Ph. D. Candidate, Anthropology
2019-2020 Rothman Doctoral Fellow
This project investigates change and continuity in Maya political economy following Spanish contact at Lamanai, Belize. Boileau combines the analysis of archaeological animal remains and historical documents to examine how individuals and groups of different statuses and occupations responded to the realities of Spanish colonialism through their use of and attitudes towards animals. It is essential to contextualize the archaeological faunal data within the broader sphere of culture contact in Mesoamerica. To this end, she traveled to the Archivo General de Indias (Seville, Spain) to collect historical data to better understand Maya and Spanish decision-making with regards to animal use. This project is one of the first to examine, at the household and individual levels, the political and economic response to colonialism in the borderlands of Spanish contact. As such, it informs the history of colonialism in the Americas and the broader anthropological study of political economy.