Traci Arden

Traci is professor of anthropology at the University of Miami and holds a PhD from Yale

University. Her research focuses on issues of identity and other forms of symbolic

representation in the archaeological record, especially the ways in which differences are

explained through gender. Current preoccupations include the role of cuisine in identity

formation in the later periods of Classic Maya culture and prehistoric southern Florida, as well as

the ways plants agitate humans. Traci co-directs Proyecto de Interacción Política del Centro de

Yucatán, at the Classic Maya site of Yaxuna, in Yucatan, Mexico where she investigates the

ways ancient road systems allowed for the flow of information and ideas as well as how culinary

tourism and modern foodways intersect. As Consulting Curator for Mesoamerican Art, Traci

curated a number of exhibits at the Lowe Art Museum at the University of Miami, including

“The Jaguar’s Spots: Ancient Mesoamerican Art from the Lowe Art Museum”, “Flowers for the

Earth Lord: Guatemalan Textiles from the Permanent Collection” and “Kay Pacha: Reciprocity

with the Natural World.” Her research has been supported by the National Geographic Society,

the National Science Foundation and has been featured in National Geographic, Discover,

Archaeology magazine, ArtNexus, Washington Post, USA Today, Miami New Times, Good

Morning America, Prensa Libre, Arqueologia Mexicana, artdaily.org, Phys.Org, Voice of

America, and well as the scholarly journals World Archaeology, Ancient Mesoamerica, and

Latin American Antiquity, among others. She is the author of Social Identities in the Classic

Maya Northern Lowlands: Gender, Age, Memory, and Place (UTexas Press 2015) and the editor

of Her Cup for Sweet Cacao: Food in Ancient Maya Society (UTexas Press 2020) and Ancient

Maya Women (AltaMira 2001). She is the co-editor of The Maya World (Routledge 2020),

Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies: Archaeological Perspectives on Male and Female

Work (UColorado Press 2016), and The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient

Mesoamerica (UColorado Press 2006). She grew up in and around the Ringling Museum of Art

and the many ways in which objects are allowed to convey our wants and needs is a lifelong

fascination.