Jaime Awe

Jaime José Awe is a Belizean archaeologist who specializes in the ancient Maya, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University, and the Director of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project.

Awe, the ninth-youngest of eleven children, was born and raised in San Ignacio, Cayo District, Belize (then British Honduras). His childhood home was within walking distance of Maya ruins, where, as a youth, he would amuse himself by digging up ancient Maya artifacts. Courses in Anthropology that he took while a student at St. John’s College in Belize City rekindled his curiosity about the human past and inspired him to pursue a career in archaeology. Due to the limited educational opportunities available to Belizeans at the time, however, he had no choice but to go abroad in order to continue his formal study of the subject. Before leaving his Central American homeland to further his education, he held the government post of Archaeological Assistant at the Department of Archaeology (then under the Ministry of Tourism and the Environment) and served as a field assistant in excavations at the Maya archaeological sites of Cerros, Lamanai and the Sayab Mai Cenote.

Awe majored in Anthropology at Trent University in Canada, where he was mentored by Paul Healy and received his B.A. and M.A. in 1981 and 1985, respectively. He began his doctoral studies at the State University of New York at Albany, but later transferred to the University of London, where he became the first Belizean to ever receive a Ph.D. in Archaeology in 1992. Since earning his doctorate, Awe has held faculty positions at Trent University, the University of New Hampshire, Galen University (in Belize) and Northern Arizona University, where he is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology.

Awe has held the Belizean government posts of Archaeological Assistant, Chief Archaeologist and Acting Commissioner of Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology, and Director of the Institute of Archaeology (formerly the Department of Archaeology, and now under the National Institute of Culture and History). Although he resigned the latter post in 2014, he remains Director of the Belize Valley Archaeological Reconnaissance Project (BVAR, which is under the Institute of Archaeology), a position he has held since 1988.

BVAR includes multi-year excavations at the Maya archaeological sites of Baking Pot, Cahal Pech, Lower Dover and Xunantunich. Awe has also directed the Western Belize Regional Cave Project (WBRCP, 1997-2008), which involved excavations at Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) and other Maya cave sites. In addition to his work through BVAR and WBRCP, he has directed excavations at the Maya archaeological sites of Altun Ha, Caracol, Lamanai, Lubaantun and Nim Li Punit. Awe has devoted an impressive amount of time and energy to his excavations at Cahal Pech, and his writings have largely focused on the Maya cities of west-central Belize during the Formative, Preclassic and Classic periods. However, he has published on topics related to the archaeology of Belize in earlier and later periods as well. In all, he has authored and co-authored over fifty academic publications, and appeared in several televised documentaries on archaeology and the ancient Maya.

In 2012, while still Director of the Institute of Archaeology, Awe threatened to sue Disney, Lucasfilm, Paramount Pictures and others, on behalf of the nation of Belize. At the center of this was the Mitchell-Hedges Skull, which was supposedly recovered from the Maya archaeological site of Lubaantun in the 1920s, and which allegedly inspired a prop that was central to the 2008 motion picture Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The suit demanded that the Mitchell-Hedges Skull be returned to Belize, and that the nation receive a share of the film’s profits. Awe is married to fellow Maya archaeologist and BVAR staff member Myka Schwanke.

He is fluent in English, Spanish and Belizean Creole.