Department of Society, Culture, Crime, and Justice Studies

I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, where I lived until the age of 18. I received my BA in archaeology from the University of Liverpool, England in 1999 and went on to do a Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Archaeology at the University of Oxford, England, and later a Masters in Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh.

I moved to Kentucky in 2003 and since then have mainly worked in cultural resource management (CRM) doing archaeological surveys and excavations, making maps, and writing technical reports. I recently completed my PhD in Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Kentucky under the supervision of Dr. Scott R. Hutson. My dissertation research was conducted in the communities of San Pedro and San Juan La Laguna, in the Lake Atitlan area of southwestern Guatemala. My dissertation is available to download here: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/anthro_etds/39/

During that project, I met my wife Maria who is from Guatemala City, and who is also an archaeologist.

I have spent the last 4 years in Nashville, Tennessee and just relocated to Bowling Green, Kentucky in August of this year to work with the Kentucky Archaeological Survey and WKU. Although I miss the family and friends I still have in Scotland, I now consider Kentucky my home.

Edited Books

Robinson, Eugenia J., and Gavin R. Davies, eds.

2023       Routes, Interaction, and Exchange in the Southern Maya Area. Routledge, London and New York.

Book Chapters

Davies, Gavin R., and María de Los Ángeles Corado

2023                       “The Mountain Trails are Well-Travelled”. Routes and Economic Organization in the Lake Atitlan Basin. In Routes, Interaction, and Exchange in the Southern Maya Region, edited by E. Robinson and G. Davies. Routledge, London, and New York.

Davies, Gavin R., and Eugenia J. Robinson

In Press                Introduction. In Routes, Interaction, and Exchange in the Southern Maya Region. Routledge, London, and New York.

Journal Articles

Hutson, Scott R., and Gavin R. Davies

2015      How Material Culture Acted on the Ancient Maya of Yucatan, Mexico. In Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Vol. 26, pp. 10–26.

Book Reviews

Davies, Gavin R.

2018       Chocolá: An Ancient Maya Capital in a Contemporary Guatemalan Community. Review of Water, Cacao, and the Early Maya of Chocolá by J. Kaplan and F. Paredes Umana. Anthropology Book Forum.

Conference Proceedings

Davies, Gavin R., and María de Los Ángeles Corado M.

2018       Pan’alujaay: El Ultimo Chinamit de la Cuenca de Atitlán y sus Conexiones con el Área K’iche en el Postclásico Tardío. In Proceedings del XXVI Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2017.

2017       Tradiciones y Transformaciones dentro el Territorio Tz’utujil entre el Preclasico y Postclasico Tardío. In Proceedings del XXV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2016.

2016       El Crecimiento de Chuitinamit y la Transición Clásico a Postclasico en la Cuenca de Atitlán,

Sololá. In Proceedings del XXIV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, 2015.

Blog Posts

Davies, Gavin R.

2016       Laying the Foundations for Collaboration in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala. American Anthropological Association Ethics Blog. Online at http://ethics.americananthro.org.