Biography

Dr. Diane Z. Chase is Vice Provost and a Pegasus Professor. She specializes in anthropological archaeology with a primary research focus on the ancient Maya in Central America. She received her B.A. in 1975 and her Ph.D. in 1982 in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania (Spatial and Temporal Variability in Postclassic Northern Belize). Her research interests focus on archaeological method and theory in the Maya area with a particular emphasis on the rise and fall of complex societies, osteological and mortuary analysis, and ethnohistory. For the last two decades, she has co-directed excavations at Caracol, Belize; before that she directed a seven-year project at Santa Rita Corozal in the same country. She has been at UCF since 1984 and teaches: The Human Species, The Archaeology of Complex Societies, Mortuary Archaeology, Problems in Maya Archaeology, and field courses in Belize. She has authored over 100 publications as well as Investigations at the Classic Maya City of Caracol Belize: 1985-1987 (1987; with A. F. Chase), A Postclassic Perspective: Excavations at the Maya Site of Santa Rita Corozal, Belize (1988; with A.F. Chase), Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment (1992; with A.F. Chase), and Studies in the Archaeology of Caracol, Belize (1994; edited with A.F. Chase). She is currently working on a book, being co-authored with A.F. Chase, called Maya Archaeology: Reconstructing an Ancient Civilization. With A.F. Chase, she also serves as the Maya Studies Series Editor for the University Press of Florida.
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