Suzanna Miles
Encyclopedia
Suzanna Whitelaw Miles was an American academic ethnohistorian and archaeologist. Miles was known for her work among the Maya peoples
of the Guatemalan highlands
and her pioneering studies of pre-Columbian
Maya civilization
urban environments and settlement patterns. Most of her career was spent in Guatemala
, where she became the first woman to reach the highest professorial rank of catedrática in anthropology, while at the Universidad de San Carlos
in her last years.
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
of the Guatemalan highlands
Guatemalan Highlands
The Guatemalan Highlands is an upland region in southern Guatemala, lying between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north....
and her pioneering studies of pre-Columbian
Pre-Columbian
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...
Maya civilization
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
urban environments and settlement patterns. Most of her career was spent in Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
, where she became the first woman to reach the highest professorial rank of catedrática in anthropology, while at the Universidad de San Carlos
Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala
The Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala It is the biggest and oldest university of Guatemala, also it is the fourth founded in the Americas....
in her last years.