Gregory Zaro
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Climate Change
Contact Information
Research interests
My interests broadly relate to the interplay between humans and the environment, primarily conceptualized through historical ecology, subsistence economies, agriculture, urbanism, and cosmology. My area of specialization is Andean South America with strong secondary interests in Mesoamerica.
My research in South America focuses on long-term human-environment dynamics in southern Peru, with a principal interest in agricultural landscape evolution in arid regions. I am particularly interested in assessing the role human groups over the past several thousand years have played in shaping the environmental conditions experienced today. My research follows the perspective of historical ecology, which treats landscapes as physical expressions of long, historical processes of human-environment interactions.
In Mesoamerica, I have been working in collaboration with a larger project in northwestern Belize centered on the ancient Maya archaeological site of La Milpa. Our research is designed to define the historical trajectory of the constructed landscape of La Milpa, and the manners in which the ancient Maya embedded ritual concepts in their built environment. Our work holds implications for the political history of the La Milpa polity, and the development and subsequent collapse of Classic Maya society as it relates to the eastern Petén.
Publications
Featured
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Zaro, Gregory and B. Houk (2012). The Growth and Decline of the Ancient Maya City of La Milpa, Belize: New Data and New Perspectives from the Southern Plaza. Ancient Mesoamerica 23:143-159.
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Houk, Brett A. and Gregory Zaro (2011). Evidence for ritual engineering in the Late/Terminal Classic site plan of La Milpa, Belize. Latin American Antiquity 22:178-198.
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Zaro, Gregory, K.C. Nystrom, A. Umire-Alvarez, A. Bar, and A. Miranda (2010). Tierras Olvidadas: Chiribaya landscape engineering and marginality in southern Peru. Latin American Antiquity 21:355-374.
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Houk, Brett and Gregory Zaro, 2010. Architectural history and ritual planning at La Milpa: A reconsideration. Research Reports in Belizean Archaeology 7: 95-102.
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Zaro, Gregory, H. Builth, C. Rivera, J. Roldan, and G. Suvires, 2008. Landscape evolution and human agency: archaeological case studies from drylands in western South America and Australia. Chungará, Revista de Antropología Chilena 40, Número Especial, 261-271.
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Zaro, Gregory, 2007. Diversity specialists: Coastal resource management and historical contingency in the Osmore desert of southern Peru. Latin American Antiquity 18(2):161-179.
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Zaro, Gregory and Adán Umire-Alvarez, 2005. Late Chiribaya agriculture and risk management along the arid Andean coast of southern Peru, AD 1200-1400. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 20(7):717-737.
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Zaro, Gregory and Jon C. Lohse, 2005. Agricultural rhythms and rituals: Ancient Maya solar observation in hinterland Blue Creek, northwestern Belize. Latin American Antiquity 16(1):81-98.
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Additional Publications
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Zaro, Gregory and Daniel Ivan Dávila, 2010. Informe Técnico del Proyecto Arqueológico Pampa Dispensilla 2010: Exploraciones e investigaciones arqueológicas en el sitio “Cola de Zorro,” Departamento de Arequipa, Perú. Informe final de la temporada de febrero a abril 2010. Technical report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima, Peru.
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Zaro, Gregory, Brett A. Houk, Shannon M. Smith, Chelsey Plumlee, and Catherine Joseph (2011). The 2010 Excavations at Structure 26, La Milpa. In The 2010 Season of the La Milpa Core Project, edited by Brett A. Houk, pp. 1-15. Occasional Papers in Archaeology 4, Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
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Zaro, Gregory (2010). The 2009 Season of Excavations at Structure 24. In The 2007–2009 Seasons of the La Milpa Core Project, edited by Brett A. Houk, pp. 97–108. Occasional Papers in Archaeology, Number 3. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
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Zaro, Gregory (2010). The 2008 Excavations at Structure 22. In The 2007–2009 Seasons of the La Milpa Core Project, edited by Brett A. Houk, pp. 57–66. Occasional Papers in Archaeology, Number 3. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
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Houk, Brett A., Débora Trein, and Gregory Zaro (2010). Overview of the 2008 Season of the La Milpa Core Project. In The 2007–2009 Seasons of the La Milpa Core Project, edited by Brett A. Houk, pp. 41–55. Occasional Papers in Archaeology, Number 3. Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work, Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
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Zaro, Gregory, 2005. Human ecology and ancient agrarian land use at Wawakiki Spring, south coast Peru, A.D. 1000-2000. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
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Zaro, Gregory, 2004. Exploraciones e investigaciones arqueológicas en el sitio de Wawakiki, Cuenca de Osmore, Perú, 2003. Informe final de la temporada de febrero a agosto 2003. Technical Report submitted to the Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Lima, Perú.
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Houk, Brett A., F. Valdez, Jr., J. C. Lohse, P. Hughbanks, and G. Zaro, 1996. The Chan Chich mapping project. In The 1996 Season of the Chan Chich Archaeological Project. Edited by B.A. Houk and H.R. Robichaux, pp. 35-38. Papers of the Chan Chich Archaeological Project, Number 1. San Antonio: Center for Maya Studies.
Education
Ph.D., 2005, University of New Mexico
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