Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Andrew Scherer

Spring 2022 Faculty Fellow, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Project "War, Violence, and the Morality of Killing in Ancient Maya Society"
Last updated August 9, 2022, based on June 2021 biographical sketch

Biography

Andrew Scherer is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology. He is an anthropological archaeologist and biological anthropologist with a geographic focus in Mesoamerica (Maya). He co-directs an interdisciplinary archaeological research project that is exploring Classic Maya polities along the Usumacinta River in Mexico and Guatemala. His research interests include mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeology, landscape archaeology, ritual practice, warfare and violence, political practice, and diet and subsistence. He is author of Mortuary Landscapes of the Classic Maya: Rituals of Body and Soul (University of Texas Press, 2015) and co-editor of Smoke Flames and the Human Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice (Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2018), among other volumes.

His project at the Cogut Institute, which began under the title of “War, Violence, and the Morality of Killing in Ancient Maya Society,” was a study of war and violence among the ancient Maya as well as a reflection on the implications of such research.