Volume 40 | Number 1 | Fall 2009

The helicopter ride alone is worth the trip. It’s like flying into a real-life Emerald City. We glide over a vast expanse of green jungle and blue sky, dotted with hills once mistaken for volcanoes, now uncovered as ancient Mayan pyramids covered in dense tropical forests.

Kings and movie stars have made this trip, but now it’s my turn. I turn to my daughter, Madi, and share what must have been on both of our minds.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore.”Before coming to Guatemala my idea of archeological research involved either

creaky textbooks crammed with dreary dates and predates, or a certain whip-wielding, swashbuckling screen idol with a roguish grin. Dr. Richard Hansen isn’t far from that description — broad-shouldered, 6’4”, with sweeping gestures as grand as his ambi-tions, he meets us with a hearty laugh and wraps his large sweaty arms around us. Yet, he is more father figure than fortune-hunter; he watches over the once-lost city known as the Cradle of Mayan civilization with the tender vigilance of a proud papa, and any-one that comes to help with the task of protecting or falling in love with El Mirador becomes his instant friend.

The area of El Mirador is more than 1,250 square miles of pristine rain forest and home to the earliest Mayan ruins on earth. Here lies the first evidence of a highway system between neighboring cities, and the excavation that has taken place is truly in its infancy. Here, Hansen, an archeologist from Idaho State University, leads a consor-tium of hundreds of researchers and workers from around the world in uncovering the story of ancient Maya civilization and paving the way for economic development in the area.

“The excavations that are taking place in the Mirador Basin are a crucial part of the understanding of the history of humanity, understanding who we are, where we came from and where we are going as human societies.” Hansen says.

Overshadowing the rich culture waiting to be discovered are the dangers of El Mirador.

This remote corner of Guatemala is a three-day hike from the civilized world. The isolation is real, and many of El Mirador’s visitors thrive without the watchful eye of government or local citizens. Looters have plundered the many ancient sites in search of artifacts and continue to do so. Colombian drug smugglers, called “narcos,”

Left: Richard Hansen, and Fernando Paiz, president and director of FARES

respectively, talk inside of a tomb called “El Muerte” or The Dead.

Right: Storm clouds move in over various parts of El Mirador Basin, a rain forest in northern Guatemala.

Story and photos by ISU photographer Julie Hillebrant

16 Idaho State University Magazine Fall 2009 17Fall 2009

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In 1996, ISU researcher Richard Hansen founded the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, or FARES. The organization, based in Hansen’s hometown of Rupert, has garnered support from the Guatemalan government, celebrities and researchers around the world.

With help from partner organizations, the organization hopes to meet these objectives:

•Scientific archaeological research and environmental studies in the Mirador Basin area of northern Guatemala.

FARES sponsors the Mirador Basin Project- Regional Archaeological Investigation of the North Peten, Guatemala (RAINPEG) program which is currently studying Maya culture, its beginnings and its demise. There are also several biological projects in the area, from a study of insects that led to the discovery of three new species of moths in 2008, to the study of jaguar populations in the area.

• The preservation of the tropical rainforest in northern Guatemala and the Mesoamerican Lowlands.

FARES is working with the Guatemalan government to create archeological parks and natural preserves that would help build the tourism industry in the country.

• Establishment of educational and career development programs for communities surrounding the Mirador Basin.

FARES is working on projects dealing with health, ecology, agricultural techniques, eco-tourism, financial management, health, first aid, reforestation, literacy, tourist services, artisan products, wilderness and national monument management, sustainable development, and forestry. ( Source: www.miradorbasin.com)

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occasionally fly overhead. Encroaching fires from logging and agriculture are in danger of not only destroying ancient history, but killing what’s left of the Central American rain forest.

El Mirador basin in northern Guatemala is the last tract of virgin rain forest in Central America. It is the largest collection of Mayan cities in the world. The city of El Mirador alone was believed to have a population of 100,000 people. There are 26 known sites like El Mirador and only 14 have been studied. Hansen estimates at least 30 more have yet to be discovered.

At El Mirador in 1979, Hansen, then but a “lowly graduate student,” discovered Preclassic pottery (2000 B.C.-A.D. 150) in a mislabeled Classic period structure (A.D. 250-950), thus placing the Maya civilization’s peak about 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Since then, he has led the El Mira-dor Project, a multi-faceted project aimed at preserving the area. In 1996 he created the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, a non-profit organiza-tion based in his hometown of Rupert, Idaho. The foundation has garnered the interest of celebrities, government officials, royalty and presidents of corporations. Its mission is to use cultural and ecological data for conservation, economic de-velopment and education in the local area. Now, my daughter and I have the chance to be a part of it in our own small way.

Madi and I tumble off the helicopter and plunge into 90 degrees of shirt-soaking heat. Only after a 45-minute trek through dense, musky jungle do we first glimpse the lime-stone foot of a pyramid, its chalky surface hidden by sur-rounding foliage.

The first structure we enter is “La Muerte” (The Dead). Led by Hansen, a party of five crawls on hands and knees into the ancient sarcophagus. In this heat, I wouldn’t mind catching a chill from a passing ghost – instead, we enter a 3-feet by 15-feet oven. The space is stripped bare. Nothing remains of the inscribed stones, pottery or stucco traced with brilliant red pigment that once adorned this final resting place. The bodies are also gone. Hansen doesn’t how many people were once buried here—looters found the tombs less than a year before his team.

Looting is big—$10-million-a-month big—business in this area. Looters receive between $200 and $500 per piece, for which collectors may then pay $100,000 or more. Galleries and auction houses particularly favor codex-style ceramics and Late Classic (A.D. 600-900) black-and-cream mythical-themed pottery. The National Geographic Society estimates that 1,000 vessels are stolen from the Maya region monthly.

“Collecting Pre-Columbian art is often viewed as a justifi-able means of preserving the past,” Hansen says. “It is, in fact, a destructive and sometimes violent business.”

There’s a less-visible, but even more frightening threat in the Guatemalan jungle. El Mirador Project workers don’t see the

drug smugglers, but the occasional plane flying overhead is a constant reminder that the “narcos” and the big guns they carry are around.

Flying from Colombia to the Northern Petén of Guatemala on a single tank, “they go out and cut a strip in the jungle

just long enough to land a plane because they’re out of fuel,” Hansen says. “They land the aircraft, unload their product which goes by land to the north through the jungle, and they burn the aircraft to the ground … These are million dollar airplanes that are expendable. It is a force that can’t be dealt with directly. They are people you don’t want to get in the way of.”

Those who avoid the ugliness of narcotics are still left with few sustainable options; in the past six years, 800,000 acres of Guatemalan forest have been clear-cut and burned for cattle grazing. Soon, Hansen worries, there will be none left. In imag-ery provided by NASA, fire encroaches El Mirador from all sides like an angry red swarm. The Tropical Rainforest Foundation estimates that by 2010, only 2 percent of Guatemala will be cov-ered in dense forest. In 1960, 77 percent was covered.

Those who loot to help feed their families find the business to be occasionally lucrative but not reliable.

The answer, Hansen says, is in development of ecotourism, and he has the support of the Guatemalan government.

In 2008, the Guatemalan government announced an initia-tive to increase tourism in the Maya Biosphere Reserve. The goal is to attract 12 million visitors to the region, 40,000 specifically to El Mirador. A key to this plan is to build a small train into the jungle making the sites more accessible to tourists. According to Hansen between $980 million to $1.1 billion each year already come into Guatemala from tourism revenue. Logging brings in about $740,000 per year.

“We can provide hundreds of millions of dollars more per year in revenue for the country by conserving this and respon-sibly developing it than by letting the loggers and poachers and looters take their one shot,” Hansen says.

As he works with government agencies, other researchers and the public to sell the idea of building tourism in the region, Hansen must also focus on the job that first brought him to Gua-temala — discovering, studying and preserving the artifacts that represent the history of a civilization.

The job of excavating ruins that have been lying dormant in the jungle for thousands of years is hard work. Dirt and rocks need to be moved, rain water collected and distributed and food

Above: This map from NASA shows the encroachment on El Mirador due to fires in the area. The red marks indicate fires that have burned the region since 2001.

Below: Members of the FARES Board of Directors join for a photo atop one of the pyramids.

Bottom: Sculpted in limestone, the base of a pyramid uncovered at El Mirador reveals the craftsmanship and history of the Mayan culture.

Opposite: Thousands of years’ worth of trees, rocks and dirt cover a pyramid in the process of being excavated.

Reverse spread: Photographer’s daughter Madi Hillebrant holds binoculars while gazing at the Milky Way.

20 Idaho State University Magazine Fall 2009 21Fall 2009

cooked for all of the workers. Then there is the more skilled work of digging for artifacts, supporting and protecting the pyramids and findings, and recording the found data through artistic renderings and GPS.

By hiring locals to take on this labor, Hansen is hoping to change the fate of the workers and the ruins.

“If it’s not viable economically, we will never save it. You have to be able to justify this to the peasant out there starving

to death. If you don’t, they will continue to poach, loot, rape and pillage. You have to provide an economic alternative to that.”

Changing minds and a way of life is a tough battle, but the issue, Hansen believes, is a matter of life-and-death.

“We will either lose this or save this in five years. The pres-sure is immense,” Hansen says.

The dangers and obstacles are overshadowed by a conta-gious optimism.

“It’s frustrating but we’re optimistic. The Guatemalan president (Alvaro Colom Caballeros) is gung ho about this. Numerous countries are interested in this. There are 52 universi-ties involved with this. And we’re gaining steam all the time,” Hansen says.

Changing the economy of a country seems like a large task for a humble man who was raised on an Idaho farm, but Hansen says it was in Idaho that he learned the importance of hard work and the value of farming. It’s a work ethic that helps him empathize with the workers in Guatemala and what they are up against.

And because he began his journey as a graduate student, Hansen understands the great opportunity for learning that ex-ists in the Guatemalan jungle for students at Idaho State Univer-sity and around the world.

“(The El Mirador project) puts Idaho State University in a unique position; it puts us on the forefront, on the world stage. … We have the opportunity to contribute, on a world scale, to the understanding of society,” Hansen says.

During the academic year, biologist Charles “Rick” Williams spends much of his day at the Idaho Museum of Natural History (IMNH) amid more than 80,000 plant specimens, collected by research-ers and graduate students over dozens of years.

The specimens at the Ray J. Davis Her-barium are collected mostly in Idaho but are used by researchers from around the world. Unique collections include flora and fauna from the Fort Hall Indian Reserva-tion and more than 3,000 lichens collected by researcher Lorenz Pearson.

“It’s a huge community of biologists that benefit from the regional collections,” Williams said.

Idaho State University’s herbarium is just one of the areas that will have renewed focus as the IMNH heads forward in a new direction, said acting museum director Skip Lohse.

Williams’s new position as life sciences division head for the IMNH represents a new direction for the museum, one with a greater focus on research.

The restructuring involved creating four new divisions—anthropology, earth sciences, education, and life sciences—each managed by a new division head. Anthropology will be directed by anthro-pologist Herb Maschner, earth sciences by geoscientist Leif Tapanila, and life sciences by biologist Charles “Rick” Williams. The anthropology, earth sciences and life sci-ences division heads will focus on research and securing research funding.

Education resource manager Rebecca Thorne-Ferrell will lead the education division.

The emphasis on research will result in an active, vibrant museum with changing displays for the public, Lohse said, as well as opportunities for researchers through the museum’s extensive collection of more than half a million specimens.

The division heads will continue to conduct research in their areas of interest. Maschner does archaeologi-cal research in fishing communities on the Alaska Peninsula. Tapanila studies invertebrate paleontology. Williams spends his summers in the Colorado Rockies studying plant reproductive behaviors.

As they continue their research and bring new projects and funding to the IMNH, other researchers and the public will

benefit from a more interesting museum, Lohse said. The Idaho State Historic Pres-ervation office is introducing legislation this year designed to move permitting and preservation of vertebrate paleon-tological sites and specimens under the museum’s responsibility.

Along with changing exhibits, the emphasis on research will help bring bet-ter educational opportunities for the pub-lic. Recently, Thorne-Ferrel and Tapanila partnered to bring geology programs to fifth and eighth graders in rural schools.

The museum recently received a $144,000 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, titled “The Idaho Geology Outreach Project: Bridging the Natural History Gap.”

Through the grant, Thorne-Ferrel, Tapanila and researcher Chuck Zimmerly provide local geology teachers with tailored educational materials. Thorne-Ferrel said she enjoys taking the research Tapanila and Zimmerly have done in the field and bringing it back to students.

“We’ll be identifying unique geologic features in the students’ home areas and developing discussions, science kits, a website and other materials to integrate that information into their geosciences curriculum so they can understand the natural history of their region,” Thorne-Ferrel said.

The best museums go beyond public

exhibits; they provide collections for researchers to use in their studies and offer great opportunities for interdisciplinary research, Lohse said. Each division head is hiring a collections manager to study and catalog the vast number of specimens in the museum’s care. Some specimens will be catalogued for use at the IMNH, while others might be prepared for use by other institutions.

At the herbarium, Williams plans to have students and volunteers from the Native Plant Society help a full-time col-lections manager catalogue the more than 10,000 specimens that need to be pro-cessed. The work is a great opportunity for those who are interested in the collections of regional flora and fauna.

Williams and researchers from Brigham Young University and four other regional institutions are also working on a grant proposal to create an Intermountain Regional Herbarium, which would include digital photographs of 1.5 million speci-mens. The project would create a huge database that could be used as a resource for land managers and scientists.

Williams’s goal is to make the herbari-um more open and accessible for research. With the museum’s new focus, Lohse sees more research opportunities throughout not only the herbarium, but the museum as a whole.

“I think there will be a lot more activity,” Williams said. “It will be really exciting.”

Idaho Museum of Natural HistoryRestructures With New DivisionsDaniel isn’t the only young Guatemalan working in El

Mirador, but he is certainly one of the most enthusiastic.He is one of 180 workers ranging in age from 17 -70 who

attend an informal school at El Mirador.Students sit at long tables and learn the basics of English,

math, or writing in Spanish. Because school takes place after a long workday, there is usually limited light and students must study with flashlights. Some of the men and women here have never held a pencil despite reaching 60 years of age. The goal is to empower these workers so they don’t see looting as their only career opportunity.

Dr. Debra McKay, a Pocatello physician hired by Hansen to work in Guatemala, volunteers her time as a teacher in El Mirador.

“(El Mirador) is the only archeological site I know of that incorporates a school to further the experience of the worker, to create work for them beyond their season in El Mirador,” she said. “Dr. Hansen creates a way for them to become invested in protecting their Guatemala. He is using men he knows have been looters and has made a way to empower them to see beyond that.”

Many of the students are working in El Mirador as a supplement to their regular jobs in the city. Others come in as an alternative to the unpredictable dangerous work of loot-ing ancient artifacts from the large number of pyramids that dot the landscape.

Others, like Daniel come to earn a living and hopefully to someday become a guide.

Richard Hansen hopes the El Mirador region will soon be a park similar to nearby Tikal with a small train giving ac-cess to the site and gift shops and information centers where guides can be hired to educate visitors about the history of the area.

For now, Daniel is a worker, not a guide, but every Friday,

Saturday and Sunday night after work he joins with others to learn English. In broken English with eager eyes, he tells McKay, “I want to be a guide. Teach me how to be a guide.”

Debra role-plays with Daniel and the other young men surrounding her.

“May I be your guide?” they say in English. “Can I show you the pyramids?”

She teaches them many phrases that they eagerly write down in their notebooks. Daniel is eager to learn all he can, and a few days later is found sitting by Debra in her medical clinic receiving more instruction.

In December 2008, Dr. Hansen graduated his first team of guides, a group of 28 men and women who had trained at a school in Guatemala, then participated in a two-day training session educating them to provide in-depth knowledge of the site.

Young Guatemalan men like Daniel don’t see the value in looting, because they have a greater opportunity in teaching visitors the history of their people and land.

Jumping at the Chance to Learn

Daniel working to learn English with Dr. Debra McKay.

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