how both households and cemeteries formed an integral part of Coast Salish social, political and economic organization. More recently their research team (Fraser Valley Archaeological Project-FVAP), including Dave Schaepe (Stó:l? Nation), Anthony Graesch (Connecticut College), and Jeanne Arnold (UCLA) has surveyed, mapped, and excavated at a series of archaeological sites within Stó:l? Traditional Territory. This project has as it main goal the exploration of Coast Salish identities as expressed in house structures and village settlement layouts extending from about 3000 years ago to the beginning of European colonization of the region in the mid-1800s. Blake's most recent work, since 2007, has focused on the origins and spread of maize agriculture in the Americas. Working with Bruce Benz (Texas Wesleyan University) our research team is studying archaeological maize collections stored in museums and other institutions in about eight different countries throughout the Americas. Their research goals are to directly date the samples using AMS radiocarbon dating, conduct detailed morphological analyses of maize cobs, and extract and characterize ancient maize DNA. More information about this project can be found at the website: Ancient Maize Map. (Bowker Author Biography) show less