Richard D. Hansen is 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 ...

who is an adjunct professor of anthropology at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

Career

Hansen is a specialist on 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 ...

and directs the Mirador Basin Project, which investigates a circumscribed geological and cultural area known as the

Mirador Basin The Mirador Basin is a hypothesized geological depression found in the remote rainforest of the northern department of Petén, Guatemala. Mirador Basin consists of two true basins, consisting of shallowly sloping terrain dominated by low-lying s ...

in the northern Petén,

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. He has previously held positions at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and Idaho State University. He is also the founder and president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES). His work has been featured in 36 film documentaries and was the principal consultant for the movie Apocalypto (Mel Gibson) (Hansen 2012a), CBS Survivor Guatemala, and National Geographic's The Story of God with Morgan Freeman. He was also awarded the Orden de la Monja Blanca by the Guatemalan Ministry of Defense in 2019. He was named as "one of the 24 individuals that changed Latin America" and his work has been an important contribution to the understanding of the development of Maya civilization.

References

External links

Article by Richard Hansen & Mel Gibson
about the 2006 film ''

Apocalypto ''Apocalypto'' () is a 2006 action adventure film produced, co-written, and directed by Mel Gibson. The film features a cast of Native American and Indigenous Mexican actors consisting of Rudy Youngblood, Raoul Trujillo, Mayra Sérbulo, Dalia H ...

''. *
Mirador Basin Project
directed by Hansen
Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies (FARES)
established by Hansen
Asociacion de Amigos del Patrimonio Natural y Cultural de Guatemala (APANAC)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hansen, Richard D Living people Mayanists American Mesoamericanists American archaeologists Mesoamerican archaeologists 20th-century Mesoamericanists 21st-century Mesoamericanists Year of birth missing (living people) Idaho State University faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Utah faculty

Collapse Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or telescoping objects * Collapsing user interface elements ** ...