Professor of Anthropology
Chair of Comparative Cultures Collegium

Office: Seibert Humanities, rm. 100G
Phone: 727-864-8230
Fax: 727-864-7995
Email Professor Meyers

Degrees

Ph.D., Texas A&M University, Anthropology
M.A., University of Alabama, Anthropology
B.A., Centre College, Anthropology/Sociology & Spanish

Courses Offered

Introduction to Anthropology, Introduction to Archaeology, Cultural Ecology, Cultural
Geography, Archaeology of the Yucatan Peninsula, and Latin American Area Studies

Research

Professor Meyers specializes in the historical archaeology and ethnohistory of Mesoamerica and the Caribbean. He spent a dozen years directing archaeological work at Hacienda Tabi, a renowned plantation on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The research, focusing on the lives of Maya-descent laborers, was featured in Archaeology magazine. His new book, Outside the Hacienda Walls, details how the project came to be, what was learned in the process, and how the site might be beneficially used in the future. In addition to archaeology, Professor Meyers has published on subjects in cultural anthropology, history, and geography. Undergraduates frequently accompany him into the field, and he has co-authored several conference papers with Eckerd students. In 2008, he published a journal article with two anthropology majors. With a grant from the Russ Family Fund for International Initiatives, he is developing a field study of colonial plantations in The Bahamas. In January 2013 he will accompany a student research group to Cat Island, on the eastern edge of the Bahamanian archipelago, to survey the ruins of one plantation that is considered a local heritage site.

As Chair of the Comparative Cultures Collegium, Professor Meyers oversees academic programs in six modern languages, international business, anthropology, and international studies. He is also instrumental in the Latin America Study Center initiative at Eckerd. He is an avid traveler who frequently leads study programs abroad for the College.

Recent Publications

2012 Outside the Hacienda Walls: The Archaeology of Plantation Peonage in Nineteenth-Century Yucatan. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

2009 Bullfights in Mayaland: How Rural Yucatecans Reinvented "Death in the Afternoon." Expedition 51(1):33-40.

2008 Houselot Refuse Disposal and Geochemistry at a Late 19th Century Hacienda Village in Yucatan, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 33(4):371-388 [Allison S. Harvey and Sarah A. Levithol, co-authors].

2005 Material Expressions of Social Inequality at a Porfirian Sugar Hacienda in Yucatán, Mexico. Historical Archaeology 39(4):112-137.

2005 Lost Hacienda: Scholars Reconstruct the Lives of Laborers on a Yucatán Plantation. Archaeology 58(1):42-45.

2004 The Challenge and Promise of Hacienda Archaeology in Yucatan. The SAA Archaeological Record 4(1):20-23.

2002 Peonage, Power Relations, and the Built Environment at Hacienda Tabi, Yucatan, Mexico. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(4):225-252 [David L. Carlson, co-author]

1999 West African Tradition in the Decoration of Colonial Jamaican Folk Pottery. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3(4):201-223.

1998 Ethnic Distinctions and Wealth among Colonial Jamaican Merchants, 1685-1716. Social Science History 22(1):47-81.