David Freidel

David Alan Freidel (born 1946) is an American archaeologist whose research focuses on the ancient Maya. He is best known for his long-term archaeological field projects at Cerros (Cerro Maya) in Belize, Yaxuná in the Yucatán, and El Perú-Waka' in Guatemala, and for the widely read books he co-authored with epigrapher Linda Schele. He is Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis, where he held a full professorship from 2008 until his retirement.

Early life and education Freidel went to the field for the first time in 1963, working as an excavator on the Harvard–National Geographic Society Hell Gap Project in Wyoming, directed by J. O. Brew, Cynthia Irwin-Williams, and Henry Irwin. He returned to the project in 1964, and also participated in excavations directed by the University of Bordeaux in southwestern France in 1966. Freidel graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1968 with a B.A. in Anthropology.

Following graduation he served in the Peace Corps from 1968 to 1970 in Iran, where he conducted survey work on Palaeolithic through Sassanian period sites in the Kazeroon Valley, Fars Province.

Washington University in St. Louis In 2008, Freidel received a full professorship in the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, where he subsequently became professor emeritus.

Archaeological field projects

Cozumel (1971–1973) Freidel's dissertation research grew out of survey and reconnaissance work he conducted on Cozumel Island beginning in 1971 as part of the Harvard–Arizona Cozumel Project directed by Jeremy Sabloff and William Rathje. In 2009, Freidel arranged the transfer of the Cerros collection to the Florida Museum of Natural History for long-term curation and scholarly access.

Yaxuná, Yucatán (1986–1996) In 1986, Freidel initiated the Yaxuna Archaeological Survey, directing field seasons through 1996 with support from the National Geographic Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Selz Foundation. The tomb was discovered by project excavator Olivia Navarro-Farr, a former doctoral student of Freidel's, during excavations of a ritually prominent temple that had received devotional attention for generations after the dynasty's fall. The El Perú-Waka' site is located within Laguna del Tigre National Park, a biosphere reserve in northwestern Guatemala, and the project has faced challenges arising from the area's complex political ecology.

In the mid-2000s, Freidel and other archaeologists working in the region attracted national media coverage—from National Geographic, National Public Radio, and U.S. News & World Report—largely framing the situation as a conflict with drug traffickers and illegal settlers. A 2008 investigation by D Magazine offered a more nuanced account, reporting that many of the farmers encroaching on the park were landless agricultural workers with legitimate grievances unrelated to drug trafficking, and that Freidel and his colleagues found themselves caught in a broader regional land dispute. He has also articulated an aspiration to help establish a permanent research facility at the site and to eventually transfer stewardship of the project to Guatemalan archaeologists and local communities, describing El Perú-Waka' as the last field site of his career. The Italian translation of A Forest of Kings won the Gambrinus Giuseppe Mazzotti Literary Prize in 2000. Their second book, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path (William Morrow, 1993), co-authored with Joy Parker, explored Maya cosmology and shamanic practice through a similarly interdisciplinary lens.