Another great article of Dr. Richard Hansen's work in northern Guatemala.

1. Volume 40 | Number 1 | Fall 2009

2. 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

3. More on
the Web
More on
the Web
More on
the Web
More on
the Web
More on
the Web
More on
the Web
More on
the Web
More photos and related links online
at www.isu.edu/magazine

4. 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)
18 Idaho State University Magazine Fall 2009 19Fall 2009

5. 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

6. 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 History
Restructures 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.
PhotobyISUPhotgraphicServices/JulieHillebrant
22 Idaho State University Magazine Fall 2009 23Fall 2009