Meet Bárbara Arroyo

Bringing together decades of Mesoamerican archaeological research, Bárbara Arroyo’s scholarship examines early sedentary communities, ceramic production, and the emergence of social complexity. 

Over the past fifteen years, Arroyo has directed the Kaminaljuyu Archaeological Project, leading extensive fieldwork, professional training programs, and community-centered initiatives that promote public engagement and the conservation of earthen architecture. Arroyo also serves as a Research Associate at the Museo Popol Vuh (Universidad Francisco Marroquín) in Guatemala City. Her fieldwork spans the Pacific coast of Chiapas, Guatemala, and El Salvador, the central Maya highlands, as well as lowland sites such as Dos Pilas and northern Alta Verapaz. Her ongoing research explores ancient monumentality, the origins of settlement, the structural development of early Maya social systems, and community archaeology.

Arroyo will be in residence at the University of Chicago during the autumn quarter of 2026 as a Tinker Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She holds a B.A. in Archaeology from the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Vanderbilt University, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Missouri Research Reactor.