Robert J. Sharer (March 16, 1940 – September 20, 2012) was an American

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, academic and

Mayanist A Mayanist ( es, mayista) is a scholar specialising in research and study of the Mesoamerican pre-Columbian Maya civilisation. This discipline should not be confused with Mayanism, a collection of New Age beliefs about the ancient Maya. Mayan ...

researcher. He was known for his archaeological investigations at a number of

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

n sites conducted over a career spanning four decades, and for his archaeological reports, theorizing, and writings in his field of specialty, the ancient

Maya civilization The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, archit ...

. Sharer was a lecturer and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

's Department of Anthropology for more than 30 years, and occupied the

endowed chair A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

of Sally and Alvin V. Shoemaker Professor in Anthropology, an appointment which he held beginning in 1995. He also had an extensive association with Penn's

University Museum A university museum is a repository of collections run by a university, typically founded to aid teaching and research within the institution of higher learning. The Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford in England is an early example, o ...

of archaeology and anthropology, where from 1987 to 2009 he was the

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

-in-charge of the Museum's American collection and research section. He died on September 20, 2012. He was the author of ''Daily Life in Maya Civilization'' (Greenwood Press 2009), which appeared in two editions; and, with Loa P. Traxler, ''The Ancient Maya'' (Stanford University Press, 2006), which appeared in six editions.

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* * * American archaeologists Mayanists American Mesoamericanists Mesoamerican archaeologists 20th-century Mesoamericanists 21st-century Mesoamericanists American curators University of Pennsylvania faculty 1940 births 2012 deaths {{US-archaeologist-stub

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